Whale hello there! This edition of Livin’ La Pura Vida documents our time in whale crazy Uvita. This is quite a short post because we spent three nights in our best accommodation yet by far, and the grounds were amazing, so all we really wanted to do was bask in the sun, but we did sneak a couple of adventures in!

Day 8 – The Uvita Whale Tour

One does not visit Uvita lest one wishes to view a humpback whale, and we were no exception. Uvita is so destined to be a whale watching town, its beach is even shaped like a whales tail. Like, totally naturally. I’ve stolen a picture off the internet to show you.

That along with the fact humpbacks migrate both north and south at different times of year, meaning they have a crazy long whale season, makes it the place to be if you want to see some big old sea mammals.

We went with the biggest, best reviewed company in the area, and were warned that the current season gives us a 50/50 chance of seeing a humpback, but they had seen one the day previous so were hopeful. Beyond that, dolphins were inevitable so it wouldn’t be a total loss if we didn’t see them. After a safety briefing and a look at the map, we were out on the high sea. The boat was full but Billie, in true legendary fashion, snagged us the front 2x seats, which was really great as we didn’t have lifejacket clad tourists spoiling the beautiful views.

What happens is, all the tour boats go off in different directions looking for a whale or two, and if one finds one, they give all the other captains a bell on the old mobile phone and off you zoom. So after 30 mins or so of sea scanning, we got the call, turned round and headed top speed towards, we hoped, a whale. We arrived and only the original finding boat was there so far. Nice!

It was a humpback mother and her young. I honestly couldn’t tell there were two, let along which was which, but their big backs (after which I can only assume they were named) breached the surface a load of times and you did get a real sense of scale. They were big! Unfortunately they didn’t jump out of the water in an extremely satisfying manner, probably due to the fact it was a mum & baby, but you can’t have everything in life. We’d got the good 50 of the 50 and could now die happy.

After 30 / 45 mins of tailing the whales, we were told that was the maximum time you were legally allowed to follow a mother with young, and other boats were coming anyway, so we zoomed off to have a look at some dolphins. We found a pod of 6 or so. Apparently the pods are small here as it’s very chilled and there’s not much danger. Out in the sea, where there’s big bad sharks and whatnot, they can have pods of over 100. They danced around us and we ooh’d and ahh’d.

They also took us to a few other spots. A big rock (small island?) where frigate birds and brown boobies (ha!) live. Frigate (translating to pirate, apparently?) always live near other hunting birds so they can steal their catch from them, because they can’t land on water themselves. Bastards.

The coastline was fairly magical, really. Lush rainforest everywhere with the odd beach dotted between and hardly any civilization. We arrived back sated of our whale thirst. We’d had a whale of a time.

Back to Manoas, our lovely accomodation we went, to read, eat and sleep.

Day 9 – Manoas & the waterfall

So far, I think you’ll agree, we’ve been RELATIVELY basic with our accommodation, and so our Uvita digs, Manoas, was a mid-holiday break from such rustic living. We had a fancy tent, which was probably twice the size of any of our previous rooms. It also had a lovely bathroom and big a deck looking out over the incredible grounds. Here’s a little tour of the place:

Mountainous rainforest all around, beautifully kept gardens with a river passing through. The grounds held more birds than we’d seen in all the national parks and nature tours we’d visited combined. Toucans chilled in the trees, tanagers scooted around and hummingbirds would dart around the colourful plants. Would we recommend Manoas? HELL YEAH!

So speaking of hummingbirds… theyre bloody hard to take pictures of, right, cos’ they’re so quick. They also don’t like it when you move at all near them and will fly away toute suite. We’d noticed that hummingbirds would eat or drink (or whatever it is they do) from the flowers just by our porch. So yours truly lay on his front for a good hour, while Billie did a yoga class, pointing my camera at the flower and waited. The resulting hummingbird picture is my swan song …

With all that frivolity out the way, and with Billie’s inner peace at full whack, we decided to adventure. Uvita waterfall was a 45 minute walk away via trail that crossed a river, passed under dramatic arching bamboo, and then just down the road from the craft beer garden, as you do.

The waterfall also had a butterfly garden, which had a load of the huge blue morpho butterflies you often seen fluttering around Costa Rica, but can never get a proper picture of.

The waterfall was more about the 3 pools to swim in than the fall itself, and Billie and I picked one that had a cool jump in from a few meters up. Surprisingly scary, but we both plucked up the courage (it’s hard not to when 5 year old kids are doing it) and leapt, not so gracefully, in. Good times!

Refreshed, we headed to a restaurant (the craft beer garden was only bloody closed) and gorged ourselves on delicious and, thankfully, craft beer. Too full to make the return journey, we ordered a cab and enjoyed another restful evening at Manoas. Tomorrow, we will travel to Drake Bay, entry point to Corcovado National Park, the jewel of Costa Rica and described by National Geographic as “one of the most biologically intense places in the world”. We may see Jaguars (probably not though), we’re likely to see tapirs, birds, monkeys and all sorts of other delightful wildlife. We’ll also scuba for three days – expected to be a huge highlight of the trip. The next post will be a big one! Till then, Pura Vida!