Playa Santa Marianita — Attraction in Parroquia Santa Marianita

The people that have given this beach good reviews have either never been to good beaches, or they went to a different beach.

The only beach I have been to that is worse than this is Huanchaco near Trujillo in Peru.

We stayed for several weeks and arrived a few days before the recent king tides; so we saw it before the beach was mostly washed away over the Christmas and New Year period.

There were multiple steps and ramps down to the beach that were built by the locals who rent out the beach chairs and shelters, and we enjoyed long walks to the north.

It is very narrow at high tide now, since much of the beach has been washed away, and there are big patches of stones and small rocks, and a large amount of timber and tree roots and branches that have been washed up on the beach.

It is not a proper sandy beach. It is half made up of black dirt from the shoreline; so it Is not clean to sit or lay on. Anyone who sits or lays on the beach gets filthy dirty.

Most people park their cars on the road directly overlooking the beach, where they socialise without even going down to the beach.

Many of the locals play really loud music from their massive sound systems whilst driving up and down or when parked. Too bad if you don’t like the music.

(If you have booked accommodation along the main strip, be prepared for extremely loud music from the Hotel Villa Kite at night. This happened on one Friday till 1am and one Saturday night till 2am while we were here; and it wasn’t on New Year’s Eve either.)

There are many smaller restaurants and a couple of bigger ones. The two we tried only had alcoholic drinks and no juices. We were able to buy these at the small stalls nearby, but I didn’t trust the ice, so they were not cold.

Hardly any shops here. There is a liquor store and a couple of tiny kiosks with bars across the front doors where you can buy basic groceries etc. If you need anything more, you need to take a $10 taxi ride into Manta.

It is not an attractive...

Our favorite beach close to Manta is Playa Santa Marianita. This review is for the north end of the beach near Fish and the comedas. Cab ride from Manta is under $10. The cabanas and chair rentals fluctuate, but you should be able to negotiate them for $4/each for half a day. Christian with one of the restaurants right next to the parasailing school walks up and down the beach with menus, offering to the bring the meal to you, which we did on several occasions. The fried shrimp is butterflied and absolutely amazing! The dishes come with salad, rice, patacones and rosa salsa. The beach is clean and nice with few rocks, and not very crowded the times we were there. Watch out for high tide, as the beach chairs will be washed away. They are usually picked up at high tide. We had drinks at Fish and they were beautiful and delicious. One day we tried the drinks served up in a pineapple for $5. The man who runs the place knew exactly what he was doing and wasn't light on the alcohol. We love this area and...

Was an amazing beach I spent 5 days there. Learning to kite serve with Javier at the kite surf Ecuador school. He is one of the best instructors in the world and is probably 1 of the least expensive, at $300 for the first 8 hours and another 130 for an additional 4. So it's very inexpensive, and that includes the equipment use and him training you. In English or Spanish and he is really good and very patient and I suggest if you want to learn very inexpensive and learn right and learn the best that you go to. Santa Maria needed an Ecuador and find the kite surfing school, and for Javier used to be a doctor in a super motor crosstralia. He is an amazing, amazing person and if you have a chance to be instructed and learn from him and be afraid of his, you will have made a lifelong...