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Hotel Colon, Camaguey |
The Courtyard from above |
Looking up to our room |
Nighttime |
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Breakfast in the courtyard |
Reception |
The bar |
No room to swing a cat |
We stayed here for a night and liked it. The TripAdvisor reviews are fair, and it depends very much on you whether you like it or not. I quote from the last two reviewers
"The colonial architecture, for me, did not make up for its deficiencies as a hotel. The rooms were small ... Any room where I have to struggle to get past the bed is not acceptable. "
"This hotel is fantastic for a brief stay with its old world charm"
I am closer the position of the second reviewer. Firstly remember this is Cuba, so standards are very different from European ones. The bedrooms are pokey, and there is not enough room to swing the proverbial cat, but the public rooms ooze character. We had drinks in the courtyard, and dinner in the restaurant - an found the barbecued pork very good.
Car parking is a bit of a scam, but is everywhere in Cuba. I had to smile when the porter got into the car to guide me to the parking area, and up popped a cycle rickshaw man to take us back the hundred meters to the hotel. He had been put up to it by the porter, and it was designed to get our custom for a ride round the town later - we did not avail ourselves of his services.
If you are driving yourself there, be warned that everything they say about the hotel being (almost) impossible to find is true. We arrived on the outskirts of Camaguey in belting rain, and up popped a man on a bike hammering on the car window to guide us. We ignored him, and a few miles later he popped up again, knowing exactly where we would get lost. I told him in forceful Spanish to clear off. But it did take us a considerable length of time to get to the hotel (one way narrow streets, not a grid pattern and 90% of streets do not have a name)
The hotel is about 400 meters from the town centre, and we found it a perfectly acceptable touring base.
It was noisy at night. Cubans by their very nature are noisy people. And the clientele of this hotel is virtually all Cuban, so lots of noise. But if you want to experience the real Cuba, then this is it!
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| We enjoyed a mojito in this | .. intriguing old cafe with an | .. incredible tiled mural | .. and a view over the square |
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The old colonial town is a maze of winding streets and classical architecture. Like a number of other Cuban towns is a UNESCO site, but there is not really enough money coming in to stop the gradual decay of most of the buildings
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School's out. One notices all |
..over Cuba, the well dressed |
..school children, with the same |
..uniforms for each age group |
School comes out, and parents and children head for home. All over Cuba, primary age children wear maroon uniform sand work their way up through blues to dark yellow. The children were impeccably turned out in white shirts. We would see them in the towns and out in the middle of nowhere in the country, always carrying large quantities of books. Part of the propaganda that is fed to the Cuban people is that they have free education but that in the West parents have to pay for it (ditto with health)