Since we had to take a taxi out to the park, we went with the driver's recommendation, and ended up at ___________ sloth park. Part of the attraction of this particular park was that we could hang out with a variety of animals, including monkeys and rainbow macaws.
After paying our entrance fee of $10 a person, we were immediately ushered back to the sloth cage and asked who wanted to be the first to hold one. Songbird jumped at the opportunity and held the fury creature with joy and ease. Then the sloth was past around our group from person to person.
Although I know that sloths are extremely slow-moving, I could feel my heart-rate increasing when it came to Hubry's turn, and the sloth was wrapped around both he and Cuatro. Cuatro very calmly reach out his hand to hold the sloth's gigantic claws, and I couldn't help but imagine the damage that could be done to Cuatro's face if the sloth had a single moment of intense energy and swiped at him. As it turns out, this first animal encounter was the most controlled of all. I would only grow more and more uncomfortable with the animal encounters as the tour progressed.
Next stop was the monkeys. I still don't exactly understand what was going on, because some of the monkeys were in cages while others were free to climb on our backs and run and leap off our heads at will. I'm not sure these "free monkeys" were deserving of their special privileges, but the cages were mostly just to keep certain monkeys separated from each other, not at all to keep the people separate from the monkeys. In fact, we were ushered in to visit the caged monkeys with hand-fulls of peanuts. I was extremely uncomfortable with the feeling of being drop-bombed by hyper monkeys, but the children seemed to think it was the most amazing thing ever.
The most amazing thing ever, that is, until Miss Raindrop got bit on the finger by a greedy monkey. Our fearless guide brushed it off (even though there was an open wound and blood involved) and told her not to worry about it and to go back into the fray. I almost had to fight him to get Raindrop back out of the cage and deal with her cut with hand-sanitizer (because who knows what diseases monkeys may have??) After that I told Hubry I didn't want our precious babe in another monkey cage, and I was perfectly happy viewing the animals from outside their cages!
But the next stop was the rainbow macaws, and of course I couldn't hold the eager children back. They were going to get to feed the birds, and maybe touch them, and maybe collect some feathers, and "don't forget to put a hat on," the guide called out after them. Hmm, this was making me feel uncomfortable again, but let's just see what happens. It only took a few seconds of watching huge birds land on the children's heads before I knew that something was bound to happen. And that something happened to BRO this time, and it happened in the form of another finger bite, and it happened without ruffling the feathers of our fearless guide one bit! I decided I would need to take the baby and go to a quite place to pray and regain my composure, because I simply couldn't stand around watching the children with sharp talons so close to their eyes (the talons of a bird are a completely different matter than the claws of a sloth).
Thankfully, the last animal to encounter was a Honduran deer, and we weren't allowed in the cage with it, so this Mama felt completely at ease. Even though we escaped the park with only two finger wounds, I couldn't help but think, this kind of experience would NEVER happen here. I think that's why the children thought it was one of the coolest things they've ever done. I, for one, was glad to get back to the gentle shore and peaceful beach....
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