Adrift in Uvita…

All of a sudden these posts have come perilously close to being up to date and in the present – with this post only a week or two behind our current position! Just to blend the 2 points in time together let me mention that I’m now sat on the balcony of our stay in Palmar Sur just a few miles North of Sierpe. We’ve just about entered the Osa Peninsula now which is probably the most biodiverse place on the planet. It’s hot, which suits me fine and has a very different feel to other parts of Costa Rica that we’ve visited before now. But back to the main story…

We left the farm and inevitably we stalled a bit. We had spent so much time looking forward to each part of our journey, always planning ahead and seemingly moving on to bigger and better adventures each step of the way. The farm had been a real highlight and so at some point we were destined to have a bit of a comedown. We’d also been so busy whilst tending the farm that we never found time to work out what would come after – we’d managed to put together a vague notion that we would head back to the coast so that we could digest everything that had happened up to that point and reflect on what we would do with the rest of the journey. When we’d first decided that we would head up to the farm we’d earmarked it as being the halfway point in our year-long adventure and so it seemed natural that we would have a bit of a lull afterwards in which we tried to work out what came next. However, there were further complications which meant that this was not going to play out exactly as we had planned.

Perhaps surprisingly (or not?) for a 9 year old, Zia has continued to express a strong desire to go back to school. On the one hand this is totally understandable and on the other hand seems at odds with the rich experience that she has had from this time away. She misses her friends. She misses getting to mess about and make other kids laugh. She probably misses the fact that she gets a lot of recognition and affirmation at school as she’s quite bright. Viewed through the eyes of a 9 year old that all makes perfect sense. Viewed through the eyes of a parent it also makes sense but with the added awareness that her view is based on the limited life that she has lived so far. As parents we can perhaps see the benefits of this time which she might be unable to perceive. This is typical parenting territory: does my child know what is good for them or do we know better? The upshot of all this is that Zia had been persistent in telling us that she wanted to return and that really she wanted to return in September in time for the beginning of a new academic year. Rachael had made enquiries with the school to find out if that would be possible and they had quickly been back in touch to tell us that there would be a place for her. At the same time our tenant had told us that there was a possibility that she might be able to move out of the house early. I was probably quite wrapped up in things on the farm and mostly unaware of these events conspiring. At the point where I thought that we were off to the coast to mull over and plan the next few months the terrain had suddenly changed to one in which we were potentially looking at curtailing our travels by 4 months and instead planning our return to the UK.

I don’t mind being frank in admitting that I had been caught off guard. At the best of times I’m reluctant to deviate from a plan which is funny as so much of my working life has required me to be flexible and adapt plans as we go. Perhaps this was a little different though because it was much more personal than a plan at work has to be. Even through the course of our time away flexible plans have been an essential ingredient; always ready to let the pieces fall into place and see a new route through the territory ahead. Whatever the reasons this was the emotional backdrop that we were leaving the farm with and making our way down to Uvita. It’s fair to say that it wasn’t creating a pleasant atmosphere. I like it here in the tropics and felt very reluctant to entertain the idea that we would cut our journey short. It’s hard to describe exactly why and it was something that I would spend a lot of time weighing up. On the one hand I had to consider if I was just being stubborn because I had been caught on a back foot or because I didn’t want to change the plan. On the other hand I needed to listen to the fact that I might be right and that we really shouldn’t be heading home. I’ve had a sense that our time away is part of a process and I couldn’t really say exactly what that process was for or what the result of it would be but I certainly felt that cutting it short risked preventing it to allow whatever was meant to unfold come about.

In plain terms we had arrived at our next stop at a stalemate. Rachael was already certain that we should be heading back in September. I wasn’t. We didn’t have an unbiased mediator and so it was difficult to see what our next step was going to be. Usually if we find ourselves in that kind of situation where we disagree strongly about something significant then we might try to find the middle ground. However, in this case there didn’t seem to be a middle ground that would suffice. Geographically speaking the middle ground was either the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean or somewhere off the coast of Japan if you go the long way round the planet! In terms of the time we had remaining the middle ground would be going back in late-October but there was no certainty about whether the school would entertain the idea of holding Zia’s place until then. Stalemate.

It might seem strange in some ways for this to form such a large section to this next chapter in our story but this is the nature of how we really experience life. Yes, we were on a gorgeous beach. Yes, we’re in an amazing country. But all of that is just backdrop and scenery sometimes to what is going on inside our heads and when things are cloudy in that internal realm it doesn’t matter two hoots what the weather is like on the outside. It certainly feels right to share all of these ‘internal affairs’ to accurately set the scene.

We had 2 stops ahead of us in Uvita: the first was just a few days in a place that we booked in a bit of a rush because Sophia and Marc returned to the farm earlier than we had expected. The second was a nice place on the other side of town which Rachael had booked for her birthday. Our original plan was to try and head to the Nicoya Peninsula for her birthday but the reality was that it would be a lot of travelling to get there plus we had skipped Uvita on our first journey along the South coast and we actually did really want to see it. Uvita is a special point on the South coast which is one of the best places for watching humpback whales on their annual migration. It’s actually an amazingly good place for this as there are 2 separate whale migrations which come through here giving 2 seasons per year: the pacific humpback whales from the southern hemisphere travel from Antarctica to Costa Rica and arrive around the end of July whereas the pacific whales from the northern hemisphere travel from Alaska to Costa Rica and arrive around the end of December. As if this convergence of 2 distinct humpback whale migrations in one small area of the ocean wasn’t enough of a natural wonder the spit of land which divides the 2 beaches on either side of the National park is in the shape of a whale’s tail!!

After we had arrived and dropped off our bags we set off to the beach to spend the afternoon there. When you consider that we had been in Latin America for half a year it’s surprising to note that this was the first time that we had visited a beach since our stay in Manuel Antonio back in January! It was a bit of a disappointment when we arrived at the beach and discovered something which we should have found out beforehand – there was a charge to enter the National Park. This was probably something that we did know about but had overlooked the fact that all of the beaches in the area were also within the National Park. It wasn’t a big deal as we only had to pay for the adults, which worked out around £12 each time but it was an added cost to our easy week of being back on the beach. Ultimately, it didn’t bother us as the National Park is a beautiful place and we’re happy that our money was going towards supporting it. At this point we only had the beaches of Manuel Antonio to compare it to but it felt very different mainly because off all the driftwood which lay along the whole length of the beach; I don’t know if this is always the case or is there as a result of it being rainy season here but it creates a certain feel. As we entered the park we were probably a little unsettled by the sign that warned visitors about crocodiles in the water but we didn’t see any the whole time that we were there. It was good to be back on the beach in spite of the overcast backdrop of our large looming decisions that we needed to agree upon. The girls were happy to be playing in the water again. Most of all Zia who can seemingly spend an endless amount of time in a state of utter contentment in the water. At the end of the day we took the easy option and grabbed a pizza at the familiarly named but otherwise unfamiliar ‘Pizza Express’!

Our apartment was adequate but small and it all felt like a bit of a step down from the month that we had spent on the farm as we were again struggling to cook as we would like to with the limited appliances and cookware that were supplied. These are the highs and lows of life on the move! It was also a fairly long walk to the local supermarket which was at least the Costa Rican owned chain ‘BM’ only found along the south coast. So the first morning I was off on a trek to stock up on food that in truth we were hardly enthusiastic about eating after our month of either getting fed fresh from the farm or else collecting our produce from the local organic market that we were also supplying.

We only had a few nights booked on this side of Uvita and so we decided that we would make the most of exploring this end before we switched to the other side. On our second day there we went out at low tide and explored the ‘whale’s tail’. I’d read that on a ‘clear water’ day you can sometimes see colourful fish in the pools around the tail but we didn’t get one of those days. However, we did all enjoy the walk out and in particular the fact that as you walk along the tail you have the waves splashing in on either side of you making it feel like you are on 2 beaches simultaneously, one to the left and one to the right, walking along the edge of a very small world which is mostly ocean.

At the end of one day I set off on my own to explore a trail that we had all spotted but I somehow missed the end of the trail and found myself walking deeper and deeper along the pathway on my own. To my right were mangroves and to my left I could hear the sea and I knew that when I entered the tide had been making its way back in plus I had crossed an estuary (which we had jokingly named ‘crocodile creek’) to reach the trail. Eventually, the crescendo of insects and the crashing of the waves became just a little too atmospheric and I got worried that I was actually going to get cut off. I turned back and at the next opening I saw to the beach made my way back out into the open. It was a bit of a shock and a wonderful moment at the same time: I was on a completely abandoned beach. All I could see to either side was jungle-edged beach and not a human in sight. Being out of the vegetation was a relief as I didn’t need to worry about getting eaten by crocodiles or pumas any longer. I wasn’t worried about the incoming tide at this point because I was feeling elated from the experience of feeling like I’d just landed on a desert island. After making my way back along the beach I crossed ‘crocodile creek’ without getting eaten and we all made our way back home.

Our final day on the West side of Uvita was now here and it was destined to be a little more eventful than we had planned. We were supposed to moving out around midday but we had negotiated staying a little longer to coincide with check-in for our next house. We went to the beach again late morning and this time we all walked the trail (which felt far less intimidating now) and we emerged closer to the actual end of the trail this time, found ourselves a nice spot on the beach and settled down. Rachael and the girls were playing in the sea while I kept myself busy opening up a coconut that I’d gone off to find. We had a nice couple of hours and then the time came when we needed to make our way back and move onto our next stay. This was where things took a turn for the worse and in the few minutes that I went into the sea to collect the girls I managed to step on a stingray! I won’t repeat the whole saga here as I wrote it up as part of the other post this week ‘Bites, Stings & Other Things’ where you can read the full synopsis of misfortune I’ve encountered on our travels.

Once the stingray saga had played out in full we finally made it into our next stay largely thanks to the kindness of the owner of our first stay. The sad thing at this point in our tale is that after I had been stung the girls no longer wanted to go into the water. To be fair, I didn’t want to go into the water very much either! This was a real shame as we were staying in a place with absolutely beautiful beaches where there was little to do other than be on the beach. We were not entirely deterred and so we continued to go down each day. At that point my foot seemed to be healing fairly well and I could easily walk on it. Walking all the way to the Eastern end of the beach there is a rocky outcrop which prevents you from going any further but as the tide goes out there were lots of rockpools and large boulders covered in crabs. This was some consolation as we were able to all go along there and once the girls were confident that there were no stingrays hiding in the rockpools it gave them a safe sanctuary in which they could begin to rebuild their confidence in the water.

We don’t know how common stingrays are in the water there and lamentably we didn’t think to ask the lifeguards how frequently there were stings. It’s worth saying that as we made our way along the beach all a little apprehensive about entering the water again (bear in mind I was only a few metres from the edge when it happened) there were people all along the beach who were happily playing in the water. Families splashing in the shallows, children playing in little pools, people jumping the waves and people surfing and body-boarding. We didn’t see anyone else hopping in to the shallows clutching their leg in pain and bleeding. We didn’t see anyone getting carried up the beach. It seemed it must have been bad luck; the wrong place at the wrong time. However, to paint the full picture of our experience I should also mention that one day when Rachael went in to the water I saw her running out moments later and she arrived on the shore to tell us that she had just seen a stingray by her feet! She went back in to see if she could find it again and she did. So we were left wondering just how common they might be? Had we been unlucky (or in fact lucky to see so many)? Was everyone else very lucky to not get stung? It brings home the reality that biodiversity which is something that we absolutely need to preserve and increase across the planet carries certain challenges too when we have to live alongside all of the various species which are so essential to the health of our ecosystems. A few days later we were talking with a local who told us that during the pandemic when the number of tourists dropped and lockdowns were in place that they felt this keenly here in Costa Rica: shark numbers along the coastline increase and reclaimed some of the shoreline at the same time as pumas and other large cats increased their presence inland. Perhaps my ankle had been one victim of this otherwise positive (if sometimes problematic) species recovery.

In spite of the fact that we were all now reticent to go into the water we did get to spend Rachael’s birthday on the beach as she had hoped for. There was also a hidden bonus in that the girls spent much more time exploring the shore than they would ordinarily. In addition to that it meant that Zia was playing more with Rosa on the shore whereas she sometimes goes off on her own into the water and goes deeper than Rosa is able. So they made climbing frames out of large sections of driftwood and gathered up hermit crabs for which they built little camps. They searched for fish and crabs in the little rockpools on the shoreline. Every cloud, silver lining.

As our time in Uvita came to an end we had found little to no clarity in terms of what we would be doing next. It felt like we were still waiting for things to settle so that we were in a good space to start making some decisions. It had been full on and tumultuous returning to short term stays after a couple of months of being relatively settled and that was creating an atmosphere which made clear thinking almost impossible. We had wanted to go on a whale watching tour for Rachael’s birthday but it had been a little too early in the season so we had decided that we’d like to go on a mangrove tour instead which would take us further East towards Sierpe in the Osa. We were sketching out vague plans to see how each felt. We’ve had mixed feelings about the Osa Peninsula throughout our trip as it’s an amazing place, full of life but also a more difficult place to navigate with children. So we booked up another stay which took us about halfway there allowing us to edge our way towards Osa but allowing us to retreat if it didn’t feel right. We booked ourselves a few days in a place with a pool so that we could get that headspace while the girls played, which is where our next post will have to pick up the thread of this tale…