Similar to Coco, Uvita was a chance for us to get caught up on school work, laundry, and sleep. It is also on the Pacific side of Costa Rica but more in the southern part of Costa Rica. Our AirBnB was located on the edge of the town down some dirt roads, which ended in the Parque Nacional Marino Ballena which is a protected coastline. We also had pasture land behind us and beside us.
A very interesting space, and school work was occasionally interrupted by the neighing of horses.
Our walk to and from the park/beach past the field behind the house.
Even though the park name is translated as National Park Marine Whale, it is most often revered to as Whale’s Tail. You can kind of make that shape out when you see it in person but it is impossible to capture on film other than by air. Since we didn’t book an air tour, the sign is the best I got. It was a great lesson on tides as the “tail” only shows up at low tide and at high tide it is basically all covered. Unfortunately it costs $6USD per person to get in, so we only went once during the day at low tide, and then came back only in the evenings for the sunset just before they closed so we could get in for free.
It was a super wide beach at low tide.
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The sand was so flat that each wave covered a large portion of sand. In the sand was all these tracks which when it was just wet sand you couldn’t see what it was, only catching a glimpse of what looked like a snail every once in a while. But when a wave covered it, all these 1-2 cm creatures came out that looked like half snail, half jellyfish and they swam and darted around by the hundreds.
Walking the narrows of the tail.
The view from the wide part of the tail that is slightly higher and rockier than the narrow part of the tail.
When we returned for the sunset that night, there was almost no beach with the water getting almost up to the tree line.
For a morning break from school we took a 10 minute drive north of Uvita to a free beach called Playa Hermosa, not to be confused with the Playa Hermosa by Coco. Not only did it have a cool parking lot, but this beach had the biggest waves, which the girls loved. This beach is, not surprisingly, popular with surfers.
That evening we headed back for another sunset at the Whale’s Tail. The tide had also offset by a few hours so this time there was more room on the beach. The sunset was extraordinary.
In many places in our trip, we have gone on hikes and taken tours to try and see different wildlife. It was kind of amusing the amount of wildlife we saw while sitting and studying in the backyard of this AirBnb. On our drive in we saw some toucans flying across the road (too quick to get a picture). We also had parakeets in the trees, and a dozen or so macaws fly overhead each night on their way to their roost I’m assuming.
A whole flock of these grey-headed chachalaca birds came and polished off the remaining fruit from a tree in the backyard.
We woke up to this pair of Guinea fowl one morning. I’m guessing they were part of the farm.
Yellow-headed caracara on our neighbour’s tree, a frog climbing our patio door and an iguana sunny itself on the sidewalk outside the park entrance. Annika almost stepped on it, only seeing it at the last minute, giving a cry and jumping over it.
And probably my favourite “animal” exhibited a peculiar walking habit while eating an ice cream bar in the warm Costa Rican sun.