The Sloth Sanctuary - Aviarios del Caribe

June 30th
Oh my! This day was filled with fun and adventure. After I our 5 am wake up call, we went to breakfast where we all tried this strange new fruit called mamon. When you break open the wild red shell, you find a delicious little egg of soft white sweet sour fruit. Really cool!

We were then on the road and off for about a four hour drive to the Sloth Sanctuary that is in or near the province of Limon. The sloths were amazing. We watched a video and found out about the history of the sanctuary and then we got to see some sloths up close and personal as they lounged in their cages!

This was a pretty long travel day because after seeing the sloths and taking a picturesque canoe ride through the sanctuary´s property, we were BACK on the bus traveling to our hotel in Puerto Viejo. Our tour guide Jorge 1 (turns out Jorge is a pretty popular name! our driver´s name is Jorge and the guide for the other bus named  Jorge as well) told us about the PanAmerican highway, bananas, and the most famous saying here in Costa Rica--Pura Vida!!!
I´m not kidding this was a loooong day. After arriving at our hotel, we all got to go swimming in the beautiful ocean and we were able to catch some huge waves, unlike the little three and four footers that we get in SC.  We couldn´t swim for long because we had a special dinner planned with a local expert on sea turtles. He told us about the lives of sea turtles, the different species, the many dangers that they face, and how we can work to protect them. And after our lecture and dinner, we rode out to a special spot where we literally hiked through the sand for about 4 or 5 miles to see a mother turtle burying her nest. Alas! We were too late and missed the whole thing! BUT we learned much on our adventure and it only heightened our awareness and our hopes to see a sea turtle in the future!

I´ll try and get back to the computer later today because I´ve got to tell you guys about what we did yesterday with the Bribri tribe. One word, AMAZING!

Love you all!

Ms. A