To the Whale Bay and Cusinga Heaven

We spent only 3 days in Palmar Sur, there was no point spending any longer as we new we could find anything we wanted, so we drove up the pacific coast to a village called Punta Uvita, this is where Jenny had another University project. The project was to plot the springs where the town received its water from. The reason behind it was the fact that all the surrounding hills are now owned by Americans and they are worried that one day the rich foreigners may stop the water, which I doubt but they are worried anyhow, we had been booked into a small hotel that was so very attractive, it was in the forest and had lots of tropical heliconias in the gardens, they look like small banana plants. They also had lots of flowering bushes and these were alive with butterflies and small lizards hopping about chasing the insects. The rooms had no glass but screens to keep out the mosquitoes and help keep the rooms fresh. Surprisingly the temperature was very nice and at night it became very fresh with the sea breeze, but it did not work in keeping out the mosquitoes, I was being eaten alive every night we were there, I was starting to look like a spotty alien. The gardens were a magnet for the local bird life and one particular tree was a drug to a bird called locally the Cusinga, or Fiery billed aracari, now this bird had to have been created by an alien as it is the most fantastic colour and design, it is doubt the most spectacular bird in Costa Rica.


Not only did we have entire families coming to the trees but accompanied by the local Toucans also, what a fantastic sight, the town is part of the tropical rainforests of Costa Rica and the bird life in the town was some of the best I have seen ever. We were taken by the local community association up to the top of the mountain chain just behind the coast and we stopped at the top and saw some huge erosion landslides, perhaps half a mile of steep hillside had slid down the mountain and buried something out of sight. We were then asked to follow a couple of the guides, down through the jungle. Now this was my first time actually walking in virgin jungle and it was not a dense as I thought it would be but the incline was maybe 45°, so this was very steep and it started raining and it was slippy and humid and very hard work, I began to wonder if it was worth the effort, it took a long time to get to the bottom and as we got there it seemed like a hidden gem. The water coming from the springs was crystal clear and it was obvious there had been lots of water here recently as there were fallen trees and huge rocks there but all washed clean, not a sign of any dirt or any soil type material, I felt something sticky on my leg and looked down to see a small brown frog actually stuck on my leg, it had those sucker type toes and was pretending not to be there.

We spent maybe 30 minutes looking around and taking pictures and then we had to walk back up, which was twice as hard and very slippy. I never realised that many trees in the jungle have spines for defence including the palms and I slipped and grabbed a palm for support spiking my fingers and deeply inserting a couple of big thorns into my arm. By the time I had gotten to the top the spines in my arm had become inflamed and looking very nasty, and now 3 weeks later they are still lumpy. I think there must have generated some sort of allergic reaction no infection. we stayed 3 days in town taking in the beach and mangrove swamps that had some very interesting butterflies and a few more birds to my ever lengthening list. We walked the beach at low tide to walk out to the rock formation that gives the beach its name, Ballena Bay, the rocks form a whales tail at low tide, there are whales in the bay but it is difficult to find them and unless you have a big boat riding the sea is very very uncomfortable. We left for the town of San Isidro to see a university lecturer that was hopefully going to help Jenny with some more of her project work, that episode will follow.