A day in Santa María Key. Cuban chronicles. Day 12.

Today we started our day early but with some troubles, one of our car tires was flat and we had to find a place to fix it and change it. And after we actually took off we got lost a couple of times because of the lack of road signs.

On the road to the key. It is like floating on a sea mirror.

When we managed to get into the right road, it took us about an hour - hour and a half to get to the end of the Key, where there's a fauna and flora reserve and I think is the only way to get to the beach without staying at one of the hotels there, because until that spot, the only thing are the entrances to the resort complexes.

When we got there (after paying a 2 CUC tollbooth and a 4 CUC ticket each of us) we had to walk a 700 metres trail through the reserve to get to the beach. Just when I thought the sea couldn't be any more clear, we stepped into the sand and there it was, the clearest sea I've seen in my life.

First things first, swimming time, and after that we searched for a comfortable place to spend our day there. We found a nice tree and some chairs. Now they were ours.

Part of the trail that took us to the beach.

Everything was sunny beach and clear water untilwe got hungry. My dad and I went for a walk to look for a place to buy food. We went into a place on the beach, but it belonged to an all-inclusive resort, so there was imposible for us to purchase anything in there. The surprise came when the bartenders gave us some free drinks and even got us a couple of dishes. While we were talking, we told them where we were staying at and the guy who gave us the food turned out to be our host, Osmani's oldest son. I guess sometimes Cuba can be as small as Uruguay.

Fancy moment.

We only stayed a short while after lunch. It's all crowded with 5 stars hotels. We stopped at Las Brujas, the first area when going into the key, and the last one before we went out. There, there's a marina and boat tours all day long. We stopped for a cup of coffee and a short tour of the area, being as fancy as we could, of course.

Fancy moment 2.

After going back to the house and taking a shower, we went out for dinner. We went to a place in front of the town square. Aterwards, I discovered that this place was a food chain and it's sooo cheap to eat at.

Fun fact: the menus were made in WordArt that apparentl still exist. We had 2 big pizzas with toppings and our drinks for ony 9 CUC. The only counterpart was that they didn't have dessert. I still don't know why they don't have desssert in most places. Me, as the milk caramel addict I am, I suffer. However, the waitress suggested us going to a place almost in front of the restaurant to have dessert. Yei! They had flan. The curious fact about the flan was that they used beer cans to shape the flan, what a cool idea. These guys are trully creative. However, as apalling the flan was, I chose a chocolate with meringue cake that was beyond words (although of course it would have been better with milk caramel, because what isn't?) and we also had ice creams. All of that for 17 pesos of national currency, less than 1CUC, whaaat?

If you manage to eat and buy your food in places that use national currency you'll make your trip so economic you won't believe it (although I recently saw a video from a Cuban youtuber about the progressive elimination of CUC currency that they just started implementing as a trial).

I don't have photos of the flans made with beer cans but I sure did take one of the menu.

Happy and full, we had our dinner for 3 CUC each, incredible. Of course we got lost, AGAIN, going back to the house. We're not getting this town, anyhow, we're leaving tomorrow.

*You can read the original version of this post in Spanish here.