Marino Ballena

Marino Ballena protects a stretch of the south Pacific coast and a large area of water offshore, and its emblem is a coincidence: a sandbar running out from the beach at Uvita joins a rock formation at its end, and at low tide the whole thing is exposed in a shape that reads unmistakably as a whale's tail. The park is named for the whales rather than the sandbar, and it earns it, with humpbacks from both hemispheres passing and calving in the bay across two separate seasons, making this one of the longest whale-watching windows anywhere. Reef, rock islands and nesting seabirds fill the rest of the protected area.

What you actually see

• The whale's tail sandbar - exposed at low tide, walkable to the end.
• Humpback whales - two seasons, from northern and southern populations.
• The rock islands - nesting seabirds offshore.
• Playa Ventanas - sea caves you can walk through at low tide, nearby.

When to go

The sandbar is walkable only around low tide, so check the tables. Southern hemisphere humpbacks are here roughly July to October, northern ones December to March. December to April is the driest for everything else.

Honest expectations

The whale's tail is only visible at low tide and is submerged the rest of the time, which disappoints people who arrive at the wrong hour. The tide comes in fast and people get cut off at the far end. Whale watching operators vary and some crowd animals; choose licensed ones. The Costanera coast has developed quickly and Uvita is busier than it was.

Nearby

Dominical is fifteen minutes north; Corcovado and the Osa are two hours south.