The usual 6-o-clock start to the day and we were at breakfast for 07.00. As usual, it was a bird-watching breakfast accompanied by stuffed french toast with cream-cheese and berries - yummy!
After breakfast, we quickly threw some things in our bags and headed down to Playa Pinuela. We paid our entrance fee to the Ballena National Park (3250 Colones or $6 each) and parked up in the shade of some coconut trees. Once on the beach we realised we were the only people there, mind you it was only 08.00 in the morning.
We had realised when we got to the car earlier that it had rained overnight, our first since we've been here. The only marks on the beach were from the rain, no footprints just splash marks from the rain. We walked to the very far end of the beach and found some deep shade where it was really cool and set up camp.
We spent the morning in and out of water, sitting reading and watching wildlife. Not too long after we arrived, we saw signs of movement in the trees behind the beach and realised that there was a troup of Capuchin Monkeys swinging through the trees, we watched them for ages. We were also lucky enough to spot two kingfishers on the branches close to the sea.
We had no idea that Kingfishers feed in sea-water as well as rivers! Later, in the background, we could hear Howler Monkeys calling, we didn't see them, but there distinctive barking can be heard from several kilometres away.
At lunchtime, we headed back to the hotel, got changed and drove down to Ojochal 'village'. We found a bakery where they served lunch and discovered it was run by a French couple. Whilst we were eating lunch we saw a tiny hummingbird which reminded me of the Bee Hummingbirds we had seen in Ecuador. Our bird book says that they don't live in Costa Rica!
After lunch we decided to go back to Playa Pinuela for another swim. Again there was virtually no-one there. We took the snorkelling gear with us and found some tropical fish by the rocks on the southern side of the bay.
Back at the hotel, we did a bit of packing ready for tomorrow and made plans to go to the Boca Coronado for dinner one last time.
We drove back down to Boca Coronado shortly after sunset and enjoyed a fish dinner! We also treated ourselves to a sweet - the Chef's special. It was a sort of chocolate filled Ciabata pastry served with chocolate sauce and strawberry ice-cream. It tasted better than it sounds from this description.
On arrival at our room, there was a large dark shape by the door. Shining a torch on it revealed it as a Cane Toad. This large toad is toxic and one of the hotel owners dogs had died after biting one of these toads. The hotel owner was really surprised to see one at this time of year.
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