Infections, Doctors, Engineers

Brigham had been complaining of his ankle hurting, but we weren't quite sure what to do.  When we went with the vet to release the sloths, I asked him to look at his ankle.  He was a doctor, right?  Brig had a bug bite that had been infected, and the vet positively affirmed that the infection would need to be cut and drained at the town clinic.  Brig was VERY upset and terrified and cried a lot, but finally went to the doctor.  What a WASTE! The doctor didn't think it need to be drained, but the pressure from the swelling was so painful that when we got home, Adam decided to cut it himself.  The water at this house was super dirty - not just microscopic dirt, but visible sediment at the bottom of the cup.  Gross!  We showered in it, but had to cook and drink bottled water, which cost a lot of money.  I guess the fact that we saved a bundle in gas made up for it.  We didn't drive nearly as far to do stuff as we did in other locations.  Anyway, we boiled some clean water, soaked his foot in it, and Adam cut the skin with a kitchen knife and squeezed out a half a teaspoon of infection.  Yuck!  It hurt Brig so much, but we knew it had to be done.  Within a couple of days Jade showed us a bite on her arm that had a red ring around it.  All we had to do was barely touch it and gunk came out, so we knew it was also really infected.  Brig had to take an oral antibiotic, but Jade's healed with some antibiotic ointment. 

Pretty soon Lily, Lincoln, and Adam all got infected bug bites as well.  There were a few days when we wondered what we were even doing in this place.  It had been raining for days so we couldn't do anything, my mom was on her deathbed in the ICU from a bacteria she contracted while she was visiting us, the ocean was so dirty we got sticks in our swimsuits, the beaches were also full of sticks and kelp....we honestly considered just coming home.  We had experienced SO many things and felt totally satisfied with our vacation.  We thought perhaps that's why we hadn't bought return tickets yet.  BUT - Adam's parents were coming to visit in a couple of weeks, so we had to stay.  Some days felt long.  There was a strange guilt that we weren't happy in Costa Rica with our family.  It was just a change from the incredible places we'd been to, and the rainy weather was killing us.  Apparently that wasn't typical and the tour guides said it wasn't usually like that. Great.  We were especially excited to be on the Caribbean side because the snorkeling was supposed to be fantastic.  Well, the water was so stirred up from the storms that the snorkeling place (Cahuita National Forest) said it probably wouldn't settle till April.  We were super disappointed.

We decided we'd just have to cheer up and figure out fun things to do.  Leave it to the kids!  Since they couldn't go in the water with their bandages, they came up with using all the sticks on the beach to make machines!  They made catapults, tracks, machines that poured sand down different levels of leaves, tube sticks, etc, and had so much fun.  They spent hours creating these!  Homeschool at it's finest!

 Ice cream party on the beach!

 This is Playa Negra, where the sand is black.  We ended up really loving this place after the storms stopped!  Until then we just dealt with the sticks in our swimsuits!  It was a great place for the kids to practice surfing.

 Adam's creative side really came out on the beach!

 

 I never thought I'd be that parent that lets my kid run around nude on the beach, but the reality is that the salt and the sand stuck in her swimsuit really irritated her skin!  It was so much more comfortable for her to go without.  After seeing a lot of bodies and a lot of bikinis, it didn't seem out of place...until I look at it now:). 

The Rescue Center

Because we brought the sloth to the Rescue Center, they let us tour the facility for free!  There were lots of cool animals, but the kids were having a hard time listening to a tour guide - Lincoln was hungry, Eliza was tired, and Brigham had an infected foot and was in a lot of pain.  We had to leave after only about 15 minutes, but saw these cute animals.  They were brought to the facility by people like us. 

 This guy's wing had been broken and he would never been able to fly again and was very cranky!

 This is an ocelot.  He'd been there a long time and was really old.

 These monkeys were so cute!  Their tails had been burned on an electrical wire.

 A much cleaner sloth than the one we found!

Loved the anteater! 

Our Baby Sloth

Our house had a little side apartment for the caretakers, who were quiet and kind and spoke no English.  The second day of moving there, the caretaker showed us a baby sloth he'd found and gestured that it had fallen from it's mother's back and needed to be taken to the rescue center. NO WAY!!!  They had a little dog that was a threat to the baby, which is apparently a major threat to all sloths when they come down to the ground once a week to use the bathroom.

We each had a turn holding this cute sloth and watching it's slow movements, my favorite being the slow eye blink.  These three-toed sloths always look like they're smiling and are so cute!!!

 We set up a little log for it to rest while we got dressed to go.  It's so adorable!!!

We drove to the Rescue Center, about a mile away, and met with the workers there.  They told us she or he (it was still too early to tell), was probably old enough to survive on it's own, so they would take it back to the tree it fell from.  It also happened to be a big day at the Rescue Center because two adult sloths had been nursed back to health for a year and were ready to be released into the wild.  The vet said that sloths die in captivity and they don't know why, so this was a huge deal that they survived!  They invited us to come watch them get released!  WOW!  Adventures keep happening!

 The  baby sloth we found was sooo cute, but this guy was scary!!!  When they opened the cage he hissed and swatted his arms around with those giant claws, and he was NOT slow!  Those arms were swinging fast and the vet was super cautious!  The Rescue Center told us that the wild pet trade is huge and illegal, but it's happening because people thing the babies are so cute and don't realize that they grow up into WILD adults that really hurt them!

 This is the second sloth they released.  It was so fun to watch them climb the trees.  They are not as slow as I imagined, but deliberate, like an experienced rock climber.

 Then we drove back to our house and put the baby back on the tree.  The vet told us to keep an eye on it to see if it looked healthy the next morning.  We checked on it and it was still hanging onto the tree in the exact same spot, but the next day it was gone.  Adam found it a few days later on the ground where it died:(.  We still haven't told the kids.  It was so sad!

Such a cool experience!  This is our backyard, by the way:).  So beautiful.