Beautiful beach. go to the north part if you want less crowds This is the main beach of MA area, outside of the park (ie you don't have to pay to use it) :) We loved it for our week stay up the hill - super warm water, fine sand, plenty of shade (if you don't want to pay for the chairs and umbrellas). The beach is super long (about 2 km). All the restaurants are geared towards the south end, and so are the crowds. Beach chairs - you can rent them for about $10 US a day (2 chairs and umbrella) but we've chosen to just bring our own throw and stay in the shade of the trees

Tips: if you want less people, go towards the north end of the beach. There are less rocks there too - since the South end of the beach is where big rocks come close to the shore, there are more rocks in the water on the sand too. If you take local bus to the beach (xxx colnes) you can ask for the one before last stop, so you don't need to hike back north from the last stop. There is plenty of shade under mangroves and tall trees along the beach (on the weekends many of those places are quickly spoken for by the locals, so arrive early to have a choice of the spot) There are no washrooms at the beach - you would need to pay at the restaurant to use theirs (500 colones), and not all of them allow you in unless you order. Bring your snacks (cooler with a cold watermelon - mmm) but beware of monkeys - they tried to steal bananas from our backpack (they smell bananas for miles, and would actually open your bags to take them out) - luckily the fellow beach goers scared them away and saved our bag. We made new friends that way :) Beware of the strong undertow in the water - try to go no further than waist deep, especially if you're not a super strong swimmer. We talked to quite a few people who were pulled away from the shore and had to be rescued by the guards. The guards seem to be vigilant but would prefer not to need their help (our 14 year old was pulled by the currant, and my husband luckily was next to him and brought him back, but that was a scare. At least he did not need any more persuasion to stay close to the shore afterwards). Rent boogie boards - with those kind of waves we all had an absolute blast with the boards - I could not pull my family out of the water for the entire day Mind the sun - it is not even Mexico or Cuba - the sun is super strong here. We've seem more than one person with the raw wounded noses - the result of a bad sunburn. We all used swim shirts, and I was glad mine had long sleeves too. Plus hats and zinc based sunscreen - you need to get used to applying it but I find it stays much longer and protects better than the regular chemical ones (not to mention their harm to the skin).