Playa Sirena was our favourite, apparently it’s the 11th best beach in the world – we can definitely see why! The water wasn’t as clear as Playa Paraiso, however it was a beautiful deep turquoise instead, the sand was powder soft, and best of all – I got to go sailing again.
Visiting Playa Sirena Beach, Cuba
It’s been years since I went sailing, I used to do it three times a week when I was a teen, and was in the school racing team in Australia and the University sailing club. I’ve sailed dinghys and crewed on yachts and keel boats, but never a catamaran…well…now I’ve sailed a catamaran too, albeit a little one. We were really lucky that all watersports were included with our hotel, including the small catamaran and a skipper for it. We all climbed on and while the skipper took the mainsheet I took the jib and the tiller.
I took my underwater camera on the boat with me and left my Lumix GF3 on the beach hidden in my Primarni bag (it was super safe, Jasiminne left her Louis Vuitton on the beach and no one touched it!), but sadly my trusty ancient Fujifilm underwater cam was on it’s last legs and promptly broke shortly after these two photos were taken…
Nevermind. I had an awesome time sailing again, and even remembered when to tack! Booyah. It really did make me miss it though, just that freeing feeling of flying over the water, it’s so magical. After sailing we decided to take a pedalo out, after all, you can’t go on a beach holiday without having a ride on a pedalo!
Ciara and I obviously just had a laugh taking photos of each other and then taking our own selfies – we also found out that when I stopped pedalling to take a selfie, it didn’t actually make any difference to the pedalling for Ciara :/ woops…
>Taking selfies up-close with no makeup on made me realize just how many freckles I have on my face! :O My nanny always calls them the ‘Sun’s Kisses’, so I’m just gonna count myself special.
Our pedalo was very relaxing, however we soon got bored of the pedaling part so headed back to the shore, went for a swim in the cool waters, and then dried off in the sunshine, slathering on Factor 50 again.
Visiting Playa Paraiso Beach, Cuba
Playa Paraiso is the beach next to Playa Sirena. We got the free shuttle train that took us from our hotel to the beaches, and jumped off at whichever beach we felt like going to that day. There was quite a bit of seaweed along the shore and the waters were much shallower than Playa Sirena, so you can’t really swim as it’s mainly a sandbank, but it’s lovely just to lay around on whilst staying cool.
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| Photo from Jasiminne |
Naturally photos were taken and poses were struck with effortless confidence and style…
HA! Jokes. It looked more like this…
We lay in the water and watched fish swim around us, sometimes they got really brave and came right up to us, but then I’d get my camera out and they’d all swim off. I did manage to get this snap though…
After laying about doing nothing but take photos for far too long, we headed back to wait for the bus to take us back to the hotel. We had half an hour or so to wait, so we grabbed a ‘Cuban Fanta’ (way better than normal Fanta!) at the little cafe shack on the beach, and sat there chatting about our trip so far and what we wanted to do when back in Havana.
Staying at Sol Cayo Largo
After lunch we wandered down to the pool for an afternoon of laying on the cabana reading a book (Tim Winton’s ‘Shallows’ for me) – have you noticed yet that Cayo Largo involved a lot of us just laying about?! It was pure bliss.
I also finally got to wear my summer Zara shorts! I’m not usually one for very bright clothing, but I saw these and just had to get them, I love the print on them!
If you’re going to Cayo Largo I’d definitely recommend the Sol Cayo Largo, it has everything you need; basic rooms perfect for getting covered in sand from the beach, all-inclusive drinks and food, two huge swimming pools, lovely staff, excellent Pina Colada’s, and they do the best fresh crepes every morning for breakfast! The resort is also really pretty, and is right on a gorgeous beach! There’s also a pool bar where you can sit in the pool with your drinks to keep cool.
The hotel also has wifi, but it’s 8CUC per hour, which is about £5. The food was ok, we quickly figured it was much better to just have the freshly prepared food available (crepes, pancakes, omelettes, fried eggs – all which were made in front of you and to your specification) and leave the stuff that had been sitting there getting flies on it such as fruit. Cuba also doesn’t to vegetables very well, they all tasted as though they had come out of a tin, which they probably had, so stick to the things they grow there such as tomatoes and peppers (capsicum).
Catherine Lux is a veteran travel blogger by night and the Head of Content Marketing at Amazon by day. Originally from Surrey, she spent four years living in Australia (2007-2009, and 2016-2018), and now lives in London. An ex-party girl sometimes prone to relapses, she loves nothing more than sharing her fine dining and luxury travel experiences with her loyal readers.
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