Los Charcos is not a sandy beach. It is a strip of volcanic rock to the north of El Cotillo's town centre where the sea has sculpted natural pools of clear water. Some years the swell widens them, others it reduces them. The ocean decides.
You can walk there from the apartment in less than ten minutes following the coast northward. There are no signs. No beach bar. No organised parking. That filters quite a lot.
The water in the pools is sheltered from the wind and swell, making it ideal for swimming even on rough sea days. The temperature is always a few degrees warmer than the open sea. On the edges of the rocks grows a grey-green coastal vegetation that exists nowhere else on the island — or at least that's how it seems to us.
Going early, before ten, is the only recommendation we give. After that, the sun has already heated the black rocks and the reflection is intense. First thing in the morning the light arrives diagonally and the pools have a colour that has no exact name in any language.