La Restinga National Park - Margarita Island, Venezuela
What’s Good:
Scenic & Fascinating Boat Tour, Wildlife, Price
What’s Bad:
Beach and Swimming not great.
La Restinga is a gorgeous national park consisting of an amazing mangrove forest, water channels and lagoons. It is located in the small piece of land connecting the eastern and western sections of Margarita Island. Upon arrival to the park you will see a dock where many motorized boats await to take visitors on tours through the channels. Each boat can carry up to five people (although we did see one group of six) and costs 30,000 Bolivares (approx $13 per boat) for a half hour tour of the park. After this tour you can have the boat driver drop you at the beach and arrange a time to be picked up. The other option (and the one we recommend) is the hour long tour which costs 50,000 Bolivares per boat (approx $22). This tour offers a more extensive look into the park with a half an hour boat ride, a visit to the beach (once again, just arrange with the driver as to what time you would like to be picked up) and then another half hour journey before returning to the main entrance.
The park consists of five different channels all with rather romantic (tacky) names such as El Beso (the kiss), Paraíso del Amor (paradise of love) and Mi Dulce Amor (my sweet love). The park is home to many species of birds, some interesting tree crabs, sea horses and brightly colored starfish. Your driver will attempt to find many of these and point them out to you along the way.
The beach is a fine shell beach, 22 km in length. It was certainly interesting as we had never been on a fine shell beach but it was certainly not on our list of favorite Margarita Island beaches. It was definitely worth a visit and a great spot to sit, have a drink, and watch the locals play in the ocean. There is a restaurant on the beach which serves mainly fish dishes – we did not eat here so can’t comment on the quality or price. Locals have also set up some stands near the dock by the beach and sell pearls and other handicrafts.
La Restinga closes at 5 o’clock so be sure to give yourselves enough time. We found that two and a half hours was the perfect amount of time giving us a chance for the one hour tour as well as a walk on the beach and time for a drink. If you’re interested in getting the right light for photographs plan to return from the beach between 4:00 and 4:30.
Click here to see our photo gallery from Restinga National Park
Comments
Liz - January 14, 2007 9:36 pm
I will be visiting margarita for the first time on February 21st - 26th 2006. I am from the caribbean and my main purpose is for shopping. where would you recommend in terms of affordable prices?