Day 10

Today I found out something I would have rather not known. There are scorpions here. This fellow is now outdoors, but was originally found in the room next to us.

And now to quickly fill your brain with something much more cute, here are pics of Mike taking Arthur for a walk and of me taking Ubu for a walk. 

My walk with Ubu was very rewarding. Poor Ubu is mostly paralyzed from the waist down. That doesn't stop him though as he has excellent upper body strength. He is also very friendly and comes right to say hi when you go in his cage. During this morning's feeding, he gave me big hugs. So I decided he should come out for a walk. He was so super excited and interested in everything. He even was moving his front arms like he was climbing, even though he was all nestled into my arms :)

In the evening a bunch of us went into Puerto Viejo. First stop was for a quick swim.

After that, we went and had a few drinks and snacks before heading back to the sanctuary.

It was a good thing our table had a couple of candles too, as the power went out in all of Puerto Viejo for about 10 minutes.

A Quick Sloth Education

We have had some questions regarding the two types of sloths and how different they are. So here are some pics of the information boards they have up at the sanctuary. The Bradypus (3-fingered) and Choloepus (2-fingered) are from two different families.

They also look quite different and only the bradypus have tails. Here are some pics of Bradypus sloths.

And here's one of two Choloepus sloths.

If you're still interested in further differences - in particular, check out the differences in gestation times - here are pics with more info.

Finally, this sloth is the most rare of all. And Dave, this one's for you....

To answer some other questions....

The sanctuary does release adult sloths back into the wild as long as they are still capable of surviving on their own. In fact, one was just released today. If they know where the sloth was found, they are released into that area. If not, they are released in the grounds surrounding the sanctuary.

In terms of the plates of veggies we prepare for them here, they are separated into piles for both the adults and juveniles. Picky, picky sloths ;)

Day 9

So far, we have seen quite a few wild sloths, but they have been Bradypus or 3 fingered sloths. We did manage to see one Choloepus (2-fingered) while on the bus home from Cahuita the other day, but it was riding on the back of a police truck and it looked none too happy about it. We assume they were relocating it into the national park. Today however, across the way from our hammock area, we saw one :)

After our shift ended today, we took a walk to Penshurt to pick up some snacks. Along the way there is a Chiquita banana plantation.

Gigantic purple grasshoppers with orange antennae.

Tonnes of chickens and roosters free ranging all over people's yards. I'm pretty sure the guys below are the ones who wake us up every morning....

And simple houses that would just not cut it in Winnipeg ;)

Finally, unrelated to our walk, but super cute, here are two pics from nursery time :)

Bizkit. Yes, with a z.

Shilo.

Day 8 - Relaxation and Rain

During nursery time today, Mike and I passed on playing with the babies. Instead, I took out Arthur - yes, my favorite :) We took a walk together...well, I walked while carrying him and he sniffed everything around him. He took a turn playing on the jungle gym and got to have some hibiscus flower. Then he wanted cuddles again, so off we went for another walk.

Mike took Buttercup for a walk. She was the first sloth that Judy ever took in. Unofficially, she is the world's most photographed sloth and even has her own Facebook page. She is so trusting of people, that when you hold her, she is not holding onto you at all - except for the fact that she has to be holding your hand. Awww.

There hasn't been any rain here for the past couple of days, so there is high humidity on top of the hot temperatures. So for most of our downtime today, we sat in hammocks along the creek. Such a nice breeze flows through...

We also got in a couple of games of pool.

And after our work day was done, a bunch of us went to Cahuita for drinks.

Finally, around dinner time it started to cloud over and then rain. Ahhh. Between the cool air and the sound of rain, we should get a good nights sleep :) 

Day 7 - Sloth Grub

We feed the sloths twice a day. The bradypus sloths get cecropia leaves and cecropia flowers for both breakfast and dinner.

For the Choloepus sloths, in the morning, the adults get berohs and beans, while the juveniles and babies get almond tree leaves. The berohs have to be sorted to weed out the bad ones and to make sure there are no toxic snails on them.

The leaves are rinsed right before we feed them to add extra moisture to their diets. Sloths don't drink water, so they get all the moisture from what they eat.

For dinner, they each get a plate of mixed veggies - chayote, camote, carrots, and beans. First step is taking the ends off the beans and peeling the other veggies. The camote are purple sweet potatoes and the chayote are green and look kinda like squashed pears.

Both the chayote and camote are very sticky and together they leave a weird sappy residue on your hands that is very tough to get rid of.

After peeling, they are cut into fries and blanched.

Then it's on to plates - careful to put them in sections or some picky sloths won't eat them....

Serve and enjoy!

Day 7 - Human Grub!

Meals are included as part of the volunteer package. The primary cook, Selma, is terrific. Usually centered around beans and rice, the dishes are very vegan compatible and always delicious. A couple sample lunches we've enjoyed this past week:

Black beans, rice, fried plantains, root vegetable stew, fresh tomatoes and red cabbage.

Red beans, rice, fried plantains, carrot and pepper goulash, and fresh salad with tomatoes and cucumber. I have yet to be hungry :D

Aside, I question whether sloths are vegetarian after all....

Day 6 - Our Day Off

We get one day off a week and Mike and I chose today for this week. So, we turned off our alarms last night, ready to sleep in. We did, but it was only for 15 minutes. We both woke up at 5:30 am wide awake. So we started our day off with breakfast and then walked out to the road to hop on the bus to Cahuita.

There is a national park in Cahuita that has a hiking trail along the coastline that is 8.3 km in length - one way. Mike and I did there and back for a total of 16.6 km. It was a great walk and since we got there early enough, it didn't start getting too hot until about the last quarter of the walk. 

There was lots of wildlife. Watch your step.....trails of ants all working as a collective....

Two types of monkeys, howler and white faced. At first we just saw howler's in a tree a little ways away. But then, on one of our pit stops along the beach underneath an almond tree, a half eaten almond landed beside me with slightly more force than I would have expected. Looking up I saw three monkeys looking down at me, eating almonds, which they kept tossing at us. Do they know Mike is allergic?

Later on we had white faced monkeys all around us. They are definitely desensitized to humans.

And what blog post would be complete without a picture of a sloth? We saw a female bradypus (notice the lack of a patch on her back) just hanging out. She was camouflaged so well I walked right past her. Good thing Mike saw her.

After our long walk it was lunchtime, so we stopped off at Coco's for a light snack and some drinks. I had a mojito again.

It came with a toy for Michael.

At the bar, we had front row seats to 4 different marching bands - one police and three school. There was a big festival going on to commemorate some sort of anniversary. 

We got back to the sanctuary in time for dinner and some relaxing. We're now gonna watch a movie and then go to bed. After all, we do have to work tomorrow ;)