Friday, 8.8, we went on a very successful whale-watching trip! We saw 4 large female humpback whales, each with a small calf by her side, and also a pod of tropical dolphins. More than once, when we got close to one of these mother-cub dyads, I would see a whale surfacing close to the boat and think “wow, that’s a huge animal”, only to realize that was actually the cub when the mom would surface too, dwarfing it and our boat!
Humpback mother and cub
After returning to the beloved German café for lunch (it’s official name, by the way is Panoramika Café), we drove a ~20 kilometers north to a reptile park called Parque Reptilandia. It’s a spacious and very well-maintained park, with a nice selection of snakes, lizards, turtles and some amphibians. Most of the animals are local, but there are some from other countries in the Americas and elsewhere. I was particularly intrigued by a large and completely black monitor which I didn’t readily recognize. Talking to the knowledgeable proprietor later, it turned to be a hyper-melanistic Asian Water Monitor (Varanus salvator):
On Saturday morning, we went to “the Whale’s Tail” at Uvita Beach. It is a geological phenomenon called a Tombolo, which we had already seen at Manuel Antonio Park, where opposing currents deposit sand between the beach and a nearby island, creating a narrow strip of sand that connects the two. At Manuel Antonio, this strip had thickened and grown high enough for permanent vegetation like coconut palms and later other types of trees and plants to grow on it. In Uvita, on the other hand, it is still much lower and is only exposed at low tide. From the air, it really looks like a whale’s tail, and on the ground, it’s just nice to walk on. On the way back, we were amused by the sight of reddish crabs running on the wet sand with amazing speed, instantly entering their burrows in the wet sand upon the slightest sense of danger.
After everyone had showered (luckily the villa had three bathrooms!), we headed south toward Corcovado Park and the Osa Peninsula. At some point, we noticed we were almost out of gas. While navigating to the next gas station — we decided to continue 30 kilometers ahead instead of going 5 back — the fuel gauge jumped from showing enough gas for a 50 km drive directly to a reserve of 0 km. We continued on, full of hope and with our adrenaline heightened, just as it started to rain. Within two minutes, it turned into a downpour the like of which we had never seen before. Luckily, within a couple of minutes more we reached the gas station, thrilled to have found both gas and shelter. We stopped to eat at a roadside restaurant across the intersection, which we shared with three workers, one of whom had a huge machete resting on his knees. Tamar made friends with the owner, sitting at the bar and chatting with him about this and that.
A short while after lunch, the paved road ended and we spent the last hour and a half on a dirt road that became more and more bumpy. At some point ascending, descending and twisting rather sharply, with short asphalt sections on the steepest parts. When we arrived at our destination — Drake Bay, north of Corcovado Park — we realized we had made a logistical mistake. The owners of the cabin we rented had sent us a video and pictures about how to get there, in addition to the map coordinates, but we hadn’t downloaded them all in advance, and now we discovered we had no cell service and could no longer download them…
At the spot where the GPS took us, there was no relevant house in sight, so we decided to continue a little further. About 150 meters ahead, a house (albeit looking a bit disappointing) appeared on the hill to the left of the road. A ridiculously steep dirt path led to it, forcing me to engage 4X4 for the first time in the trip. On the house’s door was a code lockbox for a key, which strengthened our belief that this was the right place, but without the code, we had no choice but to back down (there was no room to turn around) and continue in the hope of finding a place with reception. A few hundred meters further, there was indeed a weak signal, and we managed to download the messages. There was no code; instead, it said that “the guy would meet us” at the cabin. After a bit more wandering, we found a sign to the villa, and it turned out the coordinates had been quite accurate, but although it wasn’t far as the crow flies from where we had originally stopped, the villa was on a hill, and to climb to it, we had to circle the hill for another few hundred meters. The effort was worth it! The cabin was situated on a slope overlooking the sea above a densely forested hill. There were white-faced capuchins calling in the trees above it, and within minutes from arriving we saw some 7 scarlet macaws flying above us. A quick tour of the grounds revealed at least 9 species of birds, some of which we’ve seen for the first time. What a delight!
Getting to the cabin
Family Trips 