Bananas, Frijoles, & Monkeys Part 3

I definitely have to try to get these posts done quickly while all of my memories are still fresh. My first day back at school already has my mind wandering off to other priorities. Where was I? I think I'm now on days 5 and 6.

On our fifth day, we left Laguna Lodge in Tortuguero and made our way to San Carlos Valley and Fortuna. On our long bus ride back to town, we stopped for lunch and had our best lunch of the trip. We also saw this really large tree. I think it was a mountain almond tree. It totally reminded me of Home Tree in Avatar. Our pictures do not properly illustrate the magnitude of how large this tree is, but we tried. I also got to see my first sloth! Sloths are one of my favorite animals. Thanks to Jesus, I learned that a nickname for the sloths is lazy bears. Our last pit stop was at a pineapple plantation. It takes 8-10 years to grow a pineapple when planting the top of pineapple in the ground. The very enthusiastic guide also shared that a pineapple planter can plant 8,000 shoots in an hour! Once we got to our hotel, we walked down to town. It was nice to get away from the group for a bit.

On our sixth day, we went on another boat cruise in the Cano Negro wildlife refuge. Before we got to the refuge, we stopped by the blooming iguana tree. At the refuge, we got to see Blondie. She's a howler monkey with a genetic mutation that makes her have a gorgeous golden coat. We also saw an anhinga, the smallest kingfisher, blue herons, and some more egrets. We spent the rest of the afternoon at Baldi Hot Springs. It was beyond our expectations. There were multiple pools of varying temperatures surrounded by multiple gardens. When we got too hot, we just jumped into one of the cooling pools. For some excitement, there were three water slides. The highest temperature pool we found was 115 degrees Fahrenheit.