Monterrico Beach - 4 wonderful lazy days

We took a shuttle to the beach on Thursday. We were the only two in the shuttle and we transferred to a car halfway there. It was about a three hour ride along mostly 2 lane roads.

We stayed in Hotel El Delfin, a hotel on the beach. We had a private room (our own bath) with air conditioning. Our "deluxe" room was about $60 per night. Most of the rooms here are more like dormitory rooms with shared baths and showers. The rooms are all concrete with a mattress on a raised concrete slab and they have thatched roofs. Most of the hotels here are designed the same way. Our hotel had a very good restaurant, a pool, and beach-front patio.

Because of all of the volcanic rock here, it is a black sand beach. The waves were mostly pretty rough with strong currents pulling outward during low tides. While the water temperature is nice (82F) we didn't stay in too long as it is work fighting the continuous moving waves and strong current. However, on Sunday the waves were unusually calm.

We arrived on Thursday to a pretty quiet beach. On Friday the crowds picked up a little bit and then Saturday through Sunday afternoon, it was very busy. Many locals from Antigua and Guatamala City come for the weekend. There were a lot of large families. Saturday evening was hopping with live or dj music along the beach.

We are most of our meals at the hotel patio bar/restaurant. Food was good and convenient. We also tried Comedor Wendy and Johny's Place, each for a single meal.

One day we saw something jumping out of the water over and over. It turned out to be sting rays. There were so many of them close to shore jumping it off the water and rolling in the waves. Apparently it is a very uncommon sight.

We used our time there mostly to just enjoy the beach, the cool breeze, time to read, and just relax. We met a lady from Norway, Ava, who is spending a week there and about 5 weeks total in or near Antigua. We also met an expat, Edward, who lives in Monterrico 3-4 months every year. There were some walks on the beach and one morning we took a boat ride into the mangroves. Edward recommended the trip and the guide. He also came along. We left in the dark of night at 5:30 am. There were so many stars out and it was a little bit creepy being so dark. But we traveled the canal and were in a quiet area as the sun began to rise and the birds began to wake up. There were so many birds and so many different kinds. Ibis, cranes and herons were plentiful as well as many we didn't know. Our guide spoke Spanish and told us the Spanish names of the birds.

The beach was very peaceful and yet very busy even on a quiet day. Many people in this poor city make their living selling things on the beach. Children walk the beach carrying goods they are trying to sell. In the last year they started having ATV rides on the beach. Children, maybe 11 or 12 year old boys, ride up and down asking people if they want rides on beach. It makes crossing the beach to the water a little bit treacherous and loud. One can also get a horse ride on the beach and on the weekend, banana boat rides on the water. The beach sand gets extremely hot (up to 140°) during the day. There were also a lot of dogs in this area. Many of them have owners but they roam the beach and establishments freely and don't get a lot of attention.

We headed back in on Monday via a car with to other travelers. We again stopped to transfer to another vehicle. This time, it was a shuttle bus that held 32 people and it was very full. It took about 4 hours to get home and we didn't get dropped off at our air BNB as advertised. We were stopped off at La Merced, about a 25 minute walk away. Walking back we stopped at Pappy's BBQ to eat. The owner is from Austin Texas. He traveled after college to Guatamala and stayed for two years and met his wife. When visiting in Texas she fell in love with Texas BBQ and they started a restaurant in Antigua. It was true Texas BBQ and very good.Læs mere