Stu and I woke up early this morning – I don’t know what woke me but it was before the howlers started (about 10 minutes before). The howlers are becoming the same as the roosters in Colombia – starting way before dawn lol. We were up so early we decided to do a walk into town and try to catch the sunrise. It turns out we are pretty much facing north here at Playa Negra with sunrise happening to our left.
We found the National Park which is right at the end of the main road and only a couple of km from where we are, we may go hiking there tomorrow. On the way back we stopped at a little farmers market where we bought some bananas and a jar of chocolate banana sauce/spread from this very friendly man. On the way back to the hotel Stu spotted a Sloth (sorry bad pictures as it was way up high and behind leaves and branches).
Today is Stu’s Christmas present – we are headed for the Sloth Sanctuary. We have the insiders tour which is limited to the magic number of 6. The first stop was to check in and meet Buttercup the sloth that started it all.
After the tour started we met Marco our bi-lingual guide who took us to an area with adult sloths that can never be released. Some of their stories are really sad and range from electrocution and total paralysis to those that were taken and raised by humans really badly – including feeding them food such as pawpaw and cutting their “nails” which are actually bone – you can only imagine the pain the sloth went through.
From there we visited adolescents – again permanent residents. This was where our insides tour varied from the regular tour.
As a group we were then taken to the NICU where they rear infants until they are 12 months old and also look after sick adults. We were there for 45 minutes and these little babies caught our hearts. A couple of us even cried. They raise these babies on formula for a few weeks then teach them them the right plants to eat, to pee and poo once a week and generally act as a sloth. They are trying to limit human interaction as they are hoping to rehabilitate almost 100% of these babies.
After then NICU we were taken to the Slothpital and then on a little river cruise where we saw humming birds nests.
We have sooooo many more Sloth photos
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