Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Yesterday was a day of much driving… We went from La Fortuna all the way east through the kind of scummy port town of Limon and then forty minutes further to arrive after almost five hours of driving at the sloth rescue that Caitlin had so been looking forward to. We began that visit with a slow canoe trip up and down the surrounding river to do not much more than bask in the sun, and occasionally feel grateful for the shade of tall bamboo and other foliage, and bird watch. When we got back, we watched an informational video which was thankfully — no offense to education, but hands-on with sloths is better — cut short by a power failure.

Then we got to visit with (and pet) various supercute sloths, both the two-toed and three-toed variety, starting with a three limbed fellow who had come to the sanctuary after a mishap with an electrical cable necessitated an amputation. They also had a pair of twins, a rarity in the sloth world, and lots of funny slow-moving pop-eyed baby sloths being fed milk by syringe and then being taken out for crawls in the grass. “Queen Buttercup”, who had been at the sloth rescue for a decade and a half if I remember right, watched over the whole thing from her throne. I have lots of shots to post when I get back — although I did manage to both damage my camera and lose the charger, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I run out of battery!!!

After the sloth visit I really wanted to go swimming — I think that’s really my favorite thing to do and I could spend the whole day in the ocean if I was allowed — and we drove for about an hour (thanks to some mis-navigating) past Playa Negra and all the way down to Punta Uva where a reef meets the beach. The water was quite rough, so I couldn’t dive with the fish, which is what I’d been hoping for, but we did have a lot of fun swimming, playing in the waves, and building sand castles on the all-but-deserted beach.

Supper was small, at a little beach restaurant, and then I drove another three hours and a half hours, back to San Jose, since the car has to be returned today. Nefarious and I got up early for the hotel’s buffet breakfast of hash browns, pancakes, fresh fruit, and rice and beans, and then went for a walk around the downtown. My glasses should be waiting for me at the optician around the corner, so I guess I’ll do that, and then we’ll do some city stuff today and likely fly to Panama City in the next day or two.