Cayo Coco
Cuba's Cayo Coco 2006
A week long getaway, to a destination Americans aren't allowed to go, what could be better?
It all started with an available week of holidays, and a bunch of Aeroplan airmiles. I don't know if you have ever tried to cash in airmiles before, but it's not an easy task. You start by going to the Aeroplan website, and randomly picking destinations, punch in your planned dates, and you hold your breathe... "dates not available", "flights full", or the best result... we can get you there, but there is no return flight. Usually the dates available don't come close to yours. After almost finding a trip to Cabo, and then trying to book it, only to find it was now full, I decided to try another route... I called Aeroplan, talked to a human, and said, "Here's my dates, where can you send me that's warm, and maybe even tropical?"
Cayo Coco, Cuba... It's not the tourist mecca of Varadero, but it has some great resorts and beautiful beaches.
Given the money we saved on airfare, we splurge and choose a nice all-inclusive resort, NH Krystal, Cayo Coco
formerly known as "El Senador", large resort with many pools, many restaurants and great beach location.
we decide that the lagoon based bungalows would make for a great 7 day getaway from the Vancouver rain.
Have I mentioned before how much I love Air Canada?
We are scheduled to leave on Saturday, spend the night in Montreal, and fly into Cuba on Sunday morning,
the return flight sees us leave Cuba on Sunday morning and travel home via Montreal, arriving Sunday night.
The trip we booked 3 months earlier is changed by Air Canada 2 weeks before we leave...
We now leave Montreal on Sunday night, and are returning on Saturday instead of Sunday,
with a 6 hour overnight layover in Montreal. Our vacation was effectively cut short by 2 days.
Finally we arrived in Cayo Coco, Cuba... we sneak onto the Air Canada Vacations bus,
and are escorted from the airport for the 15 minute ride to our resort... vacation starts now!
After some itravel2000 screwups and reservation problems , we are finally on vacation.
(itravel 2000 warning)
Eventually we ended up in a "deluxe room", even though we paid for a lagoon bungalow.
The resort was amazing, with 3 different pools, including a secluded and quiet adult pool,
there was 2 of the traditional style buffets, and seperate Italian, Cuban, Seafood, and Steak restaurants.
Just in case you got hungry, a 24 hour snack bar was available with pizza, poutine, and other items,
and numerous bars with lots of rum and beer, including all the Banana Mamas and Mojitos we could drink
The best part of the resort was the beach, it had white icing sugar like sand, with no weeds or scum, and the water was that special blue/green color, and as warm as a bathtub... warmer in than out 8-)
Our week in Cayo Coco, Cuba was a layed back and relaxing one in almost every sense, we spent the days lazing on the beach, reading and floating, at 4:30 we headed to the adult pool to de-salinize. or days in the sun were broken up by trips to the bar for another banana mama, some water and a lunch break. The evenings were low key with a late dinner and a "show", if you want to call it that 8-)
The "shows" were put on each evening by a collection of the Cuban ballet rejects, The Romantic show, The Cuban show, they were all the same dance moves with different music... The last show we went to was "the Comedy show"... we left for some more drinks halfway through.
Havana
Since we didn't know when we would be back to Cuba again, we did the Havana day trip, a 1 hour flight from Cayo Coco, and a guided tour of the key locations and history of the Capital City. The first stop of our tour was the famous 'Revolution Square', home of the Cuban revolution, tribute to the Cuban heroes Che Guevera, Jose Marti and the locale of Fidel Castro's many speeches
We then proceeded to an old fort overlooking the city of Havana. The fort is also the home to an old Cigar shop.
From Cigars to Rum, our next stop was the Havana Club Rum company, a tour of the distillery, where we saw the process to make the rum, and then we drank the rum.
After a traditional cuban lunch we moved on to a walking tour through Old Havana, we worked our way through the old streets, complete with old cannons to keep out traffic, the old historic buildings and churches, were unique, from the founding years of 1514, to the Bacardi years.
Even more unique to see was the people of Havana, specifically the voodoo influence,
Voodoo mamas setup on the corner,
with their tarot cards, their huge cigars, their dolls and their dogs.
Several locals are raising extra money in the communist system by accosting tourists for photos, and old men are selling valueless cuban pesos to the tourists who have the Cuban convertible pesos.
Their are beautiful bronze and marble statues throughout Havana, but none quite as unique as the King of Spain, apparently he didn't even know here to find Cuba on a map and had never been there, but he demanded a statue be built in his likeness and placed in prominence in Cuba. The creator of the statue had the last laugh, he would create a statue that the king would never see, what looks like a unique scroll, takes a new form when viewed from the side.
For some reason Ernest Hemingway was a hero in Cuba, the tour refers to his days in Havana a lot, the hotel room where he stayed is now a museum, it is pointed out where he went for his Mojitos, and there is a statue of him in the bar where he went for Dacquiri's... I had to have one there too.
The US was very involved in developing Cuba in the 40's and 50's, it was to be the Vegas of the south, the mob had heavily invested in casino's and hotels, and the government was paying for infrastructure, after the Revolution the US government pulled out of Cuba in 1959, and estalished embargos, what remains of their time there is a vast collection of the US cars from the 50's.
Some of the oddities included their Mule Bus system and odd little taxi-cars.
We flew back to Cayo Coco, after learning many things about the Cuban people, their history, and the potential changes to the leadership as Fidel Castro continues to age. It was interesting to see Havana, and we can cross it off our list... but the beaches were calling.
The water was as flat as could be for the entire week, until the last day... our last day was full of waves, including this rogue wave that stole my sunglasses. Luckily it was the last day.
Although there were a few hiccups, it was a great relaxing vacation, we each read three books, got a tan/sunburn and we would rank the beach of Cayo Coco second only to Anguilla in the Caribbean. If lack of crowds, and a nice resort away from all the tourists in Varadero interests you, Cayo Coco, and NH Krystal resorts may be just the place for you... just don't use itravel2000 to do it.
WARNING
Well, not quite as advertised...
When we arrive at reception, we are asked for our hotel voucher,
we give them a copy of the e-mail from itravel2000 that says "this is your hotel voucher"
and are now told, that's not a valid voucher, and they have no record of our reservation
and they have never heard of itravel2000 or it's cuban partner Red Seal Vacations.
They assign us a room, and tell us we need to come back in the morning and see the manager,
this was not the lovely over the lagoon bungalow we had booked and paid for.
The next morning I go to see the manager, "sorry the manager isn't in today, check back tomorrow", "but at least you have a room". True, but it's not what we paid for, or expected... The next morning the manager is in a meeting, so I ask the deskperson to phone itravel, after going in the back to check on that, miraculously we are upgraded to a "deluxe" room. It was not the bungalow, and we have had to follow up with itravel on our return to straighten it out, Six weeks later and a number of "we are looking into it with the resort and cuban travel company" excuses, and we are no closer to a resolution. Needless to say, we won't use itravel2000 again.