Holy Smokes Batman!

Saturday has become our market day, mainly because our weekdays are filled with homeschooling and language learning. So this past Saturday, we were headed out to shop and I mentioned to Ryan that I wanted to try and find a few more baskets to use around the house. We decided to go to a little area near the "museum" that has some artisan crafts. They call them the museum shops.

As we were driving down the dirt road to the museum shops, Lily said, "Hey mom, look at those bats flying over our heads."

To which I replied, "Lily, those aren't bats, they're birds. Remember, bats are nocturnal and it's mid-morning."

She insisted they were bats and so just to appease her, I took a closer look and what do you know? They were, most definitely, bats. Not just a few bats. Hundreds and hundreds of bats. So many that when we got out of the car their squeaking was extremely loud to our ears. It was amazing.

We walked toward the shops where all of the craftsman came out of their shops and welcomed us in. That is what happens wherever we go. There are usually multiple vendors of similar things in each area and they all call for our attention. It's really bad when we go to the produce stands because, as most of you know, I don't eat my veggies very well, so I have 6 men begging me to buy their broccoli, swiss chard, and cauliflower when all I really want is a few green beans, a tomato, and some irish potatoes. They proudly show off all of their veggies, each one trying to find their most beautiful and unique offering and I am a lost cause in the vegetable world.

Anyway, I digress... Where was I? Oh yeah, so I asked the craftsmen about the bats and they explained to us that this forest area of trees where we parked is always full of bats this time of year and that they will migrate when the rains come in a few months.

We had a great time watching them and we even walked toward the trees so that we could see them hanging in big clumps. It really was fascinating, though all of my kids were not equally keen on the bats.

A few of the bats above our heads

Can you see those dark clumps in the tree? Those are groups of bats. There were gazillions of them. Crazy!

We didn't have the big camera with us, but even if we had, I'm not sure we could have captured the full effect. Anyway, it made for a fun spot in our Saturday morning.

They're hanging all over!