Butterflies in Reserve Playa Tortuga

Caligos

As one of the activities today, we went to the butterfly garden. We cleaned the cages of the larvae, changed the plants that they eat, counted the larvae to make sure they were safe, and learned about the butterflies, their eggs, and their babies.

Sara, a worker at RPT, told us about the three types of butterflies in their butterfly garden: Morpho, Caligo, and Siproeta.

Morphos are blue, and their eggs are big. Their pupae are green, and the caterpillars have yellow spots.

Caligos have patterns of an eye on each wing. Their pupae and larvae look like dry leaves. Their eggs are white and small.

Siproetas

Siproetas have orange and white wings. The larvae are black with orange spots. Their eggs are really small and look like watermelons. Their pupae are light green and also have orange spots.

We petted the larvae, and they were soft. But the babies were delicate, so we used a paintbrush to move them while cleaning the cages and changing the leaves. We also gave the butterflies some fruit because they haven't planted enough flowers for them yet.

Every afternoon, the volunteers pick up the eggs. The eggs are very small and hard to find. Some of them are behind the leaves or between the leaves.

I really enjoyed taking care of the butterflies and larvae.

~ Yumi ~

Siproetas eggs

Gift Sharing

When we were staying with the Borucan people they shared so many gifts of knowledge with us about their culture and life style. We had less opportunities to share our knowledge and culture with them so we gave them physical gifts. 

Each of us scouts chose one thing that either we enjoyed or thought represented us. Yumi made origami for them, Rika made bracelets, Devon brought Legit Buildable fidgets, Steven brought a craft for them to make, Huy brought Rubix cubes for them to learn to use, and I brought Anmore stickers. 

As a group, before we left home we asked what there village could use and they said school supplies. We started raising money and collecting school supplies just a couple weeks before leaving and got more supplies than we could have imagined! We left for Costa Rica with a 70 pound suitcase of school supplies and almost $1000 Canadian dollars to give them. We were all very happy with the exited faces we got when we handed over the gifts and supplies. 

They also gave us some handmade coin purses made by a scouts mom. They are made by weaving hand-spun cotton thread, often dyed with natural materials, into small, pouches. We were very happy to leave with memories and knowledge but the keepsake coin purses and masks we got to paint ourselves were so nice. After all we did with them from learning how to make tamales, to swimming in a waterfall, we hope they had as much fun as we did.

  -Hunter