When we had that real holiday feeling in Montañita & Olón

Yesterday when we left Montañita we felt as if we really didn't want to leave, even though we already had spent 7 nights here, we coulee easily stayed for a few more days. We just had the best week here. 

Montañita is a little surf paradise and has apparently expanded massively in just 10 years. Back then it was just a little village where lots of surfers went to catch the really good waves. Now however, it's still a place that surfers love, but it's also a place that lots of tourists loves and most people come here for the big party scene they have going on. Walking around in downtown Montañita by night, really felt like being in Ayia Napa again. So many bars, restaurants and buzzing party people everywhere.

During our week here, we stayed at the holiday park Las Brisas Montañita. The location was perfect for us who were after a more quite area. There was a 10 minute walk from the busy town centre, down on a gravel road, where many other hostels were also located. But ours was one of the ones furthest away from all the noise.

We really found everything we needed only on this road called Barrio el Tigrillo, which is super easy to find since basically everything is within walking distance here. Supermarkets, fruit & veg shop and this cool little cafe which we found to be very vegan friendly with a Salad Bar as their main dish. For $3,50 we got to choose 7 ingredients for a salad and among other yummy things you could choose there were quinoa, black beans and avocado. So nice with a salad bar nearby when the weather is so hot that I definitely don't feel like having a hot meal.

We picked up a really great daily routine for our stay by this beautiful coast as well. It is really tempting to lose yourself into the party life with everyone else since you're surrounded by it all the time. But a holiday in Montañita really doesn't have to be all crazy party time. We discovered that it is really easy to find more quite spots to be able to have that chilled holiday.

Everyday we escaped for a few hours and went to the neighbour village Olón. The first day we walked there and back, since it's only about 4 km apart. But with that crazy heat in the day, it was a very exhausting walk, so instead we took the bus for only 50 cents each.

Olón is much more quite and smaller than Montañita. It feels like an up-and-coming place though, since there are lots of construction work going on and the beach is just beautiful and with way less people than the beach in Montañita.

We went here everyday mostly because I found a place where I could do Spanish lessons for $7 an hour. The first day we visited Olón, we just happened to run into a sign saying "Spanish lessons" at this hostal called Jungla and inquired about it. Turned out to be cheaper than other language schools around here that you can find online, and my teacher Luana was amazing! She completely let me decide what time I wanted to have the lesson every day and I learned so much just during the 5 hours of Spanish I had with her.

Other than chilling at the beach and studying Spanish, there is not much to do around Olón. There are not much vegan food here either, so we struggled a bit with finding vegan lunch every day but soon gave up and went back to Montañita to try our luck instead.

There are however a couple of options (by the beach they have plenty of little local food places if you are just happy with fries, the local food is unfortunately very often based on chicken, fish or shellfish). One of them is the vegetarian friendly place La Casa Rosa, where they also to acro yoga a couple of nights a week and it's just based on people giving donations.

We only went here for coffee a few times (which is really lush!) so I cannot say much about the food. All I know is that they have a lunch menu that changes daily and the owner and people working here knows exactly what veganism is and can cater for us as well!

It is a really nice little hang out in the owners back garden! So you definately get that homey feeling.

After a couple of days we found a restaurant where the staff was not only super friendly but also, super vegan friendly. They had a set menu for $3 which included soup, main and a juice and when we said we were vegans, the chef was more than happy to prepare a special menu for us with lentil pattis, beans and rice and a delicious veggie soup for starters - so nice!

After the Spanish class, some chilling on the beach and swimming in the crazy wavey sea we usually got back to our accommodation to get ready to go to the more busy Montañita beach for the stunning sunset.

We agreed that this is one of the prettiest sunsets we've seen and for that reason we just couldn't miss out on it one single evening.

When it was time for dinner we didn't have to struggle too much after finding that one of the many food carts served a vegetarian soy burger for $2,50. But, we had to be aware to make sure that the dude making the burgers didn't put and cheese or egg on it.

We found that it is definitely not hard to satisfy a massive burger craving here. Just around the corner from where the soy-burger-food cart was, we found a very vegan friendly small restaurant that had both vegan lentil and chickpea burgers for $3,50. You could also add the combo for an extra $2 and get a drink and fries as well. Again, we just had to make sure that the cheese was removed from the making of the burgers. But the staff knew very well that veganism entails, which always makes everything a lot easier of course.

The burgers were delicious, but pretty dry without any mayo or cheese, so I asked to add avocado which made it much better. Jeez, that avocado really helps to make every meal so much better. Hay Manitas (which I THINK is the name of the restaurant) also have plenty of other options if you want vegan dine, like three different wraps and pizzas. Nothing comes vegan as it is though, so again, beware!

There is also actually on vegan restaurant in Montañita, all other restaurants that comes up on the Happy Cow app are just veg friendly, and expensive (but then again, most restaurants in Montañita are has very expensive food. Drinks on the other hand, much cheaper)

The vegan restaurant is called Amor Infinity and is located on the same road as Hay Manitas. I was so excited to come here after reading all the amazing reviews - and I was especially excited to finally have vegan pizza WITH vegan cheese again. But unfortunately we got a bit disappointed. There are not many options to choose from. There is one breakfast choice, you can order a pizza slice or an empanada for $1,50 each, there is one vegan cake and then there's the Menu of the day for $4 which includes soup, main and a juice.

I guess it wouldn't matter that much that it's a small menu if the Menu of the day changed daily (which I think it is meant to), but during our week in Montañita it never changed ones. We tried it one time and the food was really great! The starter peanut butter based soup with veggies was divine and the main (lentils with rice and empanada with lots melted cheese on top, with pesto and a ratatouille) was even better. I could've eaten 3 plates of it. But since the menu never changed, we didn't feel tempted in having the same dish every night, which is why we unfortunately ditched this place for dinner most evening.

We did however give it more chances since I always want to support the only vegan restaurant in town! The vegan pizza slice would've probably been great if it was served warm and the oreo cake they have on the menu was not available when I asked for it and I that HAS to be good. Instead I got to try a small piece of cake for $2 which was only okay.

Okay this is a very negative review of a place that many people seem to really like, but I guess I just had my hopes up.  On a more positive note - The owner is a really friendly man who lived in Sweden for two years so it was fun speaking some Swedish with him. Also, compared to other restaurants in downtown Montañita area, this place is pretty cheap and I mean, I'm always gonna love a place that serve amazingly good vegan cheese as they do here. It is definitely worth a visit at least ones to try the daily menu. Maybe they just had a low-fantasy week when we were there.

Other than that we found that it's not the easiest thing to find vegan food in Montañita. So it's great to now there is a vegan restaurant as back-up. Most places serve meat-based dishes (especially the cheapest places for some reason..) and the places you do find vegan options in are pretty expensive.

We treated ourselves on our last day and went to Tiki Restaurant & Hostel for dinner, where they have some good options for vegans. On offer this day as well were both the veggie burrito and falafel for $6 each, that we tried and absolutely loved!

Don't know if the size of the portion was worth $6 though. Because of much of the food being pretty pricey, we had to escape to whole restaurant scene more than often during our stay in Montañita. But it didn't matter that much after finding this bakery which makes the most tasty wholemeal loafs for $1. And with cheap avocados everywhere, this bread-and-avocado-thing we've had going on for a long time now, continued.