San Ignacio Town

Saturday morning, our last full day, and we had no planned activities. My knees were so tired from the ATM Cave and Caracol (we climbed to the top of the tallest building in the country!) that a day off sounded great! By this time Tom & Marge had decided we could be trusted. That morning they gave us their car to drive down to the Green Mountain Butterfly Farm. Ruth gave us our tour and it was interesting, but the butterflies were mesmerizing. Great big Blue Morphos and 14 other species flitted all around. Each day they harvest all of the eggs for each type of butterfly. Luckily they are easily identified as each species lays their eggs on a particular type of plant.



We returned to the lodge and Marge & Tom and the 3 of us piled into the truck and headed in to San Ignacio. We were going to hit the Saturday market and have lunch. On the way we stopped at their German neighbors and Marge purchased fresh yard eggs. Steve needed a pair of Crocs, we found some knock-offs and deemed them Sapos (frogs in Spanish - yes, it's an English speaking country, but Spanish is very prevalent). Tom had a pair and Steve, wanting to be just like Tom, had to have some! Shoes bought, we wandered the market for another 15 minutes looking at all the beautiful produce, got something to drink, found Tom & Marge, and got out of there.







Marge & Tom took us to Erva's Restaurant for lunch. We had a wonderful meal. As a special, they were making a drink, Payito, from the tuna of a Prickly Pear Cactus. Tom & Marge ordered it - it was a beautiful purple color and we all tasted it - yummmmm! Steve & I stuck with Belikin beer. The food was great. I had a huge chicken burrito, wet, Rayne had shrimp stir fried rice and Tom, Steve & Marge all had fish sandwiches, which were tasty! We started with an order of conch ceviche and shrimp ceviche. Both were delicious - Rayne decided she like the shrimp version!


After lunch we stopped at a little shop and bought souvenirs. Out on the street, Tom & Marge ran into friends and we visited while Rayne got ice cream.

Next stop was the slate carvers place. The artisan showed us his works and let Rayne & me take a turn at carving the slate and lime stone. Slate is much softer. Then, in Disney-esque fashion, we exited through the gift shop where we bought a cool Mayan calendar carved from slate.

We traveled back to the lodge via the Chiquibil Rd. We saw a pretty village and nice homes and more open fields, as opposed to dense jungle.

After that large lunch, we had dinner a little later that night - Marge made a London Broil that was delicious! We stayed up late visiting and fell straight to sleep once we laid down!