By Tomoko Takita
I truly enjoyed encountering wildlife while hiking in Hacienda Baru. Whenever I saw the animals, I always forgot about my fatigue from hiking or the fact that I was sweating profusely. My favorite part was seeing a baby sloth.q
Our first encounter with a sloth was when we went bird watching early in the morning. Within no more than 20 minutes, we found a sloth hanging in the trees. It was way high up in the branches but thanks to the telescope, I was able to see it SLOWLY moving. I was also able to see its face and I will never forget that adorable face. As we moved on, I found myself constantly searching for them high in the trees.
My understanding and feeling towards sloths have changed completely since this moment. Before, the only thing I could think about when it came to sloths was that they are “lazy” as the name explains. They spend most of their life hanging from tree branches and sleeping. But the one we saw had such a soft smile and was trying to reach its hand out to grab leaves to eat. The tour guide told me that sloths only climb down from trees and go to the bathroom on the ground about once a week. I found that fact particularly interesting.
The next morning, we were fortunate enough to see a baby sloth. Soon after we left the lodge we stayed at for a night in the jungle, we heard screeches from the trees right next to the path we were walking. When we looked up, we found out that it was baby sloth crying. This time the baby sloth was not high up in a tree, instead it was hanging onto a thin low tree. 
The baby sloth was screeching to find its mother and trying to move to the tree next to it. The tour guide explained to us that the mother sloth spends 6 months with the baby sloth, then lets it grow independently. I felt happy to see a baby sloth from such a close distance, but when the tour guide told us that sloths could die by falling off from trees, I began to worry that the baby sloth would fall. It successfully moved to the next tree and a relieved cheer aroused from our members. I also really enjoyed the moment whenever we found an animal because everybody in our group would help each other try to spot the wildlife with our bare eyes. We shared the excitement by finding them together.