New Year's Surprise Visitor
01 January 2012 | Portobelo, Panama
Debbie
After having a nice steak dinner at Captain Jack's bar/hostel then listening to karaoke at Morgan's Cave tavern for new year's eve, Bryan woke me early (7 a.m.) this morning whispering, "Come and look at the dinghy,.... quick." What a surprise. It wasn't actually in the dinghy but asleep and hanging on the lifeline was a SLOTH. ... Not just the calm, easy-going 3-toed sloth. No, sir-eeee. This was the 2-toed sloth that our friend, Jan, had educated us about before we left the States. This little rascal hissed and snapped his mouth in slow-motion threatening us with his canines as we tried to get a blanket around him. It took about an hour but we finally got him all tangled up in the big fishing net, wrapped the blanket around him so his claws wouldn't get us, lowered him to the dinghy, and took him to shore. Remember, we're about 1/4 mile from shore so he had to have swum to our boat and climbed our anchor chain, therefore, he wasn't happy that we were taking him back. We found a piece of bamboo on the shoreline that he grabbed hold of and Bryan hauled him over and transferred him to the nearest tree. He was pretty cute, but his hiss was kind of scary.