December 1-8, 2014
Not sure where I should post this, but I ill submit it in this forum and deal only with the specific topic of nude beaches.
Background:
Cayo Largo is an island about 80 kilometres off the south coast of Cuba directly south of Havana. It is about 27 kilometres long and only about 3 kilometres at the widest point. It appeared to me to be a large reef covered with sand and scrub brush, very flat with the highest point only about 15 feet above sea level.
There are no permanent residents and the sole industry is tourism. The hotel workers are brought in on 20 day rotational shifts. There are about 6 hotels all of them along the south coast of the island.
The two hotels with nude beaches are Sol Pelicano and Sol Cayo Largo. These hotels have the only officially sanctioned nude areas by the Cuban Government.
Our stay was at Sol Pelicano. To get to the beach you must cross a catwalk of about 75 metres over a preserved area to get from the hotel area to the beach. At Sol Pelicano you must go to the far left of the beach (facing the ocean) where this is a sign stating "Nudismo Naturism".
There are no umbrellas but there are Palapas, basically a large post with a frame on top and covered with palm fronds. There are also a couple of other tent-like shelters made of the same materials. To get a palapa we found that you must go early in the morning and "stake your claim" with a towel or other marking. The first 3 days all were taken so shade for us was at a minimum. After that I managed to get to the beach before 7 a.m. and stake a claim. I did notice that some were claimed for the whole week and hardly used.There were about 40 or so people using the Naturist area each day.
The most striking thing was the sand…we have been to Cuba before and they have notoriously white sand beaches but this was the finest white sand I have seen anywhere! Virtually white powder sand. The only problem was the sand was so fine it was hard to get off your feet after you left the beach!
The beach all along the south coast is very windy…even more so than Orient and the water was very rough, especially the first few days with 2 – 3 foot waves breaking along the shoreline. Once you got past the first 10 metres or so it was a little easier but you had to roll with the waves. Only on the last day did it calm down but was still a little on the rough side.
We did not venture to the naturist beach at Sol Cayo Largo Hotel but did visit our friends who were staying at that hotel. They said there were about 150 people on the nude beach area there so it is much larger than the Sol Pelicano area. At Sol Cayo Largo to reach the nude beach you must go to the right facing the water to reach their nude area.
These two hotels are frequented mostly by Europeans, Canadians (mostly French Canadians) and South Americans. Language was a bit of a barrier, but we managed to somewhat overcome it by using "Espfranglais" (my own word) a mixture of Spanish, French and English. I estimate there were about 2 dozen native english speakers (Canadians) on the resort out of a few hundred guests. This is where we really miss our friends from the US!
We did visit a "vanilla" beach at Play Sirena about 6 kilometres away and found the same white powdery sand on a massive beach area.. It seems it is possible to walk most of the coast and never leave the sand!
If anyone has any questions about Cayo Largo or our hotel I will be happy to reply, but please…no politics.
John <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Cheers.gif" alt="" />
