Occupying the northern end of the island, this resort offers spacious duplex cabins of varnished wood with decks in a garden setting, overlooking a massive saltwater pool. There's a nice beach facing São Tomé, and others (like Praia Café) within walking range.
The dining room is a huge wooden building with great sea views out one end, offering a noteworthy buffet with a great variety of local and European food. The resort is attached at the hip to the remains of a roça (plantation), with its own pier, and feels like a laid-back town, as villagers pass back and forth to work cheerily greeting you without fail. Visitors can hang out on the resort grounds, explore the island at will, or choose from a variety of diving, fishing, and boating activities through Costa Norte. What gives the Pestana Ecuador its unique charm is that it is no artificially perfect resort world, but has gone native, to some degree, and for obvious reasons: you are very far away here, on an island off an island. So for those who don't mind trading various signs of disrepair – a broken sea wall, wood that needs replacing etc – for a real tropical story, you'll dig it.