The BEST beach I have ever been to

The Friday before we left Aviarios was the day off of the two volunteers we had made friends with, Dominique and Jeremy, so we decided to offer up the car so we could all do some exploring. Jeremy had read about a Cacao House in Bri-Bri that was off the beaten path and a different experience than the touristy places that are advertised all over the place. We hopped into the car and went off in the general direction we had heard it was in. After about 20 minutes (maybe less) of driving we found it. Completely unassuming, we found the sign on the side of the road:

The girl who gave us the presentation/tour could not have been more than 10 and she was amazing. Her english was great and she had a really fun sense of humor. She walked us through the process of making chocolate all the way from the tree the fruit/bean grows on all the way through the flavoring. When you first open the fruit there's a paste on the outside of the individual beans that tastes like candy. The fruit opened looks like this:

That white thing on the inside that looks like a huge worm or grub is actually segmented beans covered in the paste. You can see the lines here that show the break in-between each bean. I wish they also bottled the paste, it's amazingly sweet.

They had 12 different flavors we got to taste and then they sell the pure chocolate for a small amount, I can't remember how much it was now but we bought a few pieces...vanilla and cinnamon I think.

After the chocolate tour and a small lesson about the indigenous people of Bri Bri, we headed into Puerto Viejo to run some errands. We were there for about an hour before we continued on the road through town to Punta Uva. This is only a short distance from Puerto Viejo but the conditions of the roads makes it that you have to drive so slow it took us about 30 minutes to get there. The reason that we wanted to go to Punta Uva was that Dominique had said there was a beach there that was really nice. REALLY NICE?! "Really nice" does not even come CLOSE. We pull down a long dirt road that is littered with potholes and is a bit dark due to the canopy of trees. We park the car, get out and see this to our right:

and this to our left:

I mean REALLY! It was amazing and there were probably a total of 10 other people on the beach with us. The weather was hot, the sun was out on and off and the water...the water was perfect and shallow for a long time. Very salty and shallow it was a lot of fun to get in the water and cool off.

Once we left the beach we went to a really cute place for lunch and had some amazing ceviche.

That night when we got back to the hotel the rain was coming in and we lost power for about an hour or so which was fun. We hung out with the owner Judy for a few minutes and she gave us candles for our room. We played games on the netbook until the power came back and finished up the night.

NOW - The next day, saturday, was the day of our check out. We went upstairs and had breakfast while there was a tour from a cruise going on with the sloths. About 30min later Judy, the owner, came over and gave mel a very special gift. She handed Mel Queen Buttercup!!! She just gave her to mel and said "i have to go do a few things, are you ok? don't move"

Supporting Buttercup and a hand hold turned into....

a full on hug, which then progressed into....
A full on cuddle session.

I seriously may have never seen mel so happy as she was with this animal in her arms. I know this is something she has wanted to do for a long time (visit with sloths) and getting to hug one was the icing on the cake. We thought she would get to hug one of the babies and that would be it but it was truly a treat when she got to hold Buttercup (the first sloth to come to the sanctuary and mel's favorite of them all). She got to experience that for almost 40 minutes which was amazing. She at one point sat down and I got a chance to interact with her too when she reached out for me:

I also got a chance, unfortunately I don't have pictures of it, to hold hands with my favorite of the group that was up on the deck with the rest of the babies. Her name is Leila and she reached through the bars and grabbed my thumb. Now, a lesson to those who are new to the sloth hand holding game: 1) they love thumbs, 2) they have a MUCH stronger grip than you think they would.

All in all it as an amazing trip and I can't wait to go back to visit them again. You can volunteer at the sanctuary which I think is what we will do next. After getting to spend some one on one time with the sloths we said our goodbyes and headed up to San Jose. We stayed one night close to the airport to make the travel day a bit easier. Took a flight this morning to Florida, at the hotel now, so that tomorrow we can get up and take a shuttle over the cruise.

Next stop....Europe!

See, I can get up early!

Didn't get a chance to post yesterday due to the fact that the interwebs were down all day but we're back up and running now.

Yesterday we woke up at 5:30am, yes AM, to get ready for our tour on the river. Luckily the tour starts right outside our door so we didn't have to go very far. We met up with our tour guide and we jumped in the boat. The sounds of the rain forest at 6am are just incredible. Everything is so alive!

When you look at the river from where we got in there is a fork to our right and a straight away to our left. We started on the right side of the fork down to a dead end. There was almost a full canopy of greenery and bamboo where we saw a lot of birds and lizards. Upon turning back we then went down the left side of the fork which was a bit deeper and took us under a few trees that we had to duck under. The guide was amazing, he was constantly slowing down for us whenever we pointed at something or he would make sure that we had a chance to see what he was seeing. Once we turned around and started back on the main river things got a bit louder. There were tons more birds in the open river and several that seemed to be having what looked like a heated discussion about who the leaves on the river bed belonged to. Just a guess but I feel an educated one.

We coasted down to a point where we could no longer make it through the leaves on the river and turned back. The view from this point was just amazing:


When we were on our way back the guide pointed out a wild sloth up in the trees which was much bigger than the sloths we'd been seeing at the rescue. Upon returning to Aviarios we had breakfast and had a great day of driving around and learning more about the area. We had an amazing dinner in Cahuita and have met some really great people. I'm always surprised when we meet people who are traveling alone. I don't know if it's just because I'm not the type of person who could do it or if it seems unsafe to me but either way, I'm very curious when we meet them. It's also amazing the type of people you meet here. Usually while on vacation we meet people from the states and they are there for a relaxing time. This time, it's been completely different. We've definitely met people from the US but TONS of other places as well. Also, every single person we have met here is a traveler. I'm learning that there really is a huge difference between vacationing and traveling. We have not met anyone here who is vacationing. All of them are either here after being several other places or are on their way to several other places. It's been a lot of fun to be part of that category this time around. I have a feel that this trip may end up changing our traveling/vacation style.

Today we relaxed for a good part of the morning just enjoying the grounds here. There is a path that leads into the forest that we walked through which was really nice until we got kicked out. There was this sound, which I thought was a motorcycle we could hear from the road. Mel turned around and said "motorcycles don't growl" and then we heard it again but louder. That's when we just started walking at the fastest pace we could. Didn't ask any questions, didn't look back. Word to the wise: When a howler monkey says "i don't want you here, go away" you just listen and don't ask why.

We also had the opportunity to see a sloth getting released into the wild which was a lot of fun too!

After lunch and a fun little drive into town we met up with Dominique and Jeremy who are two people here that are volunteering with the rescue. Dominique is from South Africa and Jeremy is from the states. We all drove into town tonight to a local bar that has a happy hour of 2 for 1 drinks that was a lot of fun. We then ate dinner and made a plan for tomorrow. We're heading to a chocolate farm tomorrow morning where you see how they make chocolate and then you get to taste some :) Also we're going to go to the beach in Punta Uva where there is also a resort made completely out of tree houses.

Tonight when we got back from dinner we were greeted by several large and LOUD toads/frogs (not sure which one they are) which you can see a video of on mel's facebook page. They are so loud, just typing now I can still here them all the way in our room.

I have posted an album of facebook of pictures from the trip (these are far from all of them but they give a good idea of what it is like here) So please feel free to check it out.

Sloths only poop once a week

Today we learned a lot about sloths and got to meet several of them. We also found out that they only poop and pee once a week which I just find insane. They are incredibly sweet animals and they feel surprisingly soft to the touch. Everyone here is so nice and knowledgeable which mostly comes from experience due to the fact that there is hardly any literature on the rehabilitation of sloths. The woman who owns this place has written a book about it and has become the authority on it. They have several babies here as well as adults that they are rehabilitating to go back into the wild. They also have several adults (one with a baby) who will stay here forever due to the fact that they are either too injured or sick to go back. Not to worry though, they're livin' the good life.

After taking the sloth tour we took a ride to Cahuita which is a small town about 10 minutes from here. There are several small restaurants and a pharmacy/shopping center with a few stores. So sad to walk around here and see the quality of life. I'm not implying that these people are unhappy but it's just sad to see women walking around with babies only wearing diapers and dogs running through town with visible rib cages. We met a woman here at the sanctuary who was traveling alone so we offered her a ride into town with us and all 3 of us had dinner at this amazing place called "Cha, Cha, Cha". The food was great and Sue is a really interesting woman. A world traveler, she definitely inspired us to go other places.

Tomorrow morning we are getting up at 6am to go on a canoe tour that the sanctuary runs. They run them all day but the suggested time is 6am due to the wild life being more active at that time and also it's cooler in the morning here. We got lucky and noticed on our drive home from dinner that there are stars out (no clouds) so it seems like we'll be in luck for no rain in the morning. Let's hope it holds up.

Definitely stay posted for more tomorrow, going to take tons of photos on the canoe.

Photos from today:

The view from the outside (buttercup portrait points you in)

Some of the boats that they give the river tours on (view from outside our room)

I am happy to introduce you to "Toyota" who was found in the road and brought to Aviarios Del Caribe Sloth Sanctuary for rehab. They had to amputate his left arm but he is a very happy permanent resident and was very curious about why we were watching him eat his meal.

We will post tons more photos of the baby sloths we got to see as well as buttercup and the canoe tour tomorrow. As for me, I'm off to sleep.

boxes everywhere and I don't have to lift any!

Usually when you call for a service like the cable guy or you're waiting for a delivery they NEVER show up on time. When the movers told me that they were going to arrive somewhere between 9 and 10am I figured they would show up around noon. Not these guys, the bell rang at 8:30am. They came in with a burst of energy that could only be explained by a case of redbull for breakfast. Super efficient and fast these guys went to work. By 10:30 our lives were narrowed down to a large frame-pack and a carry on each. It's an amazing experience to have movers come in. This is the first time that I've ever had movers and I'm not sure that I will ever go back to moving myself again.

Packing for a trip where you are going to be away for 5 weeks, hit 6 countries and completely unpredictable weather is a challenge. Setting out what you "think" you may need and then realizing that you "need" only half of that is a bit un-nerving at first. Then you say to yourself "where am i going that i won't be able to get something if i need it?" and all your apprehension goes away. My main objective was to bring a wide enough variety of clothes while leaving as much room as possible free in the bag for things to bring back.

We leave Monday morning at 6:30am for Costa Rica and are all packed up.

Going to keep posting when it's possible so keep checking in and hopefully there will be something new.