Guest Report
Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 4:22 pm
My wife and I stayed at Alibaba's the first week in May of 2007 and found a delightful place and delightful people to go with it. There may be more accomodating people on the planet than Brian and Stephanie, but I haven't encountered them yet. We corresponded with them via e-mail for our reservations after reading about them in this forum and discovered they had a cat. We told them we would stay but only on condition they loan us the cat for our stay, which they did :-). Their place is just magic and the wonderful people we met in the other apartments were fun to hang out with. The five of us hired a car and got one of the Brits to drive as she was accustomed to driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Our group also did a snorkeling expedition together with Alibaba's tours and had a terrific time with Captain Anaconda as the skipper for the voyage. The expedition included a beach picnic with great food and scenic boat riding. <---Highly recommended if you don't do anything else in Castara, do this.
There are numerous restaurants in Castara and the Boathouse Restaurant which is on the beach right next door to Alibaba's is very accomodating also. Sharon will fix you an excellent meal until pretty late at night.
Two words of caution to Americans. If you rise early and expect breakfast at one of the restaurants, you will be sorely disappointed. You need to either stop on the way to Castara and buy coffee, soda, or whatever your eye opener is, or you ain't gonna get any. There ain't any soda machines on the beach either. Nothing opens until 9:00 AM or so and I do mean nothing. This is not a criticism, it is just a fact. Second, you also need to buy some basic food on your way in if you want to cook any meaningful meals in your apartment. Alibaba's is well equipped for cooking your own meals, there just aren't any supermarkets in Castara. Brian will provide transport to Castara from the airport and there are excellent markets on the way.
Castara is a laid back place where children can run around in safety, there is no noise on the beach, no peddlers selling junk, beaches are absolutely immaculate and kept so by the people who live there. I hope they can keep it this way forever.
I will be back there as soon as possible. Planning it now!
Wayne Griffith
Alabama, USA
There are numerous restaurants in Castara and the Boathouse Restaurant which is on the beach right next door to Alibaba's is very accomodating also. Sharon will fix you an excellent meal until pretty late at night.
Two words of caution to Americans. If you rise early and expect breakfast at one of the restaurants, you will be sorely disappointed. You need to either stop on the way to Castara and buy coffee, soda, or whatever your eye opener is, or you ain't gonna get any. There ain't any soda machines on the beach either. Nothing opens until 9:00 AM or so and I do mean nothing. This is not a criticism, it is just a fact. Second, you also need to buy some basic food on your way in if you want to cook any meaningful meals in your apartment. Alibaba's is well equipped for cooking your own meals, there just aren't any supermarkets in Castara. Brian will provide transport to Castara from the airport and there are excellent markets on the way.
Castara is a laid back place where children can run around in safety, there is no noise on the beach, no peddlers selling junk, beaches are absolutely immaculate and kept so by the people who live there. I hope they can keep it this way forever.
I will be back there as soon as possible. Planning it now!
Wayne Griffith
Alabama, USA