Waterfalls, snakes and snorkelling and heat!

Yesterday, Feb.1 we drove about an hour and a half south along the Pacific coast to a national park called Parque Nacional Marino Ballena, aka National Marine Whale Park. It is called this for two reasons: apparently you can see whales from December to April, and the way the tide comes in on two sides it makes the shape of a whale's tail. From the park entrance it is a 30 minute walk to the the whales tail and some coral where you can snorkel. That's what we did but the snorkelling was not very good. We did see some fish but they reminded me of tiny jacks and there weren't any colourful ones.  We spoke  to a woman from Germany who had been out much farther than we ventured and she said that she'd seen a lot of dead coral but lots of pretty fish. That 30 minute walk in 33 degree heat was almost more than I could take!! And I had to do it on the way back.
We stopped in the town of Uvita where we found a tourist information center- first one we've seen here and they suggested going to a waterfall. Sounded good so we decided to do that first before the snorkelling to give the day a chance to cool down as we knew we had that 30 minute walk ahead of us. We took a washboard, potholed, bumpy road to the waterfall. We paid our 1000colones each and then made our way down the"steps". The "railings" were rubber hose in some places, not all, and sometimes tree roots were part of the "steps" Well we made it, but not before I spied a snake making its way through the forest in the direction we were walking. I haven't looked it up yet,but I will never forget what it looked like. Maybe it was harmless. The falls were a disappointment. Ernie said his cousin near Outlook has a better waterfall on his farm. We climbed our way back up, shared a fish taco for lunch and each quenched our thirst with a pineapple, passion fruit smoothie.
We found an air conditioned store called Mini Price with many products we recognized, including tonic water and feta cheese.😀 We have been on a search for for dishwasher soap but they don't have it in  the local store, as I am sure, given the condition of some of the homes, that they are lucky if they have dishes. However Mini Price serves the tourists and although they do carry it, they were out so we will make another trip to Quepos and look at some of the sights there.
Today we went back to the river and floated in the water again for a little while and just generally had a quiet day, with a trip to check our some local restaurants for future dining and to the meat market for some seasoned pork. So time to get the show on the road and supper on the table, but it is so hot I hope Ernie does the cooking and I cool down with some white wine!