After much more wildlife watching, we go to the front desk to see if we can get a late checkout. Checkout is at noon, and our driver isn't coming until 1:00 p.m. No dice; they tell us the hotel is full and that they need the room, so we get packed up, check out, and bring all our luggage with us to the restaurant for lunch. We share a grilled chicken casado and nachos, and I splurge and get a pina colada. It arrives with a little umbrella in it, and a straw with a paper pineapple hanging off of it - seems like a festive way to end this part of our trip! The food is very good, and the drink is great. As we finish, my husband says he's going to head to reception to see if the driver is there yet. My husband returns and says, "I want to give you a heads up that the driver is going to hug you." "Huh?" I ask. Turns out he's there waiting, and he gave my husband a great big bear hug, AND he hugged some random woman standing next to him in reception because he thought she was married to my husband! Funny! In all our trips, we've never had a driver want to hug us before!

We leave the restaurant, and upon seeing the driver, he swoops in and gives me the biggest bear hug. He doesn't speak any English, but is very friendly (clearly!), and with my basic Spanish I'm able to understand everything he says. We head back out on the bumpy AOL road one last time. The friendly folks in reception wave goodbye to us as we go. (They're probably thinking now they can get to work catching those coatis!)

The whole story about the coatis, especially the piece where they thought that you wanted to trap some, is very funny :)

alisa, we thought it was so funny too. Clearly a miscommunication. I felt like that waiter was giving us the side eye every time we went in there, thinking, "Here come those crazy tourists that want to trap our animals!"

Our driver's name is Oliver - "Oh-lee-vur," he tells us. He's great. He narrates our entire drive in Spanish. The first thing he points out is that there are free natural hot springs right next to fancy Tabacon. Just right across the road if you peer down, you can see loads of people in the river there enjoying free hot springs heated by the volcano. "No mucho dinero," he says. Then he points to Tabacon and says, "Muuuucho dinero." Yep, I agree. Then he tells us that every Costa Rican city has four things: an escuela, an iglesia, futbol, and most importantly a cantina! This is true! So for each town we come to, he points those four things out to us! As we drive along, I see that La Fortuna has a new water park - lots of Costa Rican families seem to be enjoying it. We travel along with Oliver saying, "Esto pueblito es..." and filling in the name of the towns as we go. We're headed to the Toucan Rescue Ranch; I'm pretty excited because I love animals, and we get to have breakfast with baby sloths. We come to the San Ramon area, and there are signs for the Lands in Love hotel that advertise their Superman cable. Oliver points to Superman, and says, "Tarzan!" Close enough! It begins pouring rain, and we spend the rest of the drive back towards San Jose relaxing and enjoying the scenery along with Oliver's narration.

I have a question only weakly related to the post. If your flight were to arrive at 3:30pm, would you drive to Arenal or MA the same evening? Is it dangerous to have a driver drive us partially in the dark?

Not dangerous if you have a private driver. They'll pick you up right at the airport and in about three hours you'll be at your destination. They're very confident on the roads and drive at night all the time. We've done it with no problems. Just not a good idea for people who are unfamiliar with the roads to do it. We had one trip where our flight was delayed, and we got in at 9:00 p.m. and our driver was still there waiting for us. It's nice to wake up in your location on that second day.

Thank you, that really helps!

Our driver even brought pillows and blankets for us, and bottled water. It was pretty nice to end the day that way - made it so easy!

Nice!
I guess I am just worried that our flight will be late or it will be rainy or foggy on top of being dark. But I guess I just have to relax -- I can't control everything :)

So it turns out the Toucan Rescue Ranch is hard to find. Our driver is very experienced, but he can't find the place. We drive around with him yelling out the window, "Hey, Donde esta tucan?" "Tucan?!" People on the side of the road shrug. I have the phone number, so he decides to call to get directions. Even with directions, he's not sure we're going in the right direction. We see a big toucan statue on the side of the road that seems to indicate we're getting very close. We're in a residential area which isn't really what I expected. We thought we would be out in the boonies, but we come to a big locked gate, and this seems to be the place.

The driver lays on the horn. Nothing happens. He lays on the horn again, and we see someone coming toward the gate to unlock it. I recognize Leslie, the owner of the ranch, from photos I've seen online. She greets us warmly, unlocks the gate, and we drive in. Oliver unloads our luggage and before I know it, he swoops me up in his arms for another big bear hug. "Adios," he says. "Gracias, gracias." And he drives away leaving us with Leslie on the gravel driveway. She tells us we'll have our own little casita which is great. The other casita is housing a volunteer, so we pretty much have the place to ourselves. All around us are huge cages full of animals, 150 of them she tells us! It's starting to get dark, so Leslie lets us into our little house, and it's really cute. We have our own small kitchen, a pretty dining area that's painted bright orange, a bathroom, and a bedroom area with beds for five people. She gives us our key and tells us the WIFI is best out front if we'd like to use it, so we head to the two rockers and download our emails. She presents us with some menus and tells us she would be happy to order dinner in for us, and that's what we decide to do. We give her our credit card, and we order two chicken dinners with veggies. The food arrives, and it's delicious; they've also included a free loaf of bread for Leslie since she orders from this place so often. She tells us she will toast the bread for breakfast. The chicken is super flavorful and comes with a huge serving of veggies (so happy to see veggies!) and some fantastic roasted potatoes. Also comes with a side salad, and it's so much food, we probably could have split an order. After we eat, we walk up to the main house and see Leslie on the front porch feeding two baby sloths with a tiny dropper. She tells us that she feeds them every four or five hours around the clock. This woman is dedicated! I want to take some photos, but flash photography bothers the animals, so we decide to wait until morning. After chatting and learning the history of the ranch, we go back to our cozy casita. Glowing eyes stare back at us as we go, and I find myself wishing I knew what was in all those cages!

As we fall asleep, we start hearing crazy noises - squawking, hooting, etc. The worst offenders are the toucans - like 100 croaking frogs and 100 creaky gates. We look at each other and laugh. My husband puts a pillow over his head! Then I spy a little box of earplugs on the nightstand. Perfect! We both pop a pair in, and that helps considerably. We're looking forward to having a nice breakfast with the babies and to doing a two hour narrated tour of the property in the morning.

alisa, I'm always shocked at how well the drivers do in the pouring rain and heavy, dense fog. Things that would terrify us don't phase them a bit, at least that's been our experience. If your flight is late, your driver will wait for you. We always send them our flight info. so they know. No worries.

In the morning, we stroll up to the main house. Now that it's light outside, we can see which animals are in which cages. We see toucans, both keel-billed and chestnut-mandibled, a caracara, porcupines, a hawk, monkeys, curassows, an otter, grissons, macaws, sloths - it's really an amazing place. The animals look so well cared for, and the cages are roomy and clean with fresh hay inside. There's a big empty cage in the middle of the property and other cages run all along the perimeter. This place even has an outdoor kitchen where they prepare fresh meals and its own small animal clinic. You would never think all of this could be here when you drive past the other houses and up to the front gate.

Leslie sees us and tells us that breakfast is ready and to come on up. She's made scrambled eggs, tortillas, rice and beans, and fresh pineapple which we enjoy on the porch. She brings out the cutest tiny little baby two-toed sloths, one is dark and the other is lighter. They're fluffy and helpless looking with huge, sweet eyes; they look like little Teddy bears. Their names are Mocha and Latte. While we eat, Leslie gives them hot pink hibiscus flowers to eat and droppers full of goat's milk. They cling to the front of her, and it really is like she has two little infants to take care of!

All of the animals here are either injured or very young without mothers. Leslie and her husband rehabilitate and release as many as they can. She's a former occupational therapist and tells us she likes to get the animals as strong as possible. She even built a little ladder for an owl to hop down to build up its strength. She finds the perfect logs for the toucans to dig out, so they can lay their eggs inside. We ask about the empty cage, and she tells us its for the oncilla, a small cat that's definitely in there, but is hiding in the tall grass.

After breakfast, a volunteer named Storm (awesome name!) takes us on our tour. She takes us past the outdoor kitchen where another volunteer is slicing up fresh fruit and on to the clinic. She asks us to stay outside to keep the clinic as hygienic as possible, but she brings a great potoo and an injured sloth for us to see. They even have their own veterinarian who can perform surgeries on site.

After the clinic, we go from cage to cage with Storm telling us about each animal. There's the caracara that's been shot - as we watch, another caracara flies down from the sky and perches on top of the cage - they like to talk to each other she says. We also see a monkey whose tail has been cut off - the owners didn't want him to be too mobile. There's a baby otter that was separated from its mother when local kids through rocks at them. All kinds of sad stories, but they all seem to be happy and on the mend now. We come to the big empty cage and Storm asks if we would like to see the oncilla. Of course we would, so she goes and gets something to feed it. She places a mouse (deceased) on the end of a stick, and before she can even get it in the cage, the oncilla has sprung out of the grass and swiped the mouse right off the end through the bars of the cage with his big fuzzy paw. He's quick!

Originally the ranch was only for the care of birds, macaws and toucans. Then people started bringing other injured animals to her, and she had to learn all about caring for this huge variety of wildlife. Now they have this great place. They even Skype with school kids in the U.S. so they can learn about the animals, and now they have a children's book about a baby sloth. All the money goes for the care and rehab of these amazing animals. As we finish up, a big group of school kids arrives to take the tour, and they squeal with delight when they see the cute little babies. Who can blame them?!

We tell Leslie that the ranch was a little hard for the driver to find, and she says that she deliberately lays low because there are unscrupulous people who might break in and try to hurt or steal the animals. She doesn't even have an address. They're always looking for volunteers to bring supplies down from the States, so if anyone ever decides to stay here and can bring any materials down with them, I know they would be really grateful. Leslie and her husband own a ranch in another area of the country, and that's where she releases the sloths when they're ready. She told us she had just released a sloth there and had painted its toenails red as a way to identify it, and people see it and tell her it's doing great. Another animal had a small amount of antibiotic on it, and she's seen that one too with a little bit of the antibiotic paint still visible. Lots of cool success stories. As we're talking she brings out some baby three-toed sloths for us to see; they sit in a big bucket full of cozy blankets and eat cecropia leaves - they look pretty darn content! She teaches them to climb - one climbs up the table leg, and another one up the rocking chair. It's like having toddlers that you have to keep a constant eye on, but she makes it look easy.

This report needs baby sloth photos :)

They sure are a lot cuter as babies than they are as adults. Leslie says she has to keep a real eye on them. She had one on the lawn, and it had scooted up a tree before she knew it. They seem so slow, but I guess they can pick up speed when they want to! Patty, are you on tripadvisor? I have some pics up on my TRR review - lots of sweet baby sloth photos. When Leslie left for a second to get something inside, one of them reached for me, and I was so tempted to just scoop it up!

VG - what a wonderful read! Glad you enjoyed some of my favorite destinations and had great success in seeing the quetzals, hummers and so much wildlife at AOL.

Isn't Rio Celeste one of the most beautiful places ever? Not just in Costa Rica, but in the world!

Your travelogue makes me want to return to Costa Rica soon, but the Pantanal is calling, so my next big trip will be back to Brazil. However, Costa Rica remains my favorite place in the world!!

Thanks for taking the time to share your adventures with all of us.

Just saw the pics on TA, adorable! I think the adults are still cute! We saw one moving painfully slow on the ground and then quickly scamper up a tree.

Me too, Patty, especially the two toed species. For some reason, everyone's photos are jumbled up, but I love the ones in the green bucket with the pink blankets and the one of the baby nibbling a hibiscus flower. It seems like it would be difficult for two sloths to find each other in the wild! And weird sloth trivia, Leslie said they're very clean because they only need to go to the bathroom once a week. I guess their metabolism is just incredibly slow.

colibri, yes, thank you so much for all your great suggestions. I'm so happy that we tried all the places we did. We had a great trip! Rio Celeste is just stunning. Since we've had so many trips to CR, I think it takes a little more to impress us now, and we were just wowed by it. I would love to go back and spend more time there. Brazil sounds amazing; maybe we'll follow in your footsteps!

I can’t believe I haven’t see this TR until now…but I guess that’s because we were away, too. I love your descriptions, it’s like being there. Oh well, almost ☺

Savegre sounds like a wonderful place, I think it’s on the list for our next trip to CR. Not sure when… When in the nesting season for quetzals?

He-he, I use the same “Birds of Costa Rica” book. I hope it will come useful for the Honduras trip, they are in the same area, more or less, so we’ll see. We just came back from South Africa, and saw lots of birds, there, too. Way more than I expected anyway…maybe 60-70 new (for me) ones. But no hummingbirds…and no quetzals, of course.

Wow, 50 people on the AOL hike, that’s a lot! Where they all staying at AOL? How big is it?

I’ve never seen an eyelash viper, I wonder if they have them in Honduras…
Note to self: remember RAC’s “no sauce” rule.
And will you post pictures? I am dying to see them.