Ultimate relaxation. I was a little surprised when I first arrived on the Caribbean coast, because when I read descriptions about how beautiful it was, I had my usual "Caribbean" picture in mind. . . powder white sand and blue water. But the water was green and the sand was coarse and tan. . . it really didn't look different from the Pacific beaches at Manuel Antonio.

It didn't take too long to appreciate the Caribbean however, and that appreciation was increased dramatically when I arrived at Punta Uva, the last stop in my Costa Rican adventure.

Punta Uva is quiet, isolated, and beautiful. The beach is backed up by jungle, and I could hear howler monkeys while I swam in the perfectly warm water. There was rarely anyone for miles, the beach belonged to me alone. From my cabinas to the sand was about 200m along a rocky dirt road. It was exactly what I wanted after a week and a half of hiking.

From Selvin's, the beach was so close I would roll out of bed at 5am (not like me in real life at all!) and run down to see the sunrise. One morning, I encountered horses wandering alone along the sand — startling. There were waves to play in and coral surrounding the area, although the waves made it impossible to see anything.

One day, I walked further down the beach to the natural tunnel formation (the uva, "grape"), where the coral formations were the prettiest. There, I could at least see the colors of coral clearly despite the waves, but after making a wrong turn, hiking up to the point, and then falling down slippery rocks, I decided I was done with hiking for the trip! So I unfortunately never did true snorkeling, but I was so relieved to return to "my" part of the beach. It really felt like home after only three days.

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