While on a wild ride through the Shipstern Nature Preserve in Belize we decided to head to a little dot on the map called the Belize Butterfly Breeding Sanctuary.  We had spent the morning in Corozal Town even having a coat-imundi sighting in the sugar cane fields of Caledonia.  Shipstern Nature Preserve is 22,000 acres of jungle, savanna, and mangrove swamp just outside of the lovely and small town of Sarteneja.  The butterfly breeding center supplies many other countries with pupae to further growth of its particular type of Butterfly.  The center is difficult to find, approximately an hour or so beyond Orange Walk Town, and requires a four wheel drive journey through dirt roads past Mennonite farms and settlements.  The center is funded on donation but has no official entrance fee.  It boasts a lovely Botanical Trail and small educational museum.  But, please for the sake of all that is important to you, bring loads of mosquito repellent.  (It’s as if this is where the mosquitoes go for vacation and they are hungry!)

Believe it or not Butterflies are made in red cups

Beach view in nearby Sarteneja