Can you overdose on adorable?

They grabbed at my heartstrings – and my pen and notebook – and tugged until I was firmly under the sloth spell. I was not prepared for that.

My sister Laura had fallen victim years before, talking about sloths all the time, following and sending sloth videos, and even dressing up as a sloth for Halloween. So when we planned a trip to Costa Rica together with her husband, Chris, we all just rolled our eyes. We knew a visit to the Sloth Sanctuary was mandatory. Laura booked us on the Insiders’ Tour, which meant the regular tour plus extra time behind-the-scenes in the Slothpital, the kitchen and the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit).

When we picked Laura and Chris up at the San José airport, she immediately began scanning all the trees for sloths. I worried that she would find her vacation with us a disaster if she didn’t see one. Soon. So I scanned the trees along with her then and the next day as we drove to the small town of Cahuita, on the Caribbean coast.

“I see one! I see one!” she said, pointing exuberantly to a dark mass up in the trees.

“No, Laura, that’s a termite mound,” I said. “Or a bromeliad.”

The trees are full of both and she quickly learned to distinguish the difference. But the moment finally came when she called to Bill in a different tone of voice to stop the car. Sure enough, she had spotted a wild sloth less than 24 hours after arriving! I was in awe of her abilities, since I am terrible at spotting wildlife. All I had was a sore neck. However, I was relieved that her major vacation goal had been accomplished so soon.

A few days later, we visited the Jaguar Rescue Center, which rescues, rehabilitates and releases (when possible) a wide variety of mistreated, injured, orphaned, and confiscated animals. No jaguars, but we saw a margay (a gorgeous ocelot-like cat), crocodile, parrots, peccaries, baby howler monkeys, capuchin monkeys and…sloths!

Our guide, Luis, took us to the enchanting sloth garden, where the healthy sloths slept, hung, slept, crawled over each other, slept and blinked their eyes slowly at us.

Luis pointed out the scars on his forearms and explained that sloths can be fast when trying to defend themselves. Rescuing them is tough, because they bite and claw when they’re afraid. “I prefer to rescue a 12-foot fer de lance,” (ed. snake) he said.

Finally, the day came for our Sloth Sanctuary visit.

Marco, our tour guide, said sloths get a bad rap. “It’s not fair,” he said. “Sloths are energy efficient, not lazy. Kind of like a Prius.”

Marco took the group first to meet the older sloths and recounted their heart-wrenching stories. Bruno has a soft mat across the bottom of his cage because he’s a paraplegic. Chewbacca was an illegal pet fed on toxic papaya leaves and cow milk. L’il Angel fell from a tree onto barbed wire and is blind. Abbey and PJ fell onto electrical powerlines on a rainy day. Blake was attacked by dogs and is missing an arm.

Laura knew the answers to all the questions both guides asked us.

• What are the common reasons sloths need rescuing? Electrocution from badly insulated powerlines that the sloths climb on. Dog attacks. Getting hit on the road. Illegal pets.
• How many toes do sloths have? They all have three toes. The difference is their fingers. Two-fingered sloths are lighter in colour and have the more pig-like nose. Three-fingered sloths have the racoon-like mask, Mona Lisa smile, and more bristly hair.
• Why do sloths move slowly? Because of their metabolism – the slowest of any mammal.
• How does their hair grow? From their stomach to their back, so that when they’re hanging, they shed rain more easily.
• Can they swim? Three-fingered sloths can swim because of their shorter body and longer arms.

But we all learned lots more interesting facts:

• Their ‘claws’ are actually extensions of their bones, not true nails. If they’re cut, they will not grow back. Some sloths that had been kept as pets had had their claws cut, so now they can’t grip properly.
• Two-fingered sloths are active at night while three-fingered are active during the day. “Active” means “being awake, eating, being alive.”
• Their diets differ because of their teeth. Three-fingered sloths eat just leaves while the two-fingered eat leaves, flowers, green fruits and seeds. Hibiscus flowers are like chocolate for sloths.
• They can move fast when they need to – for defence and reproduction.
• Mating takes 40 seconds (very energy efficient!) and there’s a guaranteed pregnancy. Moms are pregnant for 11 months. Babies are born up in the trees.

Then our behind-the-scenes tour began. We saw the playground, where sloths exercise on the climbing equipment. We visited the kitchen, where we saw all the vegetables and leaves that are prepared for their four meals a day.

Next was the Slothpital – an OR with older equipment, including a stainless-steel operating table, IV stand, X-ray machine in the corner, cabinets filled with medical supplies. All females get an ultrasound to see if they’re pregnant (they mostly are). The necropsy room is used to determine cause of death. Regular checkups of all the permanent residents were to begin that day.

“They are tough patients,” explained Marco. “They get white-coat syndrome. They have to be anesthetized.”

Finally, we entered the NICU and my heart simply melted. Eighteen babies slept, hung and blinked from their plastic bins on the floor.

“Awwwwwww, they are so adorable!!” was about all I could say, over and over, in a high squeaky voice. I felt like a 12-year-old girl with her first pony.

A nurse took them one by one to feed them goat milk from a syringe. We were allowed to move among them but not touch them, of course.

Just when I thought the adorability couldn’t get higher, I sat down on the floor next to little Scout, the only three-fingered baby in the NICU. I had my red-covered notebook and four-coloured pen on my lap. He slowly hoisted himself over the edge of his bin and reached out to claw at my notebook! I was truly amazed. And then he put his three fingers around my pen with one hand and then both hands. He looked like he wanted to write me a note! “Don’t let him touch you,” called Marco, when Scout’s claws and arm touched my fingers. I immediately moved my hand away – I did not want to be responsible for hurting his chances for return to the wild. It was okay for Scout to touch my pen and notebook, but not me.

After about 30 minutes in the NICU, I feared being overcome by cuteness and adorability. Time for business. Laura pulled out the two cans of goat milk she had brought from Canada to donate. Marco expressed his gratitude, since it’s expensive and hard to find, and even sanctuary founder Judy Avey-Arroyo came out to offer her thanks.

Dr. Becky Cliffe – known as Dr. Sloth since she’s the only person with a PhD in sloths – used to work with the sanctuary studying sloths in captivity, said Marco. However, she is now studying sloths in the wild with the Jaguar Rescue Center. She was featured on the Animal Planet show Meet the Sloths and is one of the main reasons Laura became a sloth lover.

“I had a Kristen Bell moment,” said Laura, referring to the actor who fell apart sobbing when her husband arranged for a sloth to visit her birthday party.

I’ve been wondering why I now find sloths so irresistibly captivating. Partly it’s their natural facial markings, which look like they’re smiling and happy. The babies also seem vulnerable, which kicks in the mothering instinct. Once you’ve heard a baby open its mouth and go “Meep, meep,” you’re done for.

But overall, I believe I respect their slowness. I read, admired and re-read Carl Honoré’s book In Praise of Slow ages ago. We have been trying to embrace slow travel on our retirement adventures – spending more time in each location without rushing hither and yon. So, if there’s any creature that could be an emblem for our travels, the sloth is it.

Can you overdose on adorable? Not quite. But it was close.

Practical tips:

• Sloth Sanctuary is just north of Cahuita. Closed Mondays. Two-hour introductory tours cost $30 US per adult and run hourly from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Three-hour Insider’s Tours cost $150 US each, are limited to six people and run twice daily, at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Highly recommended!
• Jaguar Rescue Center is just south of Puerto Viejo. You can visit only on a 1.5-hour tour, starting at 9:30 or 11:30 a.m.; $22 US per adult; tours in English or Spanish. Closed Sundays. Other types of tours are also available.
• Bring a can of powdered goat milk for a donation. Security officials at the Ottawa airport questioned Laura and Chris about the cans in their carry-on luggage, but when she explained it was baby food, for baby sloths, they seemed puzzled but let it through.
• Don’t take selfies with any wild animals, whether they’re in a rescue centre or not. When they’re posted to social media, people think they can keep the animals as pets and it perpetuates the problems. Learn more from Dr. Becky Cliffe and the government of Costa Rica’s #stopanimalselfies campaign.