Today we drove down to Playa Bellena to go whale watching. It was a great day. We arrived and thank goodness had the GPS on or would have missed the dinky sign pointing to the dirt road to the beach. We drove until we hit the parking lot where they had an old guy tugging on a plastic ribbon which blocked the cars from passing through. If you passed the lot he lowered the ribbon. Apparently they blocked it just long enough for the attendant to convince you that this is where you want to park. If you decided not to it was OK you could pass. But most people thought since the road was blocked you had to park here. The guy persuaded Mario that for 1500 colones ($3.00) it was best to have the car safely parked. We purchased the tickets to the boat for $15,000 colones each ($30.00). You would have had to paid an additional $6.00 to enter the park, but after much discussion they decided that I do indeed live in Costa Rica and we got in free. Funny enough the park entrance, like so many things, was in dollars.
The tickets were for the 9 AM boat so we decided to have a bite to eat before we left and stopped in a cute little place along the road to the boat. They had 1 entree to choose from, pinto (beans and rice with cilantro), sauced meat, and hot dog. Interesting combination but filling. The resident little dog waited patiently for his scraps. As we were eating we saw the boat guy pass with the people that we were supposed to go with. As usual I panicked and said we had to go and Mario assured me we could catch another boat. Sure enough when we left somebody stopped us and had us follow them to the next boat. I really have to learn the Pura Vida way!
We went out about 20 minutes and then hung around waiting for whales. All of the advertisements I had seen said there were high tec GPS systems to locate the whales. Well our captain and mate had cell phones and they kept calling and were called getting the latest positions on the whales. We saw several spouts as they surfaced, very cool as I have never seen that except on TV. The mate (I am using the term loosely as you can see how big the boat was in the picture) told us that they are not allowed to be less than 200 meters from the whales and there is a 15 minute time limit for each boat. They also had to go very slowly as not to scare them. Just as we were giving up we saw what we at first thought was a huge dolphin, but no! it was a baby albino whale! We only could see it's back as it swam bit the baby and mother surfaced a few times and it was soooo coool!
Here is a picture of the mom. I tried to get the baby but I have really slow reflexes and have a ton of pictures of the ocean now. That dark spec in the ocean is her. The group we were with were so friendly! and we had a wonderful time. 
As you can see the boat is pretty small. on the ride back I noticed the "captain" kept lifting this blue container on the floor. Then I noticed the container had a hose that went into the motor. You guessed it, it was gas! I was thinking hmmm this would never fly in the states. But pura vida we had enough gas to make the trip.
All in all it was a an experience and I just love the laid back atmosphere here. It is like a vacation all the time.
Awesome,thank goodness there was good weather.
ReplyDeleteIt usually doesn't start raining here until 2. You can practically set your watch to it. Probably because I finish work at 3. We left at the crack of dawn to make it out and back before the rain. Luckily we did cause it started to drizzle on the way back to the car!
ReplyDeleteFANTASTIC!!! I hope to go one of these years. Thanks for sharing the experience.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure! The Whale Festival is an annual event but they give tours daily all year. The advantage of the festival was the tours are half price, and I love a bargain! The disadvantage was I think that they whales were sooked by so many boats. We went to Ballena again today so Diego could swim and we saw fewer boats going out so I think it may be worth the extra $ to go off festival.
ReplyDelete