Another Weekend, Another Beach

I know, I know… another post about a beach. I can’t help it though! That’s why we moved to Costa Rica, right?!

If you ask 100 people what the most beautiful beach in Costa Rica is, you’ll probably get 80 different answers. During all of our research before moving here, one beach that consistently came up as one of the most beautiful was Playa Conchal. Known for its seashell-created white sand shore made of sea shells, Conchal was at the top of our must-see list. We’d also been wanting to bust out the snorkel gear, and with clear blue waters, Conchal allows for easy off-shore snorkeling. Plus, luckily for us, Conchal is only about a 10-minute drive from our house, so it was a no-brainer to head there for the day.

But first… we eat.

Before heading to the beach, we wanted to get some breakfast. Tucked in our little neighborhood, just a couple of blocks from the house we moved into, is a “mom and pop” type restaurant called Maxwell’s. We’d heard that Maxwell’s had great breakfast, so we took the short walk over. We were greeted by a friendly bartender/server/chef, Kelly, who promptly brewed us each a fresh cup of coffee while we perused the menu. Nikk decided on the huevos rancheros and I ordered a custom omelette with spinach, mushrooms, cheese and hollandaise sauce. Both were served with hash browns and filled our bellies!

With a hearty breakfast in the books, we went back to the house and got ready to go to the beach.

Quick Tip! Don’t forget the beach chairs!

If you plan to visit for a long period of time or move to Costa Rica, I definitely recommend getting a couple of beach chairs. This is one thing we wish we would have shopped around for before moving to Costa Rica, because surprisingly, the selection here is pretty small. However, we found some great ones that fold into their own carrying case (like camping chairs), and we love them. We packed those, a few towels, and the snorkel gear into Chivo and were on our way.

Getting to Playa Conchal

Playa Conchal is only accessible if you’re staying at the incredibly luxe Westin Conchal or Reserva Conchal, or by walking from Playa Brasilito. So after a quick drive to Brasilito, we pulled Chivo into an empty lot that is doubling as a parking lot. There were about 15 other cars there, so we knew we must be in the right place. Another interesting tidbit about visiting or living in Costa Rica, is that many parking lots have informal “guards” to watch the cars. These gents usually have official-looking reflective vests on and will ask for a small fee to watch your car. You’re welcome to refuse to pay (after all, it is just an empty lot where other cars are parked), but I’d rather not risk anything and we’re happy to contribute to the local economy.

The walk along Playa Brasilito was beautiful, but – surprisingly – there was absolutely no one on this beach! It was a ghost town except for the people clearly walking towards Conchal! If this was the “not pretty” beach, I was excited to see the pretty one!!

Just on the other side of the trees along the left side of the picture above is a small trail to Playa Conchal. The whole walk took about 10 minutes, and was fairly easy to traverse. The beach on the other side was so rewarding, though!!

As soon as we got on the other side of the trees, a pure white beach with turquoise water greeted us. It was the busiest beach we had seen since moving to Costa Rica! This is partially because of it’s proximity to the hotel, partially because it was a weekend, and 1,000% because it is gorgeous!

We walked along the beach to get a little ways past the crowds, and found a shady spot under some trees to set up our chairs. I think we were there 2.5 seconds before Nikk put on his snorkel gear and headed down to the water!

Another Tip! Unless you plan to eliminate poverty…

Because we had all of our stuff – keys, wallets, phones, etc. – with us on this trip, I stayed behind while Nikk went into the water. You’ll read a lot about theft when you read about visiting or moving to Costa Rica. This is a result of two factors: one is that (like many, many other places in the world including parts of the US…) there is poverty here and two is that people will leave their things unattended creating easy opportunity for crime. Since you probably won’t be solving the issue of poverty when you come here, it’s best to focus on eliminating the opportunities for crime. So when we want to go in the water together, we leave valuables at home. As this wasn’t an option on today’s drive to the beach, we had to take turns.

But I don’t want to leave yet!

After Nikk’s successful go at snorkeling, I gave it a go. We both saw some sea life, so we were excited! As the afternoon continued, we watched a few dark clouds start to roll in (you can see the beginning of it on the upper right-hand corner of the picture above), but we just didn’t want to leave yet! As usual, Mother Nature didn’t care what we wanted, and it suddenly started to rain. We were under a tree, so we though we might be able to wait it out. After a few minutes, it was clear that this wasn’t going to clear up any time soon, so we packed up our belongings and headed back to the Jeep. Thankfully we were still in our swim gear, since by the time we got back to Chivo, we were soaked!

Despite the expedited end to our trip, our day at Playa Conchal was a huge success! We can’t wait to go back and we definitely plan to bring visitors there when they come see us. I’ll try to remember to take more pictures next time, but really, you should just see it for yourself! The camera doesn’t come close to capturing the beauty of this amazing place. It definitely earned its place on the lists of the best beaches in Costa Rica.

Thanks for reading all about this day of eating and beaching – we are excited to repeat it soon ;)! Have you been to Playa Conchal or another beach in Costa Rica that you love? Let us know in the comments so we can head there next time!