Another night of interesting sounds, another morning waking to rain.
My legs are still a bumpy mass of welts from the mosquitoes, it is like I have the measles from the knees down.
A cool shower and hot coffee helped. Gail was up early, so we headed over to breakfast to see how the fruit plate was arranged today.
The rain quit, and over breakfast we talked with the young Indian couple about their trip. He is from London, she is more recently from Philadelphia. They were two weeks in Panama, and just came over the border at Sixola for two weeks in Costa Rica. They were heading to the Jaguar Rescue Center about 4 km down the road and had a bus to catch. So, since we have a car, and they are interesting people, and we were having fun hanging out, we offered them a ride to the center and asked if we could tag along.
And so that is how we spent the entire morning, guided around the Jaguar Rescue Center. They have two little baby jaguars, but really it is more of an every-animal rescue center, where they take in electrocuted sloths, broken-winged birds, and things like an ocelot that was hit in the head with a machete.
I got to see a brain-damaged anteater wandering around from a distance, but got no photo of it.
We discovered that it would probably be exciting to work at the wildlife rescue center for, ohhh… say ten minutes. But then how long really can you stand around guarding a brain damaged anteater as it sleeps? Or staring at little baby monkeys playing on a rope jungle gym? Or holding a little sloth while staring at another one sleeping in a tree.
Cool facts:
Sloths are mostly hair, so if you shaved one it is mostly sinew, bones and muscle. They are very aggressive and will bit and scratch you. The bite is worrisome because their teeth are green with bacteria. They have four stomachs, and go to the bathroom only once a week.
The monkey types do not mix in the wild. They cannot let the women volunteers take the monkeys back into the wild after rehabilitation because they will be attacked for “mating purposes.” It is worse for a monkey to be missing a tail than missing an arm or a leg. They can adapt to a missing limb, but a missing tail is a death sentence. When a spider monkey pees, it goes on for over a minute (personal observation).
You should not touch the frogs, especially if you have on bug spray or sun screen. We are more deadly to them than they are to us. Unless you touch a frog and then stick your fingers in your mouth.
One kind of snake here has venom so powerful it will kill a cow in 40 minutes. Other snakes may take an hour or two to kill you. So, if you get bit by a snake here, call 911. They stock venom and a test kit at every clinic. You are tested and then given the correct anti-venom.
We went into town to get cash at the ATM, and dropped our friends off so they could shop. Gail and I killed the rest of the day walking, going out to the beach, and reading.
Today also we scored the perfect Trifecta of Toucan Greatness today when we saw a Chestnut-mandibled flying by, and then at the wildlife center a Collared Aracari with a broken wing, and finally the Keel-billed (Froot-Loops) toucan that flew in under the eave of a building and posed for us.