Ballena Marine National Park

The Ballena Marine National Park is the first protected wildlife area in Costa Rica created exclusively for its marine resources. It is also the first marine park in Central America and is ranked eighth in the world for whale watching, according to National Geographic.

The Ballena Marine national Park covers an area of ​​5,160 marine hectares and 171 terrestrial hectares, with a 15-km coastal strip stretching from the mouth of the Morete River to Punta Piñuela. The park has four official entrance areas: the Uvita Beach Sector, the Colonia Beach Sector, the Ballena Beach Sector, and the Piñuelas Beach Sector.

It features a very humid tropical forest, with a dry season that runs from mid-December to mid-April, with sporadic rainfall, and a rainy season from mid-April to mid-December. Regarding vegetation, the most important forest patches are at Punta Ballena and Punta Piñuela, where you can find ojoche, cedro María, chicopote, and lagartillo trees. The mangroves in Estero Negro and surrounding areas are made up of red mangroves, buttonwood, and palo de sal. Regarding fauna, in addition to the humpback whale, you can find species such as the spotted dolphin, the bottlenose dolphin, the manta ray, the hammerhead shark, the parrotfish, and the mackerel. Ballena Island is also an important nesting site for the white ibis; other bird species found in the park are the sea stilt and the cinnamon booby. The PNMB also has 17 species of coral.