Cayo Jutias is one of my favourite beaches in Cuba, its an island in a natural park with no buildings except a couple of wooden beach bar huts, you need to take a taxi (20 CUC return) over the causeway from the nearest village, Santa Lucia (15km).

We walked an hour to the farthest end of the island to find “Starfish beach”, it is at the back of the island where the water is protected by the causeway so its very shallow and has no waves so the huge red starfish love it, there were hundreds of them just lying in the shallow water, you are allowed to pick them up but only for a few seconds, then put them back into the sea very gently. Most of them are really big, about 20-30cm !

We stayed at Cusys house, she rents 2 bedrooms. Our room had 2 double beds (Godmother Estelle had one and Mama & I shared the other one) and a bathroom. It was a proper bungalow with a garden and an outside covered terrace where we had breakfast & dinner.

I made friends with Cusys son, Brian who is 9, he does wrestling and is much bigger than me !

Cost: 25 CUC/USD/€ night (x 3 nights) + 5 CUC/USD/€ each breakfast

Casa Cusy: Calle Jose Ramon Trujillo 86, La Loma Santa Lucia, Pinar del Rio. cusi75@nauta.cu T: +53 54190481