At low tide, a sandbar and reef off Playa Uvita take the shape of a whale's tail, and you can walk out along it into the bay where humpbacks breed. Further south, sea caves at Ventanas and two jungle waterfalls fill the rest of the day.
Marino Ballena National Park protects a stretch of coast and sea where humpback whales come to give birth, from both hemispheres, at different seasons. Its emblem is drawn on the shore itself.
In the park's Playa Uvita sector, the rocky Punta Uvita tombolo, the whale's tail, is only accessible at low water, about a kilometre of sand out to the rocks of the "fluke". Walk out as the tide drops, explore the tide pools, and be back before it turns. Check a tide table; the park rangers will tell you the window at the gate.
At Playa Ventanas you can walk through sea caves at low tide as the waves surge through the arches. A short climb from Uvita leads to Cascada Uvita and its pool for a few dollars, and the free falls of El Pavón in Ojochal, with a boulder wedged at the lip, make the cool-off before an Ojochal dinner.
Build the day around the morning low tide.
Pay the park fee, ask the rangers for the tide window, and walk down the beach as the water recedes.
Walk about a kilometre along the sandbar to the rocks of Punta Uvita and explore the pools.
Return along the sand before the tide starts to flood across the bar.
Drive south to Playa Ventanas and walk into the caves if the tide is still low.
Swim at Cascada Uvita or El Pavón, then eat in Ojochal, the coast's unlikely food village.
Check a tide table the evening before; the best walks come with low tides in the morning, before the heat.
Pay the Marino Ballena entrance at the Uvita sector gate; the ticket covers the beach for the day.
Boat tours from Uvita run in the humpback seasons; book with operators that follow the park's distance rules.
Manuel Antonio practical notes →Wikimedia Commons photographs are used under their licences.
