In Costa Rica we berthed at Puerto Limoncello, where we had booked ourselves another excursion this one was to an animal sanctuary and then a boat ride through the mangroves with the opportunity to see sloths in both.
It was a long drive in the bus to the sanctuary but once again we had a very good guide who told us a lot about the information of the area. The island is very animal friendly and is strongly into conservation. No buildings are allowed to be built on the sea front ensuring the beaches do not become crowded and therefore saving the habitat for the animals that live there. This is an unusual move as a lot of these islands have built holiday accommodation, mainly hotels on the beaches to get the tourist money coming in. The island also has eternal neutrality, this means they do not need to spend money on the military.
At the animal sanctuary there are many types of animals, monkeys, big cats, sloths, snakes, crocodiles etc. A lot of them are wild animals that have been either injured or orphaned, but there are also some that were exotic pets that have become too much for their owners to look after or were being mistreated.
The sanctuary is mainly manned by volunteers, I can see me and David going back to do that.
The monkey had been found all by itself so is being hand reared, the bird was a pet which had been handed in. It is not kept in a cage and moves around freely.
This anteater was found by electric wires and had been electrocuted, it was walking around not too bad when we saw it but when it first arrived it just walked in circles. They think it has got permanent neurological damage so will probably stay at the shelter, I suppose it depends on how well it recovers.
Then we came to the sloths they are incredibly cute. There are two different types the three toed and the two toed. These ones will be returned to the wild once they are old enough.
This monkey was called Matilda she is also an orphan, she was clambering around all over the place and came up really close.
There was a family of owls, the male (daddy) owl only had one eye so couldn't gauge distances properly for hunting.
We had a lovely time wandering around the sanctuary, it was well worth the visit. While we were there one of the monkeys who had been there returned. When they are first released they go out and about for a few days then return, gradually building up the days to full release. Some do come back for visits though!
We were lucky enough to see some sloths on our boat trip too, I did take some pictures but they just look like brown blobs in a tree.
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