Playa Arena

This is simply THE best place to stay in Las Penas. The only reason I can think that someone would give less than 5 stars is they were perhaps looking for something more upscale. This is a budget friendly hotel; something that would most probably be recommended by Lonely Planet. I've traveled extensively world-wide and used to live in Ecuador for many years, and I can testify that Cabanas Playa Arena is a fantastic place to stay if you're anywhere along this entire coast. It's an affordable, peaceful, and super comfortable beach get-away The rooms are freshly painted with bright, cheerful colors. Beds are comfortable, bathrooms are fairly newly updated, showers are refreshing (although there is no "hot water", we couldn't find any place in Las Penas offering hot water showers, however the water temperature in the showers here is refreshing and not 'cold'), the rooms are kept immaculate and spotless thanks to the friendly lady who takes care of the place. She was the by far the absolute nicest, most hospital hotel person we met after visiting nearly every hotel in Las Penas (note: there is no English spoken here, but that's fairly common in all of Las Penas). The BEST room is the one at the very end as it has a large window that faces the beach ... although there is no view, it does let in all that refreshing ocean air goodiness! All rooms come with fans. The hotel has a squeaky-clean pool (I checked it with snorkel mask) with shallow wadding pool for small children. It's surrounded by brand new pool loungers and hammocks - all covered by awnings for those who want to escape the sun! Perhaps best of all, the hotel has PRIVATE BEACH ACCESS with plenty of body and foot showers (tip: the water during the first 30sec of those showers during a sunny day comes out nicely warm). The beach in front of the hotel is clean, far-enough-away from the town center to be peaceful and quiet, yet still a convenient 10min walk to restaurants. At about $10-$11/person/night, this is the type of place you can come for an entire week (or two) and just relaaaax. Las Penas overall is practically a virgin, undeveloped beach with very few visitors (especially during the weekdays). During our stay, we saw less than 1 dozen tourists the entire time - on a +2mile stretch of beach. This means that for 95% of the time, we had the entire beach all to ourselves. At the south end of the beach (walkable, ~30min from the hotel), there are gorgeous cliffs with fascinating rock formations completely accessible at low tide. You can also find decent sie Conch shells here. If you keep walking past the cliffs, you'll come to a secluded, private beach +500yards long. ("Private" doesn't mean privately owned, it means desolate). At the north end of the beach, (not walkable), there are (what the government claims) the tallest Mangrove trees in the world. It's a semi-popular destination for those who love Mangroves. We didn't go however. If you arrive at night, don't let the less-than-ideal town lighting turn you off. The tiny town center is fairly downtrodden, but we found the town to be completely safe and once you get to the hotel, you'll feel right at home. The hotel is located 5-10min walking north of the town center (along pretty much the only road available, and yes, it's safe to walk at night). It takes about 2 bumpy minutes via moto-taxi from the town center (50cents per person), or 10 bumpy minutes from the main road ($1/person day, $2/person night). Hope you enjoy this place as much as we did.

Ok

Nice place