Water World

A few weeks ago, before Steve and Joel left, we made our way down to the coast, where the water was a beautiful shade of green, close to the shore:

The pelicans were busy fishing, and riding the waves:

Wulff Castle:
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wulff_Castle

Cap Ducal Hotel and Restaurant:

It isn't actually a ship that has run aground, it was designed to look that way. The front of it looks like the prow of a ship. This is the back where the rooms look out over the water. Steve took his parents there for a meal, and they all agreed it was very delicious. We went later when when Steve's brother Rick was here...and got food poisoning. All of us, except Joel, that is, because he didn't share the yummy, but tainted soup Steve had ordered.

I've mentioned before that the Marga Marga river that goes through Viña is just a trickle. The very wide, dry river bed is now used for parking and the twice weekly feria (fruit and vegetable market).
It is dammed at the shore, where it spreads out to re-create an estuary:

A small section of the dam is periodically opened or closed with a backhoe that is always standing at the ready. The day we went by, the dam was open and the tide was flowing in:

Here you can see what the river must have once looked like, when the water filled the entire channel:

This is what the river looks like east of town. Those are cows grazing on plants growing in the water: 

Between here and the lower reaches where the human-made wetlands is, you find the dry bed, used for other activities:

The area above, where the circus once stood is now a muddy mess with several inches of standing water from all the rain we've had the past week. In other spots, the Marga Marga has gotten deep enough so that it is starting to flow out of its little channel. I'm going to try to go down to the river tomorrow to see things up close. I hope the feria is on this Saturday- it wasn't last week, due to the rain.