Tuesday 15 March to Monday 19 March - Melia Cayo Coco

The resort is all inclusive and so this week’s blog entry is too. At the start of the week our rep got us all together and outlined the various activities available. Some of our group were keen to have a day on a boat here, or a day snorkling on the reef there, otherwise, they warn ‘the days just sort of run into one another’.

I am very much looking forward to the days running into one another. I’ve been running from deadline to deadline, running for trains, appointments and commitments for months and for the last week I’ve been running for the bus or the check-out. Now the only place I want to run for is the loo when I’ve drunk too much. I brought over a shedload of books with me and I’ve got a sunlounger picked out on the beach as my spot - I’m sorted.

Anyway, who says there are no activities. For Saturday night I propose a bar crawl, one drink in each of the bars in the resort, three in total but hey, that’s enough rushing around.

The beach is, mysteriously, less popular than the pool. Possibly this is because of the constant onshore breeze, or getting sand in your suntan oil or something. As soon as you step off the beach into the sheltered pool area, where a pristine but very thick hedge screens you from the breeze, you can feel the heat punishing you.

I, of course, prefer to sit in the breeze feeling cooled. Which is why at the end of the first day you can actually see the bits I couldn’t get to with my sunblock - they are an attractive shade of pillar-box red. One particularly humorous effect is that there’s a print of my hand on my chest, marking the extent to which my sunblock application reached.

At start of the week have withdrawal symptoms because have not seen a political mural in a few days. Luckily I am able to get my Che image fix at the hotel gift shop. They have almost as many Che tee-shirts as I do.

Cayo Coco is basically a long strip of land with resorts strung along the sandy beaches. We have the Melia, our resort and one that you don’t need wrist bands to get into, too posh for wrist bands I guess - their selling point and the one that clinched it as the destination for us - no kids allowed. Next door there is a sister resort, the Sol. This is where some of the people on the flight out are and they do allow kids. It’s also where some of our tour are staying and where we wandered over for a drink one evening (it’s all of thirty seconds away). Coming back we were asked where we were staying - lots of pissed English people trying to explain we were actually guests of the hotel before somebody had the bright idea of flourishing their room key. Smiles all round but there was a touch of ‘papers, papers’. No wonder the Germans love the place.

Took a push bike one day and sweated and panted my way along the coast road, a long, flat ribbon of tarmac with resorts branching off of it. Also branching off of it are roads ending in deserted beaches, or beaches with Cubans enjoying themselves. Pushed on beyond the sand to the volcanic shore. No resorts here, as having tourists dashed against rocks is a bad thing.

Then on again, ending up at a secluded bar (surprise!) knocking back cold cola (thank god for refrigeration). There was a crescent of beach here, a bar/restaurant - all you could want really. However, I had an all-inclusive cocktail list to work my way through so I peddled back, slightly soggy with effort, for a shower and something with rum in it.

It rained twice while we were there. Two ten minute downpours, really tropical stuff. Quite exciting really. The open sided nature of the lobby building meant that once it started raining, a staff sprang into action with brooms and rubber edged things to try and push the water back outside. In a situation like that there’s only one sane response - grab a rum based drink.

The second time it happened we were on the beach. We ran for shelter under one of the tiki hut, thatched umbrella type things that provide shade. Already under there were another couple. So we ask if it’s okay to share their shelter. ‘Sure’. Oh, you’re English, and are you enjoying Cuba? It’s their sixth time there. Really, you must like it - what did you think of Havana.

They’ve never been to Havana. By visiting Cuba they mean visiting resorts. My wife starts to put her hand outside the shelter more and more frequently as if willing the rain to stop so we can escape these two. They complain that the resort is dirty (it’s pristine) and that, get this, there’s seaweed on the beach! I look down and he explains that he had to ask, ask mind you, for the staff to rake the bit in front of his sunbed to get rid of seaweed.

It’s a fucking beach you idiot! The seaweed is in a narrow strip along the beach and, frankly, where do you expect to find it? I’m gobsmacked by their ignorance and for the rest of the holiday so is everyone else I tell this story too.

These idiots have been sold an image of a beach, sand devoid of anything and blue skies and sea. Here, they have all that but the seaweed means it’s not the postcard - that’s because it’s REAL LIFE you freaking morons! As we hurried away ‘oh, it’ll stop soon, see you’ my wife explained that ‘Jesus, it’s just like one of those horror films, a couple shelter from the rain and what happens to them is even worse!’.

Every day on the beach a stately pelican would glide along the shore, patrolling his stretch of beach, swooping low over the sand and the water and, occasionally, folding his wings and dropping like a javelin into the water, spearing his dinner. Also on the beach was what can best be described as an airborne accident waiting to happen - some genius had welded an inflatable dingy to a microlite and, on certain not so windy days, was giving paying passengers rides up and down the beach.

It really had to be seen to be believed, not only could you barely believe it would fly, but the landing was something to behold - the pilot would bring it in skimming the trees, then the rocks, then the sunbeds and then slam into the water. 30 pasos a ride apparently - they’d have to pay me a hell of a lot more than that to get on the thing.

Having bean-soup withdrawal, so choose a Cuban restaurant for one evening meal. Of course, this means four guys wandering up to your table and singing to you, in this case an old Beatles song in Spanish.

The Cuban restaurant is on the beach bar and, walking to the beach afterwards the sky is amazing. There is no light pollution (because of no light, watch your step because the tide is in) and the stars make me want to reach for my Junior Astronomer’s Handbook so that I can name them all in impress women.

In the lobby bar we have a pianist every evening, and very lovely she is too. Then one evening we have a Cuban duo, he on guitar, she on maracas. Asked if we would like a song my normal response is to clench and prey for a quick death, but I’m on holiday and so of course ask for ‘something Cuban’ (I bloody hate the Beatles) so that’s what we get, ‘Cuban Romantica’.

I can feel the Caribbean infecting me. As a Brit the only music I usually find stirring is a brass band or military band, but this is great stuff - sitting sipping and listening.

One couple take it further and start to fox-trot through the lobby. Looking at them you can tell that they have had lessons to get that good and, always thinking the best of people, I naturally assume that he was found with his dick in the secretary and this is this wife’s revenge - ballroom dancing lessons and a Caribbean holiday - it’s either that or lose the house mate.

Despite my growing number of mozzie bites, they do take quite active measures to keep down the insect population. I know this because I’ve seen them at it, with a leafblower that shoots a cloud of the sort of pesticide that is probably banned in the EU and a tractor that makes a cracking, banging noise and shoots out clouds of steam. I’m not sure whether they are trying to gas the little buggers or scare them to death but this was all happening at six in the morning and it’s now that I discover that my fancy suite that we’ve been upgraded to has shutters but no windows!