Jennifer Stefancik and Liz Oneil decided to spend Wednesday, March 4th getting to know the area around Cahuita better. Thier first stop was the Tree of Life Wildlife Sanctuary. This sanctuary rescues and rehabilitates injured and abandoned animals. The staff explained to them that some animals are easy to return to the wild while others were not. Young sloths, because they are solitary animals, often adapt successfully to the wild. Young females monkeys are often accepted into a troup while males are not.

All of the animals they saw were indigenous to the area including Coati, Peccary, White Faced monkeys and Howler monkeys. Their favorites were the young sloth and the juvenile Howler monkey. Sloths are slow moving mammals that spend most of their lives in trees. They eat a low nutritive diet of leaves, which may explain their speed.

Howler monkeys are the loudest land animals in the new world. You can hear their guttural howls up to 3 miles away. We were lucky enough to be awakened by them every morning in Cahuita. The juvenile they saw at Tree of Life was very playful. He jumped around them using all his limbs and prehensile tail to swing around the bushes where they were standing.

Later they left the sanctuary and went to Cahuita National Park. Costa Rica has set aside a larger proportion of their land to national parks than any other country in the world. Cahuita National Park protects over over 3700 acres of beaches, forests, mangroves and coral reef. This is the only park in Costa Rica that accepts donations instead of charging a fee, allowing access to everyone. They walked down the shaded path along the beach. They saw Howler monkeys, leaf cutter ants, and amazing Morpho butterflies. Many beaches in the area have black sand due to volcanic ash, but the sand at this beach is white. There are riptides in some areas of the beach and in other areas it is very calm. The hike along the beach is about 5 miles long. It is a unique opportunity to enjoy wildlife and the beach.   They returned to the Atlantida Lodge feeling lucky to have seen so much in one day.