Back again for our full tour of Cuba, having started in Havana, then moving to the other main towns and cities that the country has to offer, and now Part III will unveil some of the best spots to basque in the sun and take a nice refreshing dip in the sea…it’s time to look at the beaches of Cuba!
From the little local places that are a quick stopover for a few hours to feel the sand in your toes, to the mega luxury resorts where you can spend several days exploring and the faraway island paradise that will have you on a plane, boat and then the sea; you will have all the options to enjoy on your visit. Be warned the pictures in this blog will have a serious amount of blue and white in them!
Local beaches – not so much beaches for the locals (as locals can generally go anywhere) – but rather the smaller sized places where you won’t find huge hotel complexes and full amenities, rather the raw beauty of white sandy beaches bordered by mangroves or petrified forests. Cayo Jutias, on the nortern coast of the country, so close to Florida that as you drive towards it you will start to pick up the sounds of the next door capitalists on your car radio.
About 65km from Vinales, it makes a good detour as you tour the western part of Cuba, trying to find your way with the sporadic signage and our pigeon Spanish. Lonely planet describes this 3km stretch of unadulterated sand as the most discovered ‘undiscovered’ beach of the north coast. For sure there are other visitors, but only a handful that makes a visit here all the more special.
On the beach you can easily charter a boat to take you out to the reef for a bit of snorkeling, not teeming with fish but you will find enough to keep you occupied for an hour or so. Make sure you get the boat to take you up to Playa Estrellas where, as the name suggests you will find crystal clear water that is littered with huge red starfish across the sea bed.
Back on land a wander up the beach and through the mangroves makes for a nice little excursion in the sun, don’t worry about getting thirsty or hungry as you can be sure that there will always be a Cubano popping out from the shade of the mangroves to offer you drinks and the ever available lobster…freshly grilled on the beach right in front of you, it is rude not to! This beach prepared lobster was some of the best we had tasted in Cuba so if you get the offer then go for it.
Playa Ancon – on the south coast this time and a quick day trip from Trinidad to visit what is reputedly one of the best beaches of the south coast. Smaller and less spectacular than Cayo Jutias on the north coast, but the Caribean waters are a little warmer and it makes for a nice respite from the heat of the city on a hot day. You can even get to the beach from Trinidad by bike in 40mins for those of you travelling without a car. We made sure to visit in the middle of the day to avoid the infamous sand flies that are supposed to plague the beach at sunrise and sunset. Make sure you stop and get a selfie with the monstrous lobster that guards the entrance to the beach!
The Big Resorts – along the central north coast of Cuba, linked by a long and extensive network of causeways are the beach resort locations where Canadians (and soon the Americans) flood into during the northern hemisphere’s winter. Once you get into these manicured stretched of coastline there is little option but to stay at a resort as they tend to each monopolise the access to the beach and there are very few places where you can just park up the car and run into the sea. Pre-booking is also the best option if you want to ensure a good rate, but you can do this from many tour operators within the country, so don’t worry about trying to book before you arrive in Cuba, unless there is somewhere special that you want to stay.
Cayo Coco is the furthest east that we managed to get to in Cuba, usually a good follow on after you have been to Sancti Spiritus, just keep heading north east from there, through the tragically named town of Moron and along the 27km long causeway that will play tricks with your eyes to have idyllic mirages forming in front of you out of the placid waters that blossom into your destination.
We chose to stay at the Spanish Villa styled Colonial Blau hotel and found ourselves on a sprawling resort that we almost had to ourselves, which was both nice and a little bit eerie (it was a week before Xmas). A spacious, colourful room with a balcony overlooking one of the many resort pools we were close to the beach where you can borrow some equipment to play in the sea and with an all inclusive rate we made sure that we stayed well stocked up with cocktails and food.
The sea here is quite stunning, and so you will probably spend much of your time in or on it so it will make a perfect couple of days rest if you have been relentlessly touring the remoter parts of Cuba for a few weeks.
Next door to Cayo Coco, is Cayo Guillermo, definitely wort a visit, and if possible basing yourself here in the more exclusive (and fewer) hotels than in brash Cayo Coco. As you make the drive between these two cayos then you will invariably find some flocks of pink flamingos tottering about in the shallow lagoons. They always seem to pick the spot furthest away from us, but with a good zoom lens you will get some great pictures.
Cayo Guillermo is the home to what is said to be Cuba’s best beach – Playa Pilar – with the finest of sand, huge sand dunes rising up from behind and ever present mangroves. It certainly was a fine beach, but on the day we visited a storm was heading down from Canada, so winds were high and it made it a bit difficult to fully enjoy this paradise.
Heading up the coast westwards, past all the Chinese operated oilfields and you will come to the Cuban beach mecca of Varadero. This is no longer the Cuba you will have experienced in your travels so far but rather the private enclaves of more than 50 three / four and five star hotels that will cocoon visitors in a world of all-inclusiveness.
But do’t get us wrong, we also love endless cocktails, all you can eat buffets and generally not having to think about where we are going to, what we are going to do, where we are going to stay and what we are going to eat…at least for a few days of respite! Our cocoon was the Sol Palmeras – much busier than the Colonial in Coco but also with plenty more facilities up and running to keep us occupied.
The down side with such a huge resort was that you could easily end up in a room at the outer reaches of the resort where the beach and the main part of the resort was a kilometre away…naturally this is where we were. A bit of polite feedback to the manager about this rewarded us with a free bottle of rum and a sea view bungalow that was much closer to the all the action (it was Christmas after all!). Our days here were spent moving from various watersports (pedalo, wind-surf, kayak, catamaran) to cocktails and food and back again, sometimes a fresh coconut just picked by one of the gardeners. The beach is much bigger than in Coco, and had a bit more seaweed at the time we were there, but nothing you can’t just step over!
You’ll also get a few other diversions to keep you busy and Matt was happy to see that the group dance lessons showed that he was not the only one with two left feet; and Lyssa spent some productive time learning how to make cocktails of the colourful variety.
The hotel has a number of restaurants, mainly buffet style, but there is also an a la carte Italian restaurant that you need to book in advance, which Lyssa made sure she had block booked for our entire stay. Evening strolls along the beach were also spectacular with clear constellations above or tropical thunderstorms raging offshore.
If you do get to escape your resort, as we tried for a day, then you will find most of the other resorts to be a similar variation on the theme of ours, some a little posher, some less so, but all to pretty much the same pattern. If you want to find some good snorkeling then head to Coral Playa for their guided snorkel tours for 10 CUC pp, it’s a bit of a circus to get out into the water, but once there it is a fun experience and the guide will usually ring some food for the fish that will have them swarming around you in a frenzy.
The Island Paradise – saving the best for last, but in fact on our trip this was the first beach that we visited in Cuba as a day trip from Havana. Cayo Largo del Sur, taking a very early flight out of Havana, head south for 40 mins and you’ll arrive at this purpose built tourist destination (there are no real local inhabitants, it being set up purely for migrating tourists). Where we arrived you did not find all the big resorts but rather a Catamaran ready to take us on a tour of the beaches and islets of the surrounds.
Once again, this is not going to be a form of adventure tourism, as you’ll find busloads of Russians and Canadians all arriving from Varadero, but as we said above when you are in such a beautiful place a bit of mass tourism is not always so bad! The tour will invariably take you to Iguana island where you will get 30 mins to chase and be chased by quite large reptiles and if you are lucky you may also bump into a Desmarest’s Hutia…an 8 kilo rodent that is endemic to Cuba.
Next to Playa Rico, which is little more than a white sandbank,but a beautiful spot nonetheless to have a brunch of lobster and rum. A final stop at Playa Sirena – one of the may beaches of Cuba in the running for best beach award with its 2km of powdery white sand, starfish and great snorkeling. If we were coming back to Cuba again and wanted some more beach time, then this would most probably be our destination…at least for a couple of days of rest before our itchy feet would have us back out into the wilds on some exploration.
To get a feel for some of that exploration in Cuba then take a look at our fourth and final blog on Cuba – Campo (countryside). In the meantime, fix yourself a Pina Colada, sit back and take in the sights of Cuba, enjoy!