Saturday, July 11, 2009

Butterfly Farm, Pirate Caves and Vivendi Cabaret

This past Monday celebrated Constitution Day here in the Cayman Islands. With work being closed, we decided to take advantage of the holiday by visiting some of the tourist sites we have often driven by but never gone into. Since we got on Island Katie has wanted to go up to the Butterfly Farm which is located north of George Town across from Marquee Plaza. It houses several species of butterflies and actually was a very interesting hour. We went early as the butterflies are active in the morning before it gets too hot. We toured the farm seeing butterflies in every stage of growth from caterpillar to death and food for the ants. After a home made lunch we headed east out to Bodden Town where the Pirate Caves and Bodden Town zoo are located. They are right next to the coast in Bodden Town on the main road East. We have passed the caves quite often both in our car and on our bikes and decided that it was time to see what they were actually like. We toured the mini zoo then climbed down into the caves to look around. The caves were interesting though extremely unlikely to have ever been used by pirates. They are home to bats and we kept a look out for any flying friends while walking through them. Having been to Carlsbad this was a huge difference and we kept having to remind ourselves that essentially this was a cave for bats to hide in and not an 8th wonder of the world so we needed to not let our expectations overtake reality. All in all we needed to see them at some point but could see why everyone had told us the Pirate Caves were a tourist trap and they were right.

We went to the caves around 1:30 in the afternoon and definitely were reminded that during July and August being out after noon and before about 5 is not the time to do things as it is way to hot and steamy. El Nino is supposedly going to keep down the storms in the Atlantic but it not doing anything to keep down the summer heat here in the tropics. After a trip home and a cleansing shower we headed out to the Vivendi Cabaret a new restaurant and Cabaret show on Seven Mile Beach. The show is a combination lounge singer, dancers, showgirls, and cirque de soleil style acts. The show was fantastic, as was the service though frankly the food wasn't that great especially considering what we paid for it. We would definitely recommend seeing the show but pass on the meal in the future. There are two different shows and we plan to go to the other show at some point soon and just eat a meal before we go and have drinks/appetizers at the show.