Cuba - Cayo Largo del Sur: Villa Linda Mar

 

Cuba - Cayo Largo del Sur: Villa Linda Mar

January 13 to 19, 2024

 

 

Our plan was to go camping, down south:  Carolinas, Georgia, Florida …  Weather forecast sounded promising, and we started to pack our van with our camping gear to get going.

So much for the forecast.  A strong jet stream changed the weather dramatically, with no break in sight. Camper was snow covered, frozen over – and we were getting restless.

 A cursory glance ,and the last minute travel options, proposed Cuba as an alternative.  One caught our eyes:  Cayo Largo del Sur!  And the images of the reed decked houses of Villa Linda Mar looked very enticing.  We booked, and had 72 hours ‘til departure from Ottawa.  There was another option to fly from Montreal, but that gave us just 48 hours preparation time; even for us, a bit tight.

But! Approaching our departure day, another low from Texas was trying to interfere with our travel plans.  We made it in time to our Ottawa airport hotel, and looked a bit doubtful at the blizzard raging on outside the hotel window.  It felt like a deja-vu to last year, when we were stuck at the same hotel over Christmas following our return from Cuba.  Will we make it there???

We felt relieved when a message from the airline informed us that our departure was delayed by 3 hours due to weather –  but not cancelled! And we needed that delay, because the road to the airport was barely drive-able, with very low visibility, in the morning (now 6am: originally, we were supposed to be at the airport at 3am!).  They had just started cleaning the roads.

 

But off we went, eventually.

4 hours later we landed under sunny skies and a temperature around 30C, on the landing strip of Cayo Largo, and a short while later were dropped of at our bungalow complex of Villa Linda Mar.

 It is a very small resort, but beautifully laid out behind the beach in the form of  individual, reed covered bungalows.  We had chosen “ocean view”, and did not regret this small extra expense (our bungalow was #7002, located to the east end of the compound).  The view from the balcony was fantastic , and we loved listening to the surf on the beach.

 

Cayo Largo del Sur, as well as many islands/coastline (north and south), were severely damaged by recent hurricanes.  In our case, Ian appeared to have done most of the damage back in 2022. 

 Along the coastline of this island, looking east, almost all hotels/resorts were either completely closed, or under some kind of renovations.  From Linda Mar, looking west, we found only 2 hotels occupied, and only to some degree: most buildings looked closed.

 While the beach consisted of wonderful fine sand, and the water invited us to swim/float in the waves (after we made it through the surge, which was somewhat of a challenge, given the exposed rocks along the newly created beach), we could see that up to 10 feet in height (!!!) of the coastline had been washed out to sea, leaving only a narrow strip of actual beach.  In the past, this beach must have been absolutely stunning.

 

Being on an island, goods and people have to be ferried in from the mainland.  The only other occupied Island, Isla de La Juventud, also depends on goods being shipped in.

Unfortunately, the supply ferry to the mainland had mechanical issues – translating into some food and beverage shortages during our stay.  But everyone in this resort took these developments in stride: it’s Cuba, after all.

But more challenging for the staff was the breaking down of the passenger ferry to the mainland.  Resort workers living on the mainland had not been back home since early/mid December.  A typical shift for them was 20 days on, 10 days off …  And nobody knew when the ferry would be fixed.

Hanging out at the beach bar, or in front of the pool bar, we formed a small community of  like-minded compatriots (meaning: a mix of French/Polish/German/English Canadians).  We loved our conversations and the mix!

 

Our conclusion of this trip:  a great stay, a welcome break from the winter weather up north (which sounded terrible during our absence), and great times with friends, some of whom we will likely meet again here in Canada.

 

And as expected, our flight brought us back to Ottawa to snow, and more snow and ice rain in the forecast: the usual mix.   

Our camper sits in our entrance, packed to the rim.  It looks like it will stay in the driveway for a while longer: the forecast for down south does not sound good at all!