'Slowly, slowly, slowly', said the sloth (to Ismene)

Hello, I am a sloth and right now I am hanging outside a cabin on Isla Fuerte (the strong island), an island in the Caribbean sea off the main coast in Colombia. There are a lot more sloths on the island where I am living happily and munching green leaves. In fact. where I live, there is one of the biggest trees on the island, a tree with huge roots going down from its branches going down to the earth. It's a strangler fig and it's called a Walking Tree because it looks like it has many legs. 

Now I am going to tell you a few facts about myself:

• Did you know that it takes me a whole day to have a poo? This is because I need to climb down the tree where I live, have a very slow poo and then climb back up again. 
• The male sloths fight over trees because they are territorial animals.  It's not so easy to find good branches you know! 
• Sloths can turn their head all around on a 360 degrees angle. Isn't that amazing?
• We are also very flexible, and we need to because we have to be able to move from branch to branch.
• We can hang upside down, like monkeys, but we don't have as big a tail as monkeys do. Actually, the family who stays in the cabin where I am at the moment saw me sleeping upside down. They were all so amazed and took lots of photographs of me, I pretended not to see them and continued having my eyes shut. 
• I am an expert in hanging and grasping branches but I cannot walk. 
• Did you know that I am closely related to anteaters?

• Sloths live mainly in South America and Central America.
• I am a three-toed sloth but you can find two-toed sloths as well. 
• My name in Spanish is perezoso, which means 'lazy'. This is because I move very slowly, not because I am lazy (no no no.... there's a book all about that!) but because I have a very slow digestive system so I need to preserve my energy. I move only when absolutely necessary and even then, I move very slowly. I spend 90% of my time motionless.
• And a last fun fact for you all: did you know that sloths are amazingly strong swimmers? We use our long limbs to paddle through the water. Maybe this is how I got to Isla Fuerte...but I am not going to tell you my little secret about how I ended up on the island!

The little girl, called Ismene, of the family staying opposite where I am at the moment, loves sloths. She says good morning to me every day and looks at me every time she walks by. I told her all of these facts about sloths because she understands sloth language and she typed it all up for me. She even told me about the sloth she has at home in Bristol (is it real?). What a clever girl!