Quick update from here around the Equator (BREAKING NEWS:
it’s covered in sloths):
We’re not dead or otherwise in peril…. The WiFi situation is
just far spottier than I’d expected. The signal doesn’t quite reach our room,
and by the time we’re done working for the day the places it DOES reach are
swarming in possibly man-eating bugs (my legs look like a connect-the-dots map
of Costa Rica, but that’s neither here nor there). Therefore, I’m writing this
from the (relative) comfort of our room, and will brave the bloodthirsty beasts
to post it later (our room only features a crab, roaches, ants, spiders, and
screaming lizards, so it’s a veritable Ritz-Carlton in here).
So, our days so far... We arrived to the Sloth Sanctuary on
Saturday afternoon after about 5 hours in a bus across the better part of Costa
Rica. The drive was long, windy, and in questionable weather, but it did allow
us the chance to see a good part of the countryside, which is completely
postcard gorgeous. Our driver Felix spoke no English, but we were able to
communicate well enough, and he was a friendly dude with a nice van, so
everything worked out just fine.
The Sanctuary is located near the SE corner of Costa Rica,
close to the towns of Cahuita and Puerto Viejo and not far from the Panamanian
border. We’re out here, and it really feels like we’re isolated in the jungle….
That said, there’s one main road in this part of the country, and the sanctuary
is right on it. We have our share of traffic, and there’s a bus stop and a
little roadside lean-to market across the street. The grounds here are
stunningly gorgeous… flowers of every color, so vivid they appear artificial.
Trees seem to grow ten stories tall, and even the birds look like they came out
of a box of crayons. A river snakes through the property, and it’s still,
covered in moss, and teeming with life. At night, there’s an odd reminder of
where we are when occasionally half the compound is woken up by howler monkeys
shrieking as if their simian lives depended on being heard.
We spent our first day having a casual orientation, meeting
our fellow volunteers and the employees here, and, the highlight, meeting some
of the sloths we’ll be working with. They’re amazing little creatures, and just
being around them for three days it’s become bizarre how used to them I’ve
become. The Dallas World Aquarium, where we are members, has one three-toed
sloth (the only three-toed in captivity in America, in a partnership with the
Sanctuary here at Aviarios!), and every time we’re near it we get excited and
can’t wait to get a close look from fifteen feet away. Now, they’re everywhere
and all over us, and it feels oddly comfortable and familiar.
So, what is our day like? It’s a pretty set schedule,
actually…. Kind of feels like an actual job or day at school, just with more
sloth.
6am: Report to the main cages, where 150+ sloths must have
their cages clean, be fed (barros leaf bundles), and we have to wash and bundle
the leaves for future feedings. All the
dishes from the night before have to be hand washed, and we have to log on a
chart (for each sloth) what they ate, if they peed or pooped (the common sanctuary terminology), and make
any special notes if the sloth’s behavior is at all “off”. Poop is actually an
important part of the process, because there’s just not a lot known about
sloths, and the poop is usually one of the first places we can tell if
something is amiss. Each of us has about 15-20 sloths to clean, feed, etc., and
with that and general clean up/food prep, this process takes about an hour and
a half.
 |
| Barros for breakfast |
7:30am: HUMAN Breakfast. There is a volunteer kitchen and dining
table in an open air covered space across the parking lot from our room and the
main exhibition hall. The kitchen is “stocked” (no ice, few electronics,
limited choices) and we help ourselves.
9am: “Baby Time”.. We head to the Nursery, which has a large
wooden “jungle gym” made of logs next to it. We each get a baby sloth for the
day, exercise it on the jungle gym (this involves sloth traffic jams as we try
to keep the three or four sloths on at a time from bumping into each other and
having a slap fight), and walk it around the jungle path nearby while it clings
to us. It’s kind of an awesome part of the day.
 |
| Quality time with "Toby" |
 |
| Watching out for sloth traffic jams on the jungle gym |
 |
| Taking "Velcro" for walk |
 |
| "Velcro" |
 |
| "Toby" |
11am: Food prep… probably the “hardest” part of the day. We
spend a good hour and a half chopping , prepping, and peeling carrots, mango,
camote (a purple thing that looks a lot like a potato), string beans and some
other Spanish vegetable that I can’t spell yet. This is the sloths’ dinner, and
it takes a LOT of this stuff to feed 150+. It’s a smallish but well equipped
restaurant style kitchen, and I like to pretend I’m on some Food Network show
with 4 of my closest friends. When we’re done, we have to sort massive piles of
barrow leaves for “good ones” and prep the food for the following morning.
12:30pm: Lunch… back to the volunteer kitchen. This time,
Selma, our “house mother” has prepared a hot meal for us (always rice/beans,
and a rotation of pasta/chicken/beef of some sort) and we serve ourselves from
the pots on the stove. Oh, and we have to do our dishes right after, which is
only interesting because they have this fascinating block of hard soap in a tub
that you dip your sponge into, and it works wonders. I want this. Food has been
pretty decent, by the way… my only complaint is that there are no cold drinks
to be had (I finally broke down and hit the gift shop for a delicious
glass-bottled Coke this afternoon… it reminded me of trips to Mexico as a kid).
2pm: Usually we have a light rest after lunch, and then at 2
it’s dinner time (for sloths)! Now, we
remove any food they didn’t finish from the morning, chart any poop, pee, and
uneaten food, and make combo platters from all the food we prepped at 11 (which
has since been boiled by the staff – except the mangoes). We serve the sloths,
which I like to begin by climbing into the cages and hand feeding the first
carrot, which is kind of awesome. They’re REALLY excited to eat, and watching
them take the food from my hand (and sometimes grab it with their hand too) is
pretty awesome. When that’s done, our day is over! Sometimes we help with
little extra activities after that (whatever needs doing – today we helped prep
for tomorrow’s big field trip), but mostly it’s rest…. Rest that usually
involves sitting in front of the big floor fan in our room (did I mention
there’s no A/C?).
 |
| Eating and lounging frequently occur simultaneously around here |
Dinner is around 6 (when it starts to get dark here), and
the rest of the night is spent in our room reading and playing mindless games
on our cellphones. I’ve done more reading for pleasure than I have in a long
time, which is nice.
I’ll try to post pics on FB and maybe even attach some to
this post, but until then, enjoy Independence Day and all that that
implies…. We’ll be here slothin’ around
for America!
Signing off,
Paul
We really enjoyed reading this! You are a great writer. If the teaching thing doesn't work out, you can get a job as a travel writer. Looking forward to your next post.
ReplyDelete