Cayo

Our cab picked us up from the Casa and took us to the boat – a very cool vessel, apparently big enough for 80 passengers but as there were only 8 of us it wasn’t exactly crowded. There were big nets suspended over the front forks where you could lie and sunbathe as the sea scudded beneath you (or, alternatively, bounce around gracelessly like you were on a bouncy castle before returning bashfully to the safety of the shade.) It was a couple of hours out to a little island with a reef that we stopped at first for snorkelling – something else to add to the list of things I’d just presume I’d not be able to do that actually turned out to be really cool; especially swimming amiongst the shoals of brightly coloured fish (“My favourite was Disco Nemo,” said our new Irish friend later.) The island was called Cayo de Iguanas and sure enough we ate our “inclusive lunch” of rice cooked in fish stock, soapy plantain and gherkin salad surrounded by a legion of the crusty beggars – as well as a single lonely tree rat (very cute, they have a name in Spanish that makes them sound less dodgy but I can’t remember what it is…) Then we walked along the beach – pretty much your picture postcard strip of white Caribbean sand, despite the graveyard of broken sun loungers – and swam in the calm sea before the return journey. Later on we went back to Don Pepe for a truly wonderful Café Helado (only the briefest of concerns that I might accidentally have ingested alcohol…!) and then back to the previous night’s restaurant to share a pizza and a bowl (actually half a rum bottle) of fried shrimp…