Searching for Sloths!!

Trip Start Nov 08, 2008
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Flag of Costa Rica  ,
Wednesday, January 7, 2009

I had thought that I would skip Costa Rica and just go see Panama, but so many people come here that I had to see what all the fuss was about. The border crossing was insane, as many Nicaraguans were returning to Costa Rica to work after spending the holidays visiting family back home. There were two checkpoints after the border where everyone on the bus had to have their passport checked to make sure we all had gone through the border correctly.

I arrived at Santa Elena in the late afternoon, relieved that it was cooler than what I had been used to. I spent my time hiking the Santa Elena and Monteverde reserves. The forests in both are lush and wet, although not as muddy as the cloud forest on the volcano on the Isla de Ometepe. I met a girl from San Diego, Stephanie, while on a night hike looking for creepy crawlies. On the night hike, we saw tarantulas, lots on insects, a kinkajou, raccoons, and lots of other animals I can't remember the names of. At one point the raccoons started fighting behind us on the trail, scaring our group half to death.

Stephanie came with me to hike Monteverde, and we spent all day looking for quetzals and sloths. Unfortunately, our wildlife spotting skills weren't great so we saw zip. However, when I told a park worker, Miguel, that we hadn't seen any sloths, he offered to drive us back to the hotel and show us some places where they are commonly seen around town. He was so nice, and drove us around until FINALLY we spotted one, a bundle of fur napping in a tree just down the street from out hotel. I went back that night to see if the sloth was still there, and it was moving around, maybe looking for a good nighttime snack.
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Comments

womandork
womandork on Feb 24, 2009 at 11:09PM

kinkajou!
excuse you... you sound really relaxed and into a stride... wondering what you think of the u.s. right now? do you hear alot of talk about obama? instead of trying to distance yourself from the u.s. which was my case in belize when dumbass was president, are you glad? what's the 411 on how the southern world thinks about us right now? just curious.

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