Holguin to Las Brisas, Santa Lucia


The sort of roads that.one meets	....in Cuba. The problem is that..	..they were once asphalt.. but the	..surface is now deep pot holes

Leaving Holguin we headed up Caraterra Central to Las Tunes. There the trick was to fin the road north to Playa Santa Lucia. All started well in Las Tunas with Santa Lucia signed a couple of times, but the signs stopped after two, and we got lost. We went round the one way system again to try a different route out, but got lost on that down pot holed city byroads. A third approach from the outskirts looked promising, but eventually that road ran out - however a lady assured us it was correct, and I soldiered on with some trepidation. Eventually we did reach the airport via a terrible road, and there picked up a (slightly) better road north. That was fine for a long way, then a 6 km stretch was dug up completely for repair, and following that the road deteriorated further into broken asphalt and deep pot-holes. However this too we overcame and reached Camalote and a better road to Santa Lucia Playa.


Las Brisas Hotel, an all	inclusive hotel on the beach at	Santa Lucia. Run by a foreign	company, the management was

better then most Cuban hotels.	A good swimming pool	though it was overcast during	our stay
		The boys were well looked after

We stayed at Las Brisas Hotel, on the beach at Santa Clara for 3 nights. It was the first time we had used an all-inclusive. The three days we were there the weather was overcast (a hurricane had passed a few hundred miles east, and this was the fall out from it). Our room was fine, overlooking the pool and a side view onto the sea (room 214). Not luxurious in any way, but comfortable with satellite TV and a good bathroom.

The restaurant served the inevitable buffets of mediocre food. We could normally get round this by getting a freshly cooked egg or omlette from the cook in the morning plus fresh fruit, fresh cooked fish at lunch and fresh carved meat in the evening. One evening the fresh roast chicken ran out before we got there, and no replacement was offered.

The cocktails were exceptionally good. I commend particularly the Pina Cola and the Spanish Coffee. On the other hand the house wine they had was the worst wine I think I have ever drunk. You could actually smell the vinegar in the glass - we could not drink it, and the smell was so bad that I had to move the undrunk glasses to another table - we noticed there were lots of untouched glasses of wine going back. Stick to beer - and best bring one in from the bar, to avoid the jugs from which they served in the restaurant.

With better weather we could have enjoyed the beach but was it was we were really confined to the hotel, as there is nothing, and I mean nothing, around this hotel (apart from three other similar all inclusives, at which you cannot share the facilities). We did try driving up the coast to Playa Boca (read in guide book about it) but the pot holes in the road were so deep that we turned back.

We had a strange experience at check out. They insisted that we wait while a chambermaid checked our room. When I asked why, the grumpy receptionist said it was in case we had taken towels from the room. The towels, even if I had the inclination, were not of a quality worth stealing. And no other hotel in Cuba, or indeed anywhere else in the world, has ever wanted to check us for towels.

Actually they had a thing about towels. The bureaucratic procedure to get a beach towel was to go to reception, pay 20 CUC deposit, and sign a two part form which reception gave you. You then go 300 meters to a beach kiosk, and give them one part of the form - they give you two towels. At the end of your stay you return your towels to the beach kiosk (which does not open till 9am, so you cannot leave before that), they give you the form you gave them, they you walk 300 meters back to reception, hand them the two parts of of your form that you got from them in the first place, and get your 20 CUC back. Long live the command economy!