Far from Philadelphia Irish parade

I realize that today was the kick off start for the next week of St Patrick's day celebrations in Philadelphia. I remember last year getting to celebrate twice in the heart of Upenn area. While everyone enjoyed the nice weather in Philly and the daylight savings, I tried my best to finish writing about today. I am still exhausted from my day out. This is what I get for not biking more often in Philly.
I forgot an important detail of that day about getting to Manzanillo. This detail might make me look better than a fat lazy american who can barely bike 20 miles. The road to Punta Uva is flat, dotted with potholes. Once in Punta Uva, the road changes landscape. Three big hills awaited my poor scrawny legs. The hills had up sides, and down sides, which meant that I was going to need to bike up hill on my way to Manzanillo and home. Obviously, I made it home, but it wasn't without intense pain in my calf muscles for that night which have prolonged to tonight (which didn't help me bike to the Refuge Center at 7 AM).

After I posted my post last night and set up the foursquare account, we actually headed out to the nearest American Sport bar. They had a promise of free shots of guarro, which is another fermented grain. It really is the Costa Rican equivalent of terrible house tequila. It burns and tastes what you would expect a 17 year-old to drink quietly in his parents' basement. It was another bottle I wasn't gonna touch in a long time. On a lighter note, I finally found the beer I was looking for. After looking for a good 5 hours, we had found it. Costa Rica Craft Brewing company brews mostly two kind of beers, a pale ale (Libertas) and a red ale (Segua). Even though I had been looking for a Libertas, I ordered a Segua. And I enjoyed it. It wasn't spectacular, but after drinking Imperial for three days, it was a much needed change. Again, it was very typical for a Red ale, but very atypical for a Costa Rican beer. 

This morning, I had quite the surprise when my alarm clock rang at 6:30AM. Not because it rang. I had set it for that, but when I stepped outside all dressed, ready to go cuddle up with a monkey, I realized it was still dark outside. Even the shrieking of the usual morning birds was quieter. A bad feeling settled in my stomach and I went back in my room. For whatever reason, my instinct told me to google "Costa Rica time" and so I did. It was the same gut feeling that had urging to press a red button by a closing gate in the Metro in Paris. Well, surely enough, I was now two hours behind with the USA. My phone had moved back an hour on its own, which would have been perfectly acceptable in the good ol' country, but here, Costa Rica doesn't have daylight savings. So when my clock moved back one hour, the real time didn't. I was now up and ready to go, bike in hand and backpack on when I really had one hour to spare. I felt silly as my biking partner knew the real time and wasn't up. I parked my bike in the lobby and told the security guard that I will be back in an hour. He nodded and I went back upstairs. There was no way I was going to sleep now. I was in no mood for reading, and the computer screen was too bright for me to try to read. I sat in my bed and tried to think of things to do. So I cleaned my small space, and re-organized my suitcase so everything was easy access. I have no idea how I spent one hour re-organizing my suitcase, but I managed. You might now call me the master of time wasting, because my suitcase as of after my shower is back in its original state.
Marjon, the other volunteer, was waiting for me downstairs. I apologized and put my  hair up in a tight bun and off we went to the Refuge Center.

Today was Sunday, which means no visitors. This day is dedicated to taking the animals out of their enclosure for the whole day. We do therapy with our tucan,and  hawks. We try to force Toneli, the baby monkey that Encar adopted (Remember from my last blog post?) to deal with his anxiety separation. We get Stanley, our Kinkajoo, to come out in the sun and try to adapt to his new found blindness. The monkeys usually go out into the forest for the entire day. There they get to meet other wild monkeys, and if they do find a spot in the troop they join. If not, they can come back with us to their safe heaven.
Chipito is our teenage male howler monkey. In this tribe, he is the alpha male. An alpha male who is scared of the baby monkeys, and of wasps, but there aren't a lot of males around this parts. Little did we know that Chipito hates males. He doesn't only hate males, but if he is being cuddles by one of the female volunteers and a male walks into the area, he will turn aggressive. I witnessed a teenage howler monkey go crazy today on our poor little Jessa. James, her boyfriend, had walked into the monkey enclosure to play with the babies and see if anyone needed to stay back from the jungle (usually out sick monkeys do not go as to rest). Chipito started out by pulling on Jessa's hair, and as soon as James tried to help Chipito off of his girlfriend's hair, Chipito started screaming and howling all the while still pulling on Jessa's hair. It wasn't until I went to get Encar, that we found out what the real problem was. She calmly said "I am not going in there. Get James out and it will be resolved." So I rushed over and told James to come out. Within seconds Chipito had let go of Jessa's hair and rest his head on her messy head of hair. He actually closed his eyes as if he was going for a nap. Jessa and I were in the dormitories, quiet, waiting for him to start acting out again. We could hear our heartbeat in our ears. Chipito actually ended up falling alseep in Jessa's arms later that day, and James got an earful from Jessa about nearly killing her by trying to help her out.

After the event, I went from high up to low down. The baby sloths needed to be taken out for their daily affection. I was chosen to cuddle up with Pomme, our little three toed sloth. We had recently gotten her and she was still looking for her mom. So as soon as she couldn't feel you or hear you, she would start letting out little squeals. It was absolutely adorable as I started napping with her and as she would move, she would suddenly cry desperately until I let her three toes hang my index finger. If this was the biggest complain of the day, I would take it anytime (especially over spider hunting).

The last animal I got to enjoy the company off was Stanley, out kinkajoo. We recently found out that Stanley is blind, and that's why he doesn't come out or try to climb branches very often. Not only that, but Kinkajoos are nocturnal, so we have to wake up out little cat-monkey hybrid and force him to run around and play with us. Encar is amazing at playing with Stanley. I tried to reproduce her technique but it just ended with Stanley, confusingly running around on the grass and into the horse enclosure. My poor little Stanley had no idea where I was, and there was far too many people talking for him to realize what I was suppose to sound like. So instead, we laid on the grass, with him on my chest napping and me looking at the blue sky.
At the end of day he was excited to come back to his bed, and to smell that we had a fresh coconut waiting for him. Too bad we placed it right next to his water bowl and he fell into it. But it didn't matter, to us we call Stanley, Stan the Man. I look forward to many more naps with Stan the Man.

Anyway, I am about to try to catch up on my sleep from last night.

Buenas Noches!