Cuba - Lonely Planet [277]
Sights
The arched comma of beach at the end of 20km-long Playa Santa Lucía, Playa Los Cocos, 7km from the hotels at the mouth of the Bahía de Nuevitas, is another stunner, with white sand and iridescent jade water. Sometimes flocks of pink flamingos are visible in Laguna El Real, behind this beach. A horse and carriage from the Santa Lucía hotels to Playa Los Cocos is CUC$6 each way for one or two persons, or you can walk it, jog it, bike it, taxi it, or jump on the twice-daily bus service that calls at all the tourist hotels. This is a fine swimming spot with views of the Faro Colón lighthouse on Cayo Sabinal but beware of tidal currents further out.
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CUBA’S LAST WILDERNESS
Carpeted by expansive mangrove swamps and home to an estimated 30,000 flamingos, Cayo Romano is one of Cuba’s last true wilderness areas. Largely ignored by contemporary travelers and virtually unvisited, save for the odd binocular-wielding ornithologist, two causeways link this most lonesome and untamed of northern keys with Cayo Coco in the west and Camagüey province to the south. Ernest Hemingway first championed the island’s desolate and barren beaches in his posthumously published Cuban classic Islands in the Stream in the early ’40s, and in 1947 a young Fidel Castro hid out in adjoining Cayo Confites for 52 days training for an abortive plot to overthrow the dictatorial Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. Other than that, not much has ignited the party here since Columbus first rolled by in 1494.
Targeted for future tourist development along the lines of Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo, Cayo Romano – the Cuban government claims – could one day play host to more than 5000 hotel rooms. For the time being, however, if you’re equipped with a set of wheels, a large dose of mosquito repellent and a true sense of do-it-yourself adventure, the place is all yours.
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Activities
Playa Santa Lucía is a diving destination extraordinaire that sits alongside what is, purportedly, the world’s second-longest coral reef (after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef). The 35 scuba sites take in six Poseidon ridges, the Cueva Honda dive site, shipwrecks, several types of rays and the abundant marine life at the entrance to the Bahía de Nuevitas. The much-promoted highlight is the hand-feeding of bull sharks between 3m and 4m long (June to January).
Shark’s Friends Dive Center (Cubanacán Náutica; 36-51-82; Av Tararaco) is a professional outfit with dive masters who speak English, Italian and French. The center, on the beach between Brisas Santa Lucía and Gran Club Santa Lucía, offers dives for CUC$30, plus night dives (CUC$40) and the famous shark feeds (CUC$65) where cool-as-cucumber dive guides chuck food into the mouths of 3m-long bull sharks. It has boats going out every two hours between 9am and 3pm daily, though the last dive is contingent on demand. The open-water course costs CUC$360; a resort course is CUC$60. It also has snorkeling excursions.
The hotels can organize other water activities including a full-day catamaran cruise along the littoral (CUC$57 with lunch and snorkeling), a Flamingo Tour (CUC$59) and deep-sea fishing (CUC$200 for the boat for 3½ hours).
Sleeping
The small hotel strip begins 6km west of the roundabout at the entrance to Santa Lucía. The four big ones are Cubanacán all-inclusives with not much to choose between them. Due to Playa Santa Lucía’s size and isolation, it’s a good idea to book a room beforehand. Private rooms are prohibited here.
Hotel Escuela Tararaco (Formatur; 33-63-10; r CUC$35; ) There are no casas particulares in Playa Santa Lucia, so thank Changó for the Tararaco, one of