If you’re staying at one of the several all-inclusive resorts on Cayo Santa Maria in Cuba, you will not see anything authentically Cuban that isn’t a staged event. Nothing. This is an island separated from the mainland by a 48 kilometre causeway. The causeway has a tight police checkpoint on the mainland side. This means, local Cubans can only reach the island if they are official employees of one or the resorts or are maintenance workers for the island’s infrastructure.
This means, there are no Cubans living on Cayo Santa Maria. There are no historic structures or any buildings whatsoever, that weren’t built by and for the resorts within the past decade or so.
If you want a glimpse of the real Cuba, you must find your way to the mainland.
Cayo Santa Maria Excursions
Gaviota Tours is the official excursion provider for the island and is the company that will bring you to and from Abel Santamaria Airport in Santa Clara at the start and end of your vacation. For tourists, for now, all roads out of Cayo Santa Maria are via Gaviota.
However, you do have a number of options. Some are quite adventurous with overnight trips to Trinidad or Havana. Some take you off road with you at the wheel. Some take you out on the ocean. You can even swim with the dolphins but this activity has been proven to be pretty cruel and barbaric to the animals.
When you have a three year old and a three month old, the options narrow down pretty quick. We wouldn’t have taken an excursion at all over our nine days, if not for one major feature of the Sugar Tour.
Tour de Azucar
One of the tamest of the excursions, and possibly one of the least exciting for those under a certain age and without kids (in other words, those looking to party), is the Sugar Tour (Tour de Azucar). Back in the early 1990’s when the Soviet Union split up and the newly formed countries left Cuba in the dark, sugar became no longer viable for the country and they began shutting down factories.
The one in Marcelo Salido has been preserved and made into a museum. But, this is not the feature that would get parents of a three year old to spend some 120 Convertible Pesos (total) on a half day trip.
In the age of Thomas the Tank Engine, a ride on an actual steam train will put any kid over the top. That is the feature of this tour, despite what they advertise. The steam train ride from Marcelo Salido to Remedios is a one of a kind experience.
Officially, the tour starts at the sugar factory with a guided tour through the building with an emphasis on the slave trade kept it running in its early days. Everything is polished up with fresh paint. It’s a sharp contrast to the sugar factory we visited while in Cayo Coco a number of years back. That factory was still operating and was coated in black residue.
You do receive a few freebies on this tour and this starts at the sugar factory. After downing a shot of pure cane sugar juice (guarapo), you walk away with a free bottle of Cuban rum (Mulata brand).
The train ride is definitely the star of the show. The museum area has many old steam trains in various states of restoration. What seems so old to us was probably in actual use up until not long ago in Cuba.
As I’d seen in YouTube videos before going down, the driver randomly selects a few people from the crowd to ride in the engine. I stepped aside to take a picture of the engine when we were in line and was immediately called over. It was a tough decision but I had to choose holding onto two kids back in coach with the rest of the passengers.
The passenger cars are open with wooden benches to sit on. The driver pushes that steam engine to the point where you are expecting bits of metal to start flying off. The noise can be quite deafening so be prepared to cover your ears for an extended period of time.
But, the ride is outstanding. You pass through some pretty desolate housing areas before heading out to farm country. There is a classic train station at Remedios but it looks to be in the early stages of restoration at the moment.
Remedios, Cuba
Typical of a Cuban day excursion, you’re given an hour or so in the centre of a city that just happens to a street full of vendors with supposed authentic items. Authentic or not, they are mostly quite inexpensive. We bought a wooden airplane for the toddler and it was in need of a glue overhaul after about ten minutes.
Sitting in the main square in Remedios, you will get approached by folks selling peanuts and other snacks. These got brushed aside but I did make a deal with one man. After I denied his peanuts, he pulled out a coin. It was a three peso piece in actual Cuban pesos with Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara on the back. He knew he had a sucker – the local currency is mostly worthless at the moment.
But, real Cuban money is hard to come by for tourists so I always take advantage of the opportunity. I traded straight up for a convertible peso – equal to $1 in U.S. money. I have a cool coin and the guy made a small fortune in what is still a pretty oppressed country.
Remedios is a nice town and typical of any inland city in Cuba – rundown anywhere but in the centre of town. A few images above shows the centre with one of its two churches, a classic car and horse drawn wagon to boot.
The images directly above and below are typical street scenes that the bus doesn’t stop to show you. Yes, the black dog in the above picture is wearing a white shirt!
Not part of the tour but something the tour guide tells you a whole lot about is the homes for the resort employees in Caibarien. The two images below show this neighbourhood. The story goes that resort employees from Cayo Santa Maria can ‘purchase’ a home in one of these buildings. The ‘mortgage’ is 10% of their pay – forever. However, if they lose their job or quit to go somewhere else, they lose their home and all the money invested in it.
There was some talk that in the reforming Cuban economy, there now is a point where they can own the home free and clear.
The final stop on the tour can be a bit confusing. On the one page advertisement you get at the resort, it simply says ‘Pairing at Playa’. What I’m thinking is that there’s a lunch on a private beach before we get dropped off.
This is not the case. When they refer to Playa, they mean the Playa resort on Cayo Santa Maria. You get dumped off at this resort for a buffet lunch and a visit to their cigar lounge. Playa resorts are a fully Cuban owned chain. We have previously stayed at Playa Pesquero in Guardalavaca (Holguin).
The thing is, the resort is lower grade than where we were staying. So, we spent two hours at a lesser resort eating from their buffet and hanging around their lobby when we could have just gone back to where we belonged. I’m sure the time in the cigar lounge was fun, and we did both get a free cigar even though we didn’t go to that part. However, with kids, it just wasn’t happening.
What results is what was supposed to be a half day tour ends up running until three in the afternoon. Now, the thing is, we should have just hopped aboard the 1CUC double decker bus that runs back and forth through the resorts and just gone home. But, we only thought of that in hindsight.
So, was it worth it? The official price is 59CUC for adults and 44CUC for children. We lied about the three year old’s age so we only had to pay for two adults. Yes, it was worth it. I always jump at the chance to see the ‘Real Cuba’. The train ride is still being talked about a month later. If you were to buy the bottles of rum and the cigars in Canada, it would cover a good portion of that cost.
What’s interesting is that on the one page pamphlet, the prices are also given in actual Cuban Pesos. The trip would cost 1475 pesos for adults and 1100 pesos for children. I’ve never seen these prices offered before. It must have to with the country’s impending trip back to a world with just one currency. They say it’s coming and coming soon. But, soon in Cuba could mean another 40 years…
Below is a video of the resort we stayed at, Memories Paraiso Azul Beach Resort.
Memories Paraiso Azul Cayo Santa Maria Video
