Jaguar Rescue Centre

Sat 28th Oct: This morning we headed south 18 kms to Puerto Viejo, first stopping in the town for the farmers market, however this wasn't very big so we decided we would try and make the 9.30 am tour at the nearby Jaguar Rescue Centre rather than the 11.30 am. The name is a bit misleading because sadly there's no jaguars. The center was started in 2008 by two biologists an Italian and a Spanish, who met here, fell in love, moved here and ended up having their house full of injured and abandoned animals, with the first animal supposedly a jaguar, but it was actually an Ocelot, however the locals started calling them the jaguar people and it stuck. Anyway, they have set up a wonderful and very worthwhile center, apart from two vets all the other staff are volunteers from all around the world. There are strict rules, and most of the rehabilitating animals are kept away from human contact apart from the vets and biologists so they can be released back into the wild, however there are some animals that for various reasons can not be released so they are the permanent residents that the public can view. These included 3 macaws, 2 brown boobies, 3 spider monkeys, a caiman, turtles, an Ocelot, a Margay, 2 sloths, a whitetail deer. A great informative 2 hours was spent there. We then carried on a little further south to the end of the road at Manzanillo. We stopped here to check out the beach, and just along a bit was an abandoned, now graffiti boat, which we had fun photographing with the crashing waves on it. Enjoyed a nice long swim, thinking how are we ever going cope with Ohope water temperatures after these 29°C waters. Sadly we called it a day and headed back to Cahuita, stopping at a supermarket to get some supplies for what turned out to be lunch/dinner. We had guacamole and corn chips and blue cheese and crackers along with a local beer for Doug and some Smirnoffs for me.Read more