Cayo Coco, Cuba

A new complex known as El Senador has recently opened on Cayo Coco in Ciego de Avila Province.  It will consist of two new hotels, the El Emperador Hotel (262 rooms) and the Laguna Azul (428 rooms).  At the official opening of these hotels it was also announced that phase two of this project on Paredon Grande is about to begin.

Cayo Coco is Cuba's second most famous beach....but many are now saying it is the best. This little known beach will eventually have as many as 22,000 hotel rooms, but right now has only a fraction of that. This beautiful beach is 37 kilometers long and has 21 kilometers of snowy white sand. If you are looking for a place more beautiful than Varadero, with a nice quiet atmosphere and Cuba's friendliest people.....Cayo Coco is for you!

An environmental impact study was completed by a Canadian company on Cayo Coco. This gorgeous beach area will be preserved!

The beach is located about 400 Kilometers south of Nassau in the Bahamas. The key is heavily forested and the entire area is considered a wildlife refuge that is the home of birds such as pelicans and flamingos.

There is a 27 kilometer causeway that connects Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo to the mainland of Cuba.

The Hotel Cayo Coco has 458 rooms with private bath, air-conditioning, mini-fridge, satellite TV, and a balcony or terrace with each room.

Another hotel is the 514 room, Cayo Caribe that opened in 1997.

At Cayo Guillermo the biggest attraction is probably the Villa Cojimar, named after the village where Ernest Hemingway did much of his fishing and where he wrote two of his more famous books, "the Old Man & the Sea" and "Islands in the Stream."

Deep sea fishing here is called "superb" by some including the Lonely Planet!

Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo are part of what is known as the Jardines del Rey archipelago. Cayo Coco is 370 square kilometers and Cayo Guillermo is 13 square kilometers. There are more than 2,000 rooms at present, mostly four and five star hotels.

There are more than 200 different kinds of birds including a colony of pink flamingos (30,000 couples). Cayo Coco is named after a bird known as the coco (wood ibis), smaller than a flamingo and very white in color.

There are at least 340 different types of plants in the area.

Many of the other small cays are being reserved for future investments. It is expected that there will be 5,000 hotel rooms on Cayo Coco by the end of the year 2000.

At Cayo Guillermo, much is dedicated to Ernest Hemingway. The best beach is called Pilar (named after his boat); there is a villa called Cojimar, named after the port were he docked the Pilar, and another villa called La Vigia (the name of his house, today a museum), in San Francisco de Paula, on the outskirts of Havana. The newer hotels are to be known as La Terraza, named after a restaurant in Cojimar frequented by Hemingway and another known as Gregoria, named after Gregorio Fuentes, the captain of Hemingway's fishing boat. In his book Islands in the Stream, Hemingway noted that these cays has the most abundant fishing to be found anywhere!

There are facilities for both scuba diving and deep see fishing.

There is an airport on Cayo Coco with several flights each day to and from Havana (about a one hour flight). There is also an international airport near the city of Moron, about an hour and 30 minutes from Cayo Coco.