Costa Rica National Park Ballena

The young national park Ballena is located between Manuel Antonio and peninsula Osa at the coast of the pacific. It was found in 1990 and covers an area of 4500 hectares. The reason to found a national park was the thought to protect the mouths of the rivers, the mangroves and the longest coral reef known at Central American pacific. "Ballena" means whale, because between December and April of each year, you can see them passing on their way from Alaska to the south. Many species of birds live there and different kind of turtles come to the beach to place their eggs. There are 5 species of mangroves in Costa Rica and you can see all of them there. Under water, you see corals, sea anemones and more. Unfortunately, a big part of the coral reef got destroyed during the construction of the street and one can only hope that people get smarter and protect unreplaceable nature.