Day 28:
Today is the second day of my stay at the Sanctuary at Grand Memories in Cayo Santa Maria. If you go to Cuba, I recommend going to one of the Cayos. And I can recommend this very hotel. It is adult only, so no kids around. That is perfect, especially, when you are single, on a solo trip, and you would love to have a little bit of peace and silence on your last days of a four weeks travel. But no worries, the sister-areas are for families as. The same luxury but better prepared for children of all ages.
*this article contains affiliate links. That means that I will earn a little commission as soon as you click and order anything from that site. It will help me to fund this website.
Well, day two on my beach only stay at the worlds best hotel ever. I have to admit that the I am not only not used to this all-inclusive thing, I also have problems to do nothing. So absolutely nothing! I mean, here on the Cayo is not that much to do. Besides a Dolphinarium, the beach, the pool, and a mini kind of village, which is built between the hotel areas to have a place where you can shop around on a marketplace, bowling, and to eat out in a few restaurants. You can also climb on an area overlooking tower, which is a pretty cool view. But overall, this is done in about one hour.
Usually, I wake up, maybe have breakfast or not, and start into the day with strolling around and discover the area, historic and unique places, try different foods. Like I did the previous days and weeks in Trinidad, Havana, even in Cancun. But in such a hotel, the possibilities to explore new things are very rare.
However, I tried my best, and after breakfast, a prosperous one with such a wide range of food from bread to eggs, fruits and vegetables, cereals and fresh fruit juice. Unbelievable! I repeat it; I was overwhelmed with the all those offers.
Pin for later!
After breakfast, I looked for my “butler” who takes care of all the issues and wishes of the guests in my building. He makes reservations for the restaurants, answers your questions, and also books appointments with the Spa. One thing I wanted to have before I go back home, was a proper pedicure. Almost four weeks of walking the whole day, my feed needed urgent help.
While he tried to get a fitting time slot for me, I went to the marketplace seeing if there is anything which I could take with me as a souvenir. At least a book for my beach session later would have been nice. Unfortunately, I have not found an interesting one. I also climb on that tower, which I mentioned before and took some pictures from above.
An hour and a sugar cane juice later, I went back to my hotel area. I met my butler, and he told me, that the girl for the pedicure is not in today. No way! It would have been awesome if this had worked out.
No pedicure ahead. Instead, I enjoyed some lunch snacks and cucumber water at the bar area. Then I went back to my room and put my bikini on. I went to the beach and enjoyed the water. It was warm as in a bathtub. It took a while until I found a place where the temperature was a bit cooler. I loved it and could have stayed in there for hours.
Do not forget to get your Cuban Tourist Card before you enter Cuba!
With swimming in the ocean, reading my book, and laying in the sun. I made it about two and a half hour. I will never understand the people who can stay at the beach the whole day. It can be as beautiful as paradise, but after a few hours, I have to move. It is so hard for me to stay in one place the whole time.
So, once again, I went back to my room, took a shower, wrote a little bit for my blog, before I sat down on one of the sundecks around the lobby area to enjoy the afternoon by cake, coffee, and the book, I am reading now the second time.
After a little while a Canadian came around, he already saw me yesterday evening at dinner and wondered why I sat alone. Now it came closer, and we had a short chat. I enjoyed our talk. He got us a Mojito and talked a bit longer.
Soon it was time for dinner. It was so funny today! The staff recognized me from yesterday and gave me an extra portion of attention. No idea why. Maybe they just liked me, or they thought I need a bit of company as I was alone again? Whatever the reason was, I loved that attention, and they made me laugh.
When I finished my dessert, the Canadian, who ate with his friends, came over to my table and we had a lovely evening. I think you can imagine that talking was not everything he wanted to do tonight, and at least, I was thinking about it, too. In the end, I kissed him good night and disappeared into my room, alone.
Do not stress yourself out, by forgetting about your Visa. Order your Cuban Tourist Card right here!
I enjoyed this evening, and I wished that I booked at least one more night here. If I knew this before how beautiful and extraordinary it is, I would have done so.
Anyway, tomorrow, I will head to my final destination, to Varadero. I hope that this will be at least, as awesome as it is here.
Just in case, follow up the other days of my journey here, or sign up for my newsletter!