Check out part 1 of the Cinnamon Sun adventure here!

After we left Oxygen, we headed back to San Jose for another night at the Brilla Sol before the volunteering part of our honeymoon began. The trip from San Jose to the Sloth Sanctuary on the Caribbean coast (near Cahuita) is about 4 hours. We used a service called Interbus to get out there. Interbus picks up from various hotels, and shuttle you where you want to go. They have a rough schedule, and you’re in a nice air-conditioned van that seats about 10. We also used Easy Ride to get back to San Jose from the Sloth Sanctuary later. Given the choice, I’d pick Easy Ride, as they were more flexible about where they’d pick you up and drop you off, and you don’t need to pre-pay. You can just pay your driver when he shows up!

We went to the Sloth Sanctuary to volunteer. Yes, it was our honeymoon, but this sounded like such a unique experience that we knew we both wanted to do it. Here is a basic run-down of a day as a sloth sanctuary volunteer.

5:30am – Wake up to the sounds of howler monkeys outside your window.

6:00am – Head to the sloth cages. Grab a dustpan, brush, cloth, and bottle of vinegar/water and get to cleaning your section’s cages! They tried to have everyone have a set section, so you could bond better with the sloths. Obviously with people coming and going and days off you weren’t always on the same ones, but it was pretty close.

7:00am – First feeding (for the sloths. You still haven’t had breakfast yet!) Count out leaves for everyone, then deliver to the cages.

8:00am – Human breakfast! We took turns cooking breakfast for the group, and ate on a beautiful dock outside.

8:30am – Enrichment time. This was an alternating schedule of volunteers. Each day one group would take some babies out to the jungle gym to learn how to climb, and another group would take some of the sloths out on the jungle trail to have a good sniff of everything.

Cuddling baby Mirra

Baby Mirra on the jungle gym.

CB taking a bradypus (3 fingered) sloth for a walk.

Arthur the choloepus (2 fingered sloth) going walkies.

10:00am – Project Time. There were a couple segments of project time each day. This was where you got to use your own skills to help the sanctuary. Good at SEO? Help with the website! You’re a writer? Write some blog posts! Want to work with your hands? Chop some paths! Once Cinnamon Buns told them that my job is all about organizing and scheduling…. we were made the volunteer Volunteer Coordinators. That part was almost a little too much like working, when I’d gone there to be on vacation, but once we had a scheduling system down, all was good. We did it together to make sure that neither of us missed out on any sloth time.

11:00am – Choppy choppy time. This was when we prepared the sloths’ food. We peeled and cut lots and lots of veggies at this time, and sorted pounds and pounds and pounds of leaves.

Jojo sez: "Mmmm, cecropia leaves!"

12:00-1pm – Human lunch. Lunch (and dinner) were cooked for us by Sloth Sanctuary staff. We ate a lot of rice and beans, traditional Costa Rican cuisine.

1pm-2pm – More project time

2pm – Second sloth feeding. This time we just got to feed them, we didn’t clean the cages like we did in the mornings. At this feeding, the sloths got all the carrots, tubers, and beans we prepped earlier in the day. I always carried my camera with me when feeding, and we came home with about 1000+ photos from the trip, most of them of sloths.

3pm – Free time! Some days we’d all go out to Cahuita, the nearby town, most days we’d stay at the Sanctuary in our rooms or on the deck and read/write diary entries/Skype home/explore the grounds/whatever you wanted.

Part of the Sloth Sanctuary's grounds.

We made friends with some creatures that we will never forget. I want to introduce you to:

Billy, and his stuffed bunny.

Cinnamon Buns and Jojo doing ‘Thriller’. (Jojo wouldn’t go to the bathroom in his cage, and has learned to climb into your arms/up your legs/jump on your head to be taken outside to go on the grass).

Laylo coming over to say hi to me and be picked up.

Laylo’s cage-mate Wall-e trying to decide if my shorts have enough claw-holds to climb. Laylo and Wall-e were two of the friendliest little guys – they’re the ones that would climb all over you while you’re trying to sweep their cage!

Snaggletooth.

The adorable Zoe.

A wild bradypus sloth who came to visit after some females had been making their ‘I’m in heat!!’ calls.

Oh, and we met some awesome people, too.

It was definitely a non-traditional thing to do on a honeymoon, but it was amazing. We got to spend much more time in Costa Rica than if we’d been staying at hotels and doing touristy things. We got to spend the so much time together, which was wonderful after our crazy work schedules. We learned all about these amazing creatures – neither of us really expected them to be so full of personality, but they’re all little furry individuals! It’s sad that so many have been injured or abandoned, and need this sort of care, but it was great to meet them. The Sanctuary did also release some sloths back in to the wild while we were there too. (Not counting sneaky Jasper who escaped after picking his lock with his claws!).

Us, with Toby and Velcro.

This was more than just a honeymoon, it was the trip of a lifetime, mainly because of all the little furry friends we made.

If you need more sloths (and who doesn’t?) have a look at this video CB cut together once we got home:

Would you ever consider volunteering on your honeymoon / a big vacation with your partner?

This photo taken with my camera by one of Oxygen's staff.

I just have to tell everyone, right now, that our honeymoon was amazing. It was a life-altering experience. I had the time of my life, and I had never felt that way before. And, I owe it all to youuuuu. Had I not been part of Weddingbee, I don’t know that I ever would have heard of Oxygen Jungle Villas (from Mrses Brooch and Lox). Maybe Costa Rica would never have been on our radar! But thanks to those two ladies it was, and now I’ll tell you all about it. We spent 3 weeks in Costa Rica, this first post will be about the first 4 days we spent at Oxygen and the surrounding area. This honeymoon happened the February after our June wedding.

Flying from Calgary to Costa Rica was pretty easy – one change in Houston, which we made with enough time to eat dinner at the airport before heading onwards. We got in to San Jose at night, so we needed a hotel to stay at that night before we went to a smaller regional airport (San Jose Pavas) to take our little flight to the Pacific Coast. We didn’t want to spend lots of our trip driving, so we chose to fly from San Jose to Quepos on the Pacific coast, pick up a rental car in Quepos, then drive to Oxygen. Driving from San Jose to Oxygen is 3-4 hours I believe, while our flight was 25 minutes, and Quepos to Oxygen was about 45 minutes. That way we’d still have a car to explore with, but wouldn’t have to navigate San Jose or any major roads. We chose to stay at the Hotel Brilla Sol that first night in San Jose. It had been recommended by the place we were volunteering at later in the trip. It was cheap (but cash only!) and cheerful, and included a breakfast where we both gorged on fresh fruit. We ate a lot of fresh fruit on this trip.

Breakfast on the terrace at Brilla Sol

The Brilla Sol is behind a big iron gate, which was a bit scary, but most businesses in this area seemed to be surrounded by fences, gates, barbed wire, or some combination of the above. The Brilla Sol was close to the main airport, but not so close to Pavas airport, so we spent a fair amount of time in a taxi during rush hour, both relieved we weren’t driving.

Once at Pavas airport, they weighed our luggage, our carry-ons, and us. Yes, the plane is that small. We had a bit too much luggage, but we’re both small people so I think the airline clerk was nice to us and didn’t charge us for being over on baggage. We had some great views of the country as we flew over it:

At Quepos, the adventure began. We had arranged our rental car through Alamo, who had been recommended by Oxygen. There was a man with an Alamo truck at the Quepos ‘airport’ (really just a Quonset hut by a small airstrip). Hm, we hadn’t rented a truck. Turns out Alamo was all out of cars, but Elvis was here to drive us to Oxygen, and would drop off a car for us at the resort as soon as one was available.

We were at Oxygen by 10:30am and it. was. amazing. Our room wasn’t ready, but the staff was very welcoming, so we basked poolside with fresh fruit smoothies until the room was ready. Really, we would have just put our stuff down in the room and come out to bask anyway, so it didn’t bother us in the least. As we had no car, we spent the day basking, lazing, and swimming. Not a bad way to spend the first full day of your honeymoon! And what a view!

Now before you get too excited about the adventures we had once the intrepid Elvis brought us our car…. it never came. The lovely Oxygen staff kept phoning Alamo for us, and the answer was always ‘Soon!’ Soon never materialized, but it honestly didn’t phase us. We spent some much-needed down time in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We ate every meal at Oxygen, and every meal was amazing. The 5-course surprise dinner menu? Worth it, every time. The wine was also reasonable… we may have polished off a bottle every night we were there!

We did a little more than just lazing by the pool, though. We went on a mini-hike to a waterfall on Oxygen’s property:

We saw some wildlife:

That is a coati, a bit like a raccoon.

We hung out together in the shade of some lovely umbrellas:

Umbrella by day

Umbrella by night

And for a bit of adventure we went down to the village (Uvita) and went on a waterfall rappelling adventure! One of the staff at Oxygen recommended this trip to us and it was awesome. I overheard an older couple the morning before we went saying ‘$80 each is too much to walk down a river! Why would I do that?!’ Let me tell you, this is not walking down a river:

The trip was run by Costa Canyoning, and I would recommend it over and over! I felt so safe, and it was tons of fun. The guides even had a waterproof camera, and we all got a DVD of photos at the end of the tour. We even had delicious beverages and homemade salsa after all our exertions! The funny part about this excursion was that it was Cinnamon Buns and I and 3 other tourists. The three others were from…. (wait for it)….. Calgary! Small world. If you go on this trip, leave everything at your hotel. EVERYTHING. You do have to swim at some points, plus the water pelting down – not a good combo for things in pockets. Luckily, we both managed to keep our glasses on our faces, although one of those glasses tie things might have made me feel a little more secure. We even left our wedding rings at the hotel, which I think was a good choice. I would have worried to much about losing them to enjoy the excursion!

After that adventure, we had a couple’s massage back at Oxygen, which was an excellent combination.

As our car never appeared we taxied back to Quepos airport. All in all, not having the car saved us money, as we only had to pay for the taxi back to Quepos ($80). I did have a moment of worry when the driver who picked us up at the resort stopped at the crossroads in town, got out, and his friend got in to drive us, but we got there! I’m a little sad we never got to tip Elvis, who was lots of fun on the drive to Oxygen – we assumed we’d be able to do it when he brought us our car.

In short: I would recommend Oxygen Jungle Villas to anyone and everyone! They aren’t an all-inclusive but we feel that what we paid for everything (room, meals, drinks, massage) was very reasonable. More reasonable that a lot of all-inclusives I researched, even. It’s a beautiful location with a wonderful view that we just didn’t get tired of.

Next up: Slothymoon!

Sloth self-portrait