Last day in Turrialba before we leave for San Jose tomorrow. The time has flown by. This might be the last post of the trip because I'm not sure if we'll have the interwebs in our hostel in San Jose.
Okay, so the big item on today's agenda was a SLOTH SANCTUARY!! Oh my gosh!!! Sloths (or as they call them in Costa Rica, "perezosos"--means lazy...) are pretty cool critters. Here are some fun facts for you courtesy of "facts-about.org":
- Definition: Sloths are slow-moving arboreal mammals (inhabiting or frequenting trees) of the rainforests in South and Central America; they hang from branches back downward and feed on leaves and fruits. A sloth is about the size of a medium size dog and they move very slowly
- Sloths are divided into two groups:
- Three-toed sloths (yellowish face)
- Two-toed sloths (larger, longer hair)
- The main predators of sloths are the jaguar, snakes and the eagle
- Algae that grow on the hair of sloths impart a greenish color to the coat so that it blends with the foliage
- The Sloths' claws are their only natural defense
- Sloths carry their fetus underneath their ribcage, which makes it very difficult to determine that they are, in fact, pregnant
The sanctuary had 6 adult sloths in habitats and then an entire nursery filled with sloth beh-behs! They are so cute! The adults can't be returned to the wild on account of their inability to establish a habitat and avoid predators, but some of the beh-behs will eventually be re-released.
After the main tour, the sanctuary also offers an hour long guided canoe tour down the adjacent river. It was very serene and peaceful. Well...kind of peaceful...the birds, bugs, and howler monkeys were extremely loud, but it was a good kind of noise. Nature noise. We saw a bearded basilisk, bats, wild sloths, howler monkeys, some birds whose names I can't pronounce, and I got ambushed by a walking stick.
We left the sanctuary and grabbed a nice lunch at a Tico/Caribbean restaurant and then spent about 45 minutes at Cahuita National Park, aka the beach. I didn't think a beach trip would have much appeal to a bunch of native Floridians, but I couldn't have been more wrong--the students were all about some beach time. The beach was nice. It reminded me a lot of the Jacksonville beaches--big waves, course sand. We didn't have quite enough time for me to take a surf lesson while we were there, so I will officially be the first and only person to visit a beach in Costa Rica and not surf.
Last item on the schedule was a tour of the Limon Branch of the UCR campus system. The administrators had put together a great reception for us--a musical performance by one of their student groups, a glass of hiel (it's got sugar cane juice and lemon and a few other things that I didn't catch), and some patties! I haven't had those since I went to Jamaica!
The Limon campus is not as large as Turrialba, but much larger than Guapiles and Paraiso. There are about 850 students that study in Limon. Unlike the Atlantic Branch system, which is comprised of three smaller universities, Limon is just Limon. One campus. They just recently put in new residence halls, and they looked really nice. And their library reminded me of Jurassic Park, so that's never a bad thing as far as I'm concerned.
Okay, here's hoping I have a chance to update from San Jose, but if I don't, thanks for reading and I'll be back on this sucker the next time I go somewhere exciting! Cheers!
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