Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/554642
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 3 3 " Personay, I think sitting on the beach at Cayo Largo a day without fishing would be like a night in Vegas s•nt bowling. " if—even armed with a box full of the secret-weapon Avalon flies—the permit of Cuba flummoxed me like they had everywhere else? Where was I supposed to go next? O ne of the welcome surprises on Cayo Largo is the accommodations. Avalon Cuban Fishing Adventures puts their anglers up at the Sol Cayo Resort, an all-inclusive extravaganza of a place right out of the Fantasy Island TV show. Hundreds of rooms, a spectacular white-sand beach, four restaurants, numerous fully stocked bars (all drinks included in the price!), swimming pools, tennis courts, even a bocce ball court for your inner Italian. You name it. In short, everything needed for whatever it is people who don't fish do while on vacation. Personally, I think sitting on the beach at Cayo Largo all day without fishing would be like a night in Vegas spent bowling. The rooms—which come with fastidious maids—are designed for normal, comfort-seeking civilized people, not obsessed permit fishermen, and served only to show me what knuckle-dragging troglodytes Will and I have been all our fishing lives. In Belize, we stayed in a shack on stilts on a mud-and-mangrove island that was submerged under an inch of water on full moon tides. On Christmas Island, our rooms were cinder-block bunkers. In the Yucatán, lizards prowled the thatched roofs of our palapas and cockroaches tap- danced under the beds. All of which was fine. We were there to fish. Having lived in Alaska for more than 30 years, most of my local fishing trips mean sleeping bags in wind- wracked tents with huge bears (and mosquitos not much smaller) prowling outside them. Now, in my dotage, I could happily get accustomed to fishing out of immaculate rooms with tiled floors and mini bars full of complimentary Havana Rum and Cristal beers. With age comes wisdom. And decadence.