J&M got Maui'd!

On our last day we spent as much time on the beach as we could. We also tried out the lunch buffet, which I had not realized was available since we had been skipping lunch or eating at the snack bar, or beach house during lunch time. We should have come in more often. The food was decent and they actually had a chocolate milk dispenser. I finally got my chocolate milk. Our room maid had been doing a lot of fancy things with the blankets in our room. So I'll show this elephant that we found on our bed after lunch. Blanket Elephant We went snorkeling for one last time and we bumped into another couple that were snorkeling with no luck finding anything. I showed them the little fishes that I found before, as well as a giant sea cucumber that we came across, but after looking around the area I found nothing of interest in the water. How disappointing. Wave striking the beach We had yet another power outage in our room, but was able to go out to watch the sun set one more ti

We had a power outage in the morning and slept in, missing the breakfast service (we literally walked in as they were clearing out the trays). We ended up eating at the snack bar instead, and spent the afternoon on the beach. La playa That evening we watched the sunset again and caught the evening's dance show, which was a "awards" show. There were a lot of Canadians at the resort, a good percentage of which were francophone. Now that is a nice sunset Maggie wanted to check out the night club, which was some sort of disco, but when we looked inside after it had opened, it looked pretty small and dead, so we just called it a night.

We decided to spend the entire day on the beach. After having an omelette for breakfast (it was pretty decent), we headed straight for the beach. We saw the effects of the prior night's waves as some of the cabanas had collapsed. I went swimming and snorkeling for much of the day and came back with rashes and burns over my legs. Poor Cabana We had dinner at the Asian restaurant this time and the food was meh, as we had expected. I was a little surprised to find a lot of different fruits in my sushi. We were able to catch the sunset this night although the high tide and waves made the pier quite wet.  Me and Maggie on the pier We finished off the night watching yet another dancing show which featured the tourists, which was entertaining for all involved.

The resort had a beach bar and beach house which served food during the lunch period. They had paella, fish, pork and salad which looked really yummy the first day when I was checking out the beach. We decided to break fast with paella so we headed straight for the beach and found a seat at the empty tables overlooking the water. Weather in Cuba could change quickly, just like most islands and fortunately for us, we can see storms coming from a mile (or ten) away. Unfortunately when you are waiting outside in line for something, seeing a storm coming only made me wonder why I did not bring an umbrella. When the rain came it came fast and hard, and we were completely soaked. It actually felt quite cold, but the shower passed by quickly and the heat and humidity came back with a vengeance. After we finished our first plates of food, Maggie wanted to get some more paella so she waited in line for more food. Again, I saw a dark band of clouds in the distance, and guessed that we had tw

Maggie and I rented a taxi to visit Santa Clara to visit my great grand father's grave, and to check out the sites outside of the resort. We were able to rent a taxi, and the taxi driver (Jorge Luis Chong - El Chino) was able to bring along a interpreter, who happened to be his step-daughter. Her English was not perfect, but it was good enough for us to communicate fairly well together. The church that was closed. We saw a flight of flamingos as we left the cayo. This would happen to be the only time that we see any flamingos, which is disappointing considering that Cayo Coco was known for their flamingos. Our first stop was in a town who's name I forgot. We were to visit a church in the centre of the town, but we found out once we got there that the church was closed! That was a little disappointing. However it did give us a chance to walk around and stretch our legs for a bit. Maggie in the Santa Clara town square. Afterward, we headed to Santa Clara to find my gre

I had a few things I wanted to do today. One was to write up and send out my post cards. The other was to book a taxi or tour to take us to Santa Clara so that we could go see my GGF's grave. I had set my alarm to 0830 so that we would be able to catch the welcome meeting with the travel coordinator, but I found out that my phone was actually an hour behind! I don't know how that happened, considering that the phone was displaying the time in Santa Clara, but Maggie's phone was correct according to the time on the television. As such, we ended up missing the orientation meeting and had to apologize for our tardiness. The lady explained to us that there were no tours that went to Santa Clara, but one could book a taxi. A taxi driver was actually standing right there and he quoted us a price, which seemed fairly okay, compared to the price that Jeff and Angela paid. I was also able to pick up some stamps, convert extra cash (conversion rates are terrible!) and pick up an

Our flight out to Cayo Coco was at 0630 which meant that we had to wake up really early in the morning to catch our flight. I had debated whether to drive to the airport in my shorts and sandals but figured that pants and shoes would make more sense. Besides, we should be able to change into shorts once we got to the resort so there was no need to worry about being uncomfortable. After we got to the airport, I realized that we had forgotten our waterproof camera. This would prove to be annoying because I was unable to take pictures or videos of any of the coral reef or fishes I saw underwater. The flight to Cuba was fairly uneventful, but when we got to the resort, we were told that our rooms were not ready yet. Okay, we should be able to chill out in the dining hall for lunch no? No. The (air conditioned) dining hall was not open for lunch yet. The only thing that was available was the open air snack bar. Great. Even in the shade, I was starting to sweat through my shirt and my pa