Perezoso=sloth

One of the delights of Costa Rica is spotting a sloth in the wild. It’s extremely hard to do. They mostly look like brown balls high up in trees . . . not so different from a termite pod or wasp’s nest. And even when you spot one, walk away and then try to find it again!

Luckily for those of us who aren’t so good at spotting wild sloths, there are some in rehab zoos that you can see up close. We lucked into seeing one that was awake at La Paz Waterfall Gardens this week. She was a beauty with her long curved claws, her fluffy brown fur, and her “ignore the paparazzi” attitude as she climbed above us. As we left, she’d positioned herself hanging head-down like a bat.

Hmmm, there’s a picture book idea — a sloth who wants to be a bat!

(Perezoso means lazy in Spanish. Here in Costa Rica it’s the word for Sloth.)