As if touching a sloth weren’t enough, on the very next day we got to visit an animal rescue center.  The Web page said we would get to volunteer there, helping to feed the rescued animals.  What kinds of animals would we get to touch there?

Well, we got to see many more than we could touch, but many of the animals at the ASIS Project were conditioned to human contact. Although they were wild animals, a lot of these guys came to the Project from private homes where people thought it was a good idea to have wild animals as pets.  Of course, this is not a good idea, and it’s against the law.  When police are called to one of these homes (usually by angry neighbors), they confiscate the animals and bring them to a place like the ASIS Project.  The people who try to keep the wild animals as pets have to pay a steep fine.

We were able to pet Perla. Our guide said some Costa Ricans saw Americans on tv with potbellied pigs as pets and thought peccaries could be kept, too. Bad call.

Alternately, the person who brought home a baby peccary or spider monkey comes to realize after a time that a teenage peccary or spider monkey is not the best thing to have in a human home.  These people tend to call the police themselves and say something like, “Hey, I found this teenage spider monkey in my living room.”  These animals wind up at ASIS as well.  

Although the goal of the center is to nurse animals back to health and return them to nature. most animals raised with humans cannot be released into the wild.  They would seek human contact, and really freak people.  Also, they would not be able to socialize with other wild animals of their species.  Both of these situations would put the animals at great risk in the wild.  

This spider monkey’s former owner taught it to hold hands.

For that reason we were able to help feed most of the animals, and some of the ones that were destined to spend the rest of their days in the rescue center we were able to touch.

Here’s Lanie’s account:

We went to ASIS. It was really fun.  First, we saw a pig named Perla. Perla was nice and we got to pet her.  Her hair felt like plastic.

Then we saw another pig named Pancho.  He was wild.  We could not touch him.

We also saw a raccoon.  She loved water.

It’s only a little boa constrictor.

Then we saw some spider monkeys.  Next, I got to hold the snake!

We saw lots of birds.  We also saw coatis and white-faced monkeys.

The beautiful ocelot was set to get a bigger cage soon. It could not be returned to the wild.

Then we saw an ocelot.

After a coffee break we got to feed the animals.  First we had to cut up papaya, mango, banana, corn, cucumbers, carrots, and cabbage.  There was also bird seed.

The animals ate the fruit and the corn first, and only ate the vegetables when the other stuff was gone.  The parrots liked the sunflower seeds best.

Getting food ready for the animals

Feeding the Blue Macaw

Editor’s note: Our host in La Fortuna, who was a great source of information on the area, highly recommended a tour with Giovanni.  He said that Giovanni had an almost magical ability to spot animals, and that no one had ever failed to rave about his tour.  So we signed up, even though it meant leaving at 5:30 am!  We thought the price tag was a little steep (that pesky “per person” thing again), but when we saw what Giovanni was doing — preserving his own little section of the rainforest from development, reforesting it, and developing a path that will be handicap-accessible and tailored to the blind, we actually ended up making an additional contribution.  And, we certainly got our money’s worth.  When our morning tour had ended, Giovanni saw how much the girls loved the sloths.  So he told us he’d meet us again in the afternoon and take us to a place where we could see babies up close and touch some iguanas.  He led us on a drive about half an hour away and delivered on both promises!  Giovanni told us he thought Lanie should be a tour guide, since she loves animals so much.  And now, on to Lanie’s review:

Introduction
Mom booked a tour.  It was from a guy who made paths in his own reserve.  In the big reserves, the animals avoid the paths because of all the people.  We woke up early to see the animals.  Here they are!

Toucans
We saw about 5 toucans.  They were so colorful!  Our guide called them froot loops.  We saw two different kinds together.

Blue jeans frog

Blue jeans frog (Strawberry poison dart frog)
They are venomous.  The are small with blue legs and a red middle; that is why it is called the blue jeans frog.

Red-eyed tree frog
They are small.  They are green.  They look like Monty.  (Monty is a stuffed animal that Lanie bought at the women’s craft cooperative store in Monteverde.)

Sloth
We saw 6 sloths in the morning.  They were really fuzzy.  Later we even saw a baby!  We saw a three-toed sloth and two-toed sloths.

Basilisk lizard

Basilisk lizard (“Jesus Christ lizard”)
We saw a big green lizard.  It is a basilisk lizard.  They can walk on water.  The one we saw was in a tree.

Sloth again
In the secret part of our tour we pet a baby sloth.  Our guide looked in all sorts of small trees, then he found the sloth.  It felt like a stuffed animal.  It was so fuzzy!  It moved and we left.