This past week I lost out on sleep, ate late night snacks, and spent more time with Maria and Connor. Maria's husband is training for about a month and a half, and my husband was at Jungle Warfare Training this week, so we decided it was the perfect week to get out and explore one of the places we'd both been wanting to see. Bios on the hill is a botanical park that I'd read a lot about, but didn't think was something the husband would enjoy as much. Maria had also been wanting to go, so we made a day adventure out of it!
This week's weather couldn't make up it's mind. One minute it would be storming like crazy and the next minute it was sunny and so so hot out. We picked Wednesday for our Bios day and crossed our fingers that the weather would cooperate. It turned out that Wednesday was the only day it didn't rain like crazy! Instead, it was hot hot hot!
After searching for directions, deciding who knew the correct way to get there, and a little bit of laughter when we had to find a place to turn around, we found it! Before you even get to the ticket counter, you can tell it's going to be absolutely beautiful. Bios had the largest collection of Orchids on the island, and they are displayed everywhere. Every turn we were saying "Oh my goodness I can't believe how pretty it is here!"
We bought our entrance tickets and opted to also take the boat tour. The lady told us we only had about fifteen minutes until the next boat tour, so we hurried to the section of the map that she highlighted for us. In the five minutes it took us to walk down to the boats, we had become drenched in sweat. The boat tour brought a nice breeze and a short rain shower that we happily welcomed.
After the boat tour, we grabbed a couple of drinks and noticed a guy feeding little crushed up crackers to some chickens. We were so amused with it that we asked him if we could feed them too. We poured some of the crackers into our hands and showed us how to get close to them without scaring them off and we got to feed them! It was an interesting feeling to have a chicken pecking at your hand trying to get the food between your fingers.
We continued on our walk around the park, admired more flowers, and noticed they had a section of animals! We got to feed a water buffalo ( we thought he was a bull, so we named him Bryan the Bull), see some pigs, and feed some goats! You could also walk some of the goats that were on leashes, but with Connor trying to climb on the goats like they were his dogs, we decided maybe next time. lol
When we had our fill of animals, we stopped for lunch at a small restaurant. Everywhere we go, Connor brings a crowd oohing and ahhing over his blond hair and bright blue eyes. This place was no different. All the ladies were giggling with him and he was eating it up! He loves the attention! The food we got was delicious and it gave us a chance to cool off in a nice air conditioned building. We didn't want to waste too much time though, so we pulled ourselves away from the AC and continued our journey.
We found a path and started following it until it brought us to a steep hill and a set of steps. We had Connor's stroller, so I skipped the steps and started down the steep hill. I was so excited thinking it was going to take us to some great section of the park, but it ended up just being a circle path that was full of spiders and mosquitoes. Oh...and it led us right back to that steep hill. Maria pushed the stroller and I pulled it from the front. By the time we got to the top of the hill, we were soaked. Fun.
We took a different path this time, and came across steps. We knew our husbands would be giving us a hard time for skipping a part of the park because of a few steps, so we sucked it up, lifted the stroller, and carried it down the stairs and followed the path.....to more steps and a bridge. We figured the bridge just had to take us somewhere great, right? So we lifted the stroller again and got to the bridge and crossed it. And found more steps....12 more to be exact. We weren't giving up and turning around (we won't give the guys that kind of satisfaction) so we gathered all our energy and carried the stroller up every single step. We couldn't have been more pleased with ourselves at that point! We could tell the guys that we were awesome and made it through the obstacles! Then I noticed that this new path looked oddly familiar. Just our luck...it took us to that circle path and we had to climb that steep hill AGAIN. Yup, we carried that heavy stroller with a sleep child up all those steps just to climb that hill again. We did it though, and heard them saying the park would be closing soon.
We somehow made it to the gift shop at the end dripping sweat and exhausted. Some of our energy came back when we noticed all the pretty flowers that you could buy! We didn't this time, but we are going back soon to buy some. Instead we bought flower magnets and chopstick holders! Then we started the drive back home.
On the way home, I noticed a sign for Blue Seal ice cream and screamed. I think I scared Maria with my excitement, but she was so nice and turned around so we could check it out. We agreed that we should reward our efforts for the day with ice cream, so we walked in. It was a small restaurant that also served the ice cream. We saw some girls eating an odd looking cracker and asked them if it was good. They were nodding very enthusiastically, so we tried to figure out what it was. We could see that it had egg and mayo on it, but that was about it. We got one to share, and after taking one bite, I immediately ordered my own. It was amazing...in fact it's all I want to eat now! It's a egg on some sort of octopus cracker and it has some brown sauce and mayo on it. Soooooo good!
After tearing ourselves away from the restaurant, we made it back to my house and spent the rest of the night talking and playing with Connor.
I tried taking the hubby back to the place with the yummy egg cracker thing, but it was closed today. We're going to try again during the week so he can understand just how good it was.
Next week it looks like there is some sort of dance festival, so we're going to try to get the details and go see it. If we make it, I'll post pictures and write all about it!
