Uvita

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Uvita

Costa Rica has alot of rivers and alot of small towns, now there must of been a shortage of materials in the sign making factory as they decided to sign post all of the rivers and small streems but very few of the towns. This we notice on our four hour bus jurney down to Uvita (about 100km down the coast for Manuel Antonio) with the repercussion that we missed our stop in Uvita which is strung out along two miles of the highway, we only noticed we had arrived in Uvita when we were nearly leaving. Our first view of Uvita was therefor walking back two miles along the road in the dark to our hostal (Tucan, good value clean and air conditioned).
Eairly next morning we headed off on a trek up to a view point with the great directions from the hostal “well I havn’t been there but its ment to be a great view, past the supermarket and take the first left”. Vital suplies obtained, we made out on the first left and walked straight in a garden, hopped over a fence and walked up a track heading uphill. After an hour and a half we made the top and viewpoint that looked out over the national park and beach. The trek up was hot and humid with the jungle coming in on both side and howler monkeys not more then five meters from the path, that seamed to be having an argument with a neighboring troop as they kept howling and being answered from a few miles away. The noise of a troop of howlers screaming next to you is very loud and quite deafening and a similar whine to that made by the zombies from “I am Legend”.
We headed down from the top in the spitting rain and after 30 minites spottrd a small sign with a picture of a waterfall and an arrow. Following this path down a into a narrow gourge through the jungle. We then came out onto an isolated waterfall and small lagoon, with no one else there and the sun shining down through the trees. The spot was amazing and proberbly one of the most relaxing and tranquil setting i’ve been too. The small waterfall splashed down into the deep turquoise water with gray cliffs towering up and being overhung by lushes green jungle. We spent around three hours here just laying in the water and swimming behind the waterfall and down the rapids, the rocks we slippery like slide and climbing round was impossible so we made do with diving off a low rock and sliding down the flat ones. With the sun heading low we left and made the steep trek up the valley side back to the main path. With Toucans flying overhead and butterfly’s fluttering around our faces we headed dreamily back down towards the main road. Back down in Uvita we headed onto another deserted beach and started looking for a bar, at this point we had been out for seven hours and had run out of water. Deserted tropical beaches are however deserted and void bars. Making do with watching the natural wildlife, seeing a spider catch a wasp and a hawk catch a mouse kept us from loosing our minds. But we could begin to feel the onset of dehydration with the sun beating down on us and sweat rolling of our faces we wandered up the beach and watched the sun set eventually finding a bar and some food. Having a cold drink when your throat is that dry is an amazing sensation and energy levels seem to return almost instantly.

The next morning we made a run for Panama, our bus was as we found our passing by the regions maternity hospital and was hence full of pregnant woman and woman with small children. Every time the bus stopped the inside became a sauna with the temperature rising well above 30 degrees no through breeze, it became an uncomfortable long sweaty journey. Two hot sweaty busses later we arrived at the the Panama boarder, which is chaotic with no clear boarder prosedure. We could of walked across the boarder without getting any passport stamps and know one would of been the wiser. The border posts are in two random positions and several hundred meters apart so that you don’t know where one county end and the other begins. Americans have to pay $5 for a visa and Ceser had to pay an additional dollar as a lady put a sticker on his passport as a randomly selected tax for the boarder upkeep.

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