Sloths and more

Our body clocks are not adjusted yet so we woke at 4 am our time, 10 am UK. We were supposed to leave at 6.10 but were delayed for some reason, finally getting away in a bus at 7am. We headed out of San Jose for the rain forest. It lived up to its name - we could see the lush vegetation at the roadside and that was it for a couple of hours when we stopped for breakfast at a butterfly farm. It just stopped raining when we arrived so we were lucky to see a few butterflies with open wings.

Heading down to the coastal plain we stopped to look at some howler monkeys high in a tree, then soon afterwards, a 3-toed sloth, also high up. At least the sloth stayed still so I actually saw it easily. Not long afterwards we saw a 2-toed sloth quite low down, which was a real treat.

After a few hours driving we got as far as we could by road. We had to transfer to a small motor boat for the last part of the journey down a small river for 1.5 hours. We saw a troop of spider monkeys swinging along in the trees, one with its young on its back. There were some bright green lizards, some blue herons, lots of egrets and some bright yellow kingfishers, but they, and our boat, moved too fast for me to photograph them. When we reached a wider river a real tropical downpour started not long before we arrived at our lovely eco-lodge, and 3 hours later it is even heavier.

Our little hut is made of lovely wood, inside and out, with shutters and screens. There is a big gap under the door - big enough for a venomous snake to slither in. We look out to beautiful tropical gardens then the lagoon beyond. Apparently a short walk inthe other direction is a lovely beach on the Caribbean coast. It does not look like we’ll see that today. We can hardly hear each other for the hammering of the rain on the tin roof and the noise of the torrents pouring off the gutters, and splashing of the large leaves of all the tropical vegetation.

After a briefing from our guide he took us along the beach - he hoped we’d be lucky enough to see the baby green-backed turtles breaking out of their shells, emerging from the nest and making a dash for the sea. We saw lots of nests and broken shells but no turtles. On the way back to the lodge we could hear frogs and were fortunate to see a red-eyed species.

The mozzies are out in force after all the rain. Deet has been applied.