Clear waters.

This came up on my news feed this morning:

http://dailynewsdig.com/35-clearest-waters-world-swim-die/

It's a list of the 35 clearest waters in the world to swim in. There's no scientific basis to it, whatsoever, but they must have done something right, with Cayo Coco, Cuba placed fourth on their list.

Their picture doesn't even do it justice, so I'll just add my own here. (Any excuse to post more pictures.)

Cayo Coco, Cuba. By far, the clearest waters I have ever swum in.

Life's a beach.

Day two of our Cayo Coco trip consisted of beach-going, scuba diving, and reliving my marine biology days.

In the morning, a group of us ventured out to a dive shop at another hotel in Cayo Coco, hopped in a little speed boat with a couple of their SCUBA instructors to lead the way, and dropped down for a wreck dive just off the shore. I won't bore you with another picture of the stunning shoreline of Cuba (haha, just kidding, yes I will!).

The lobby of the other hotel, where the dive shop was.

A wall map of Cayo Coco and some of its dive sites.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of our boat trip out to the dive site (didn't want to risk dropping the camera in the water!), or any underwater pictures from our dive, but this was our boat. The tide was in, and the waves were high. And really fun.

Big waves!

We boated out to the dive site about ten minutes away, and dropped down for a quick, but fun, wreck dive. The wreck was an intentionally-sunk fishing boat, which was intended to create an artificial reef where there isn't one.  So far, it's not a very developed reef, but there are a few regular fish inhabitants, and the beginnings of a few species of coral. These kinds of artifical reefs take years to grow, but I must say, it is very forward thinking for the Cuban marine conservation groups to initiate projects like this.

I managed to find a picture of our wreck dive site from the Cayo Coco dive center website!

The fishing boat at the bottom of the sea.

You can see the early formations of coral on the outside of the boat, and the different species of fish it attracts. That, my friends, is how you build a reef. Being the geek that I am, I find it refreshing to see that governments are taking an active role in protecting their oceans and marine ecosystems, which are more important than most people think. (Once a biologist, always a biologist.) Maybe one day I'll get to go back to that dive site and see how much it's grown.

Anyway, after our little SCUBA diving excursion, a group of us drove out a little ways to another beach, Playa Pilar, which, as I mentioned in one of my first posts, is probably the nicest beach I've ever seen.

The drive out to Playa Pilar from the back of a pickup.

Playa Pilar.

This is just a boring picture of a mangrove swamp...

...UNTIL YOU ZOOM IN.

There were some nice views along the way. Mangrove swamps GALORE. When I was in fourth grade, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, I did a research project on mangrove swamps. There was so little information in our library about them (this was before the internet came to town...) that I had a hard time writing about that particular ecosystem. To see miles of untouched mangrove swamps in Cayo Coco, Cuba was pretty incredible. The only other time I can remember seeing mangroves that extensive was when I was off of a remote island in Indonesia. And there were no flamingos in Indonesia, I might add.

The biologist in me was geeking out all day.

Ahh, Cuba.

Cayo Coco, Day One.

If you ever find yourself in Cuba, looking for something to do for the weekend, hop in a car for 6 hours, and drive to Cayo Coco. Seriously, you will not regret it.

Cayo Coco is a caye just northeast of the mainland of Cuba, with a handful of resorts scattered around the island. Our home for the weekend was called Hotel Iberostar, and it was great - decked out with pools, a spa, a couple of nice dining areas, a mini gym, a cigar lounge and direct access to the beach. There were even daily and nightly activities to partake in, had we so desired (think water aerobics and evening dance shows). The hotel was also full of Europeans and Canadians. Lots of Canadians.

The entrance to the hotel.

This sweet car was a permanent fixture in the lobby.

Of all the traveling I've done, not much of it has been spent at resorts, so it was pretty exciting to be in an "all-inclusive" hotel. You can not imagine my joy at discovering that we could get hot dogs and french fries at any time of day. The last time I was at an all inclusive hotel was when Daniel and I went skiing in Uludag, Turkey. While it's incredibly convenient to have everything taken care of, it's just a style of traveling to which I am unaccustomed. Needless to say, it was nice.

After we had dropped our stuff off in our rooms, we proceeded to do things in order of greatest importance. So, obviously, we hit up the restaurant by the pool for hot dogs and french fries, first. When we had finished eating, a guy came around to our table with a hawk perched on his arm, asking if we wanted to pet and hold the hawk. It took us about a second to think that one over.

Hawks = Awesome. Also, check out my shiny, new engagement ring! :)

Our next mission: Find the beach and do a whole lot of nothing.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Missing this view, right about now.

As you can imagine, we were pretty spent after our tough afternoon of frolicking in the ocean. We cleaned ourselves up, and made our way to the main restaurant area for some dinner. We managed to catch the last little bit of the hotel evening show, and I stopped in at the hotel gift shop to pick up some post cards, but we didn't stay up too late. Much to our excitement, we had some scuba diving to look forward to the next morning!

The Long Drive.

On my third day in Cuba, Daniel and I, with a couple of good friends, made the long drive from Havana to Cayo Coco, where we planned to spend a few days relaxing, scuba diving, sun-bathing, and beach-going (I know, it's a hard life). Cayo Coco is an absolutely beautiful resort town of the same ilk as Varadero, just way, way farther away. As we drove the 6 hours through the Cuban countryside, we passed through a few towns and got to see some areas of untouched beauty. Some of the landscape could have been right out of Jurassic Park.

We tried to get a few snapshots along the way, hoping to capture the atmosphere of what we were seeing. A moving car made that difficult, but we did get a few (or a lot). 

I can hear John Williams as I type.

Spot the two rancheros! ^^^

Whenever I visit a new place, I like to see what life is like for the people that live there. I mean real life. I'm not the kind of person to pack as many tourist attractions and museums as possible into each day. I would much rather roam around local side streets or villages, watching people in their everyday routines. That kind of stuff says more about a culture than anything you can read in a Lonely Planet travel guide. (I don't have anything against tourist attractions - that's just not where the gold is.)

Our road trip afforded us a view into a part of Cuba (albeit a small part) about which I knew nothing.
Here are some photos from our road trip(s), for your browsing...

It wouldn't be Cuba if there weren't pretty cars!

A Cuban rest stop.

One of the first towns we passed through.

Cayo Coco...in the distance.

In Cuba, they don't mess around with transportation. Horse and buggy, bike, sidecar, classic car. You name it, they've got it.

You can add tractor to that list.

Incredible artwork in Ciego de Avila, one of the towns we drove through on our way to Cayo Coco.

A Cuban Main Street.

Traffic jam.

The land bridge we crossed in our final stretch to Cayo Coco.

Cayo Coco. Where all your dreams come true.

             On the way back...

The most retro phonebooths I've seen in any city (sorry, London).

A car that, as you can see, literally sparkled. Somebody was a little excited...

Just some explosives, nbd.