Jaguar Rescue center

Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a beautiful, diverse country but oh so very expensive and not compatible with student prices. For this reason we’d originally planned to stay for 3 days and get to Panama and boat it to Columbia. Instead, we ended up delaying everything so we could stay for 2 weeks in a border town, sloth sitting.

Crossing the border to Costa Rica was one of the most stressful experiences, mostly because I was 25c short of the $2 fee resulting in a massive NO written on my passport. Luckily, a sympathetic traveller lent me a dollar and I got across- what a legend! The day culminated with us getting dropped off at a cross road to wait for a bus that may or may not come. One thing about CR, it rains! Turns out my backpack isn’t waterproof- all our stuff got wet. Eventually, after about 8 hours, we got to our destination- Monte Verde.

Monte Verde is pretty much an exact replica of Bridgetown in winter but without the chill. Beautiful rolling green hills, amazing rainforest, mist every morning and cute, boutique cafes and shops. We managed to stay in a crazy guy’s house for $5 including breakfast- not bad. Our one day here we spent in the cloud forest, trekking and animal spotting. This is a beautiful, lush stretch of rainforest in the hills where the clouds constantly roll in. We didn’t see anything! Of course it poured with rain but the birds, flowers and insects were all so exotic that it was worth it. We wanted to go for a nice meal out with our new English friends, Rob and Joany. Thinking sushi was a decent choice, we sat down at a huge table only to see the menu- $8 for 2 pieces! We ended up in Super Pollo, the local fast food joint, having the best quesadillas I’ve had here. The next morning we said our good buys to Nico and hopped onto the 6am bus to Puerta Viejo.

Puerta Viejo is a border town on the ocean with a big reggae /surfing scene. I tried to find accommodation and melted after 15minutes. I finally walked into the nearest place, the lazy loft, and got the last two beds in the dorm. I was not impressed with this town- it was a party/drug place with ok beaches but just not my scene. We were going to leave the next day but Bryant, one of the owners, suggested we check out the jaguar rescue centre. Jade still hadn’t seen a sloth so we agreed. The next day we hired bikes and went out. The ride out was absolutely idyllic, through thick jungle and winding road along the beach. The jaguar centre itself had no jaguars but a collection of toucans, sloths, monkeys and other big cats. The centre was desperate for volunteers so we decided on a whim to try animal caring for 2 weeks. After some persuasion, Bryant agreed to give us a job in reception for 2 hours each a night to help us pay for accommodation and we were sweet!

The next two weeks were an incredible blur of craziness. A typical day consisted of riding the beautiful ride to the centre for a 7:30 start of 1.5 hours of cleaning, raking, mucking out cages and feeding animals- just like on a farm but with toucans and sloths. The next 4 hours were spent either playing with the monkeys, sitting with tequila the toucan to try and get her used to humans, working in the kitchen or garden and my all tie favourite- sloth sitting. Many of the sloths had come in as babies, abandoned by their mothers. We were effectively their stand in mothers. A day in the sloth garden involved lying on a mat with baby sloths, giving them cuddles, getting them good at hanging in trees and showing them off the  tourists for information-very cute. In the arvo’s we would go get the monkeys from their jungle picnic in the forest(the center served basically like a dating agency where we took the monkeys out every day to meet other monkeys and hope they would find a mate and leave). Girls were banned from this after the crazy pepita bit two volunteer girls-one on the neck. She was bitter and twisted and angry because she still couldn’t find a mate and so took it out on the girls.

My favourite animals:

Boris the possum: Boris, unfortunately, had an accident with his tail and would never survive in the wild. He also had no control over his bladder and so would pee all over himself. needing to be dried every morning. He was absolutely gorgeous and loved to get dried, wriggling around and moving his leg like a dog getting a good scratch. Boris duty consisted of letting him crawl all over you all day or bundling him into a scalf to sleep. I really loved this animal.

Guaro the toucan: Guaro is the name of the cheapest, most nasty rum Costa rica has to offer. It gives a killer hang over and will make you drunk in 2-3 shots(well maybe just me). It was also the name of the most loving, amiable toucan you will ever meet. Guaro had a fractured wing and needed to be retrained to fly. This consisted of putting him in a tree and watching him for 2 hours until he tried to fly, crashed into the ground and then you’d pick him up and try all over again. He was an affectionate creature, constantly singing and nibbling on the hair of whoever happened to be cleaning the cage.

Surfer-the worst sloth ever

Surfer was a two toed sloth with a skin infection and therefore in isolation from the other sloths. Sloth sitting him involved putting him in a tree in the beautiful centre and watching jungle life go by as he slept. I would read hunger games, watch giant blue butterflies and monkeys go by and just relax after the morning workout of cleaning. He was possibly the worst adapted sloth in the world, preferring to lie on the ground spread eagle or with his claws crossed and a token toe in the tree rather than lie in the tree and protect himself from predators. He was a trickster, seeping until you fell asleep and then he was out of there- toward the fence and jungle. One thing about sloths, they’re slow but not as slow as you think, he would cover 10 metres pretty quickly for the slowest animal in the world. Luckily he never made it because he would get eaten up in about 5 minutes with his lack of sloth survival knowledge.

Mita

Mita was a three towed sloth, a more basic creature than the two-toed with no external ears, only able to eat leaves rather than vegetables and eggs and without a malicious bone in her body. A two-toed will bite you slowly but hang on hard and long. A three towed would just sit there smiling at you. Mita loved cuddles and would hang on to the front of your shirt for hours if you let her. She was the sweetest, most loving creature who just loved attention.

Maki

Maki was a baby howler monkey with a healing fractured femur. For this reason he needed to be on someone’s shoulder, neck or arm all day. He was partial to cat-empire and cloud control I found out when he hung on my neck during my day in the kitchen. He would rock out or fall asleep. Feeding him was always a trial- you can’t negotiate with animals and if they decide they don’t want fruit and goats milk then what are you supposed to do? It was worse than feeding a two year old, definitely an exercise in patience.

 

 This time was great for confronting my fears of horses and crickets. I would have to work in the stables some days, mucking them out and dealing with the beasts that actually weren’t as blood thirsty as I’d thought. My other fear, crickets, was soon sorted when we went into the jungle cricket-catching with tweezers for Boris. My love for Boris overrode my fear of crickets and I actually felt pretty bad, it was a blood bath of legs, black cricket blood and evil eyes popping. I’m sure they will get their revenge at some point.

 The animals and work at the place was amazing but the people were so much fun. We met two Canadian girls who became our partners in crime to go surfing and shopping and drinking together.  There are some absolutely incredible beaches in PV, Punta Uva being particularly spectacular with its jungle cliffs and caves overlooking the turquoise water. Unfortunately it was the place our cameras got stolen but we still went back. Our last night we all went to the animal centre for a party and it was insane being among the animals and jungle at night. The two toed(the nocturnal species) were up and about scaling trees(even surfer). The big cats were roaming and attempting to hunt our bosses dog.  

Our job at the lazy loft was the most chilled work ever. As there was no reception desk we were forced to lie around on couches on the veranda and watch the electrical storms roll in over the ocean as we are now well and truly in the wet season. The backpackers were cool and we were forced to talk to everyone which was actually really fun and led to many new friends and parties. A reggae bar was directly below with plenty of live music so we could go down or just hang out in our PJ’s on the veranda and still watch everything.

As my first time working with exotic animals I have to say it was probably the coolest thing I’ve done on this trip. They all had personalities and I grew to love so many of them. I also learnt so much about how to care for sick animals and now have so much respect for all animal rescue and refuge centers. I also loved working in the hostel, it felt like I had a home for a little while and the owners were very chilled and kind.

In summary this has been a spontaneous couple of weeks but definitely amazing.