Uvita exists for Marino Ballena National Park, and specifically for the Whale's Tail — a sandbar that runs out from the beach and splits at the end into two flukes, walkable at low tide and shaped, with genuine improbability, exactly like the tail of the humpbacks that calve offshore.
The whales are the other half of it. Humpbacks arrive from both hemispheres, which almost nowhere else manages: the southern population from Antarctic waters between roughly July and November, the northern one from December to March. Boat trips run from the park entrance at Playa Uvita and from Bahía Ballena next door.
The town itself is strung along the highway and is more functional than charming, but it has become the service centre for this stretch of coast, and the waterfalls inland — Cascada Verde, Nauyaca up towards Dominical — fill the days the sea does not.