Intro

We arrived at the resort in darkness on April 2. We went down to the beach in the dark saw the ocean by the light of the full moon.  The sky was clear and the stars were sharp and bright; the moon cast shadows. But we weren't able to have a good look around at the resort or the town.

I spent the night tossing and turning and dreaming about work and travel.  I had left behind a cold March in Ontario, more work than I could handle, especially when I would be away from it for over a week, and had just finished the rough draft of my second novel.

 When I woke up I sat up and saw this:

I spent the rest of the day stunned.  I was really in Cuba.

***

I had read up on Cuba before going, and a lot of people said Cuba was full of contradictions, and don't try to make sense of it.  I don't agree.  Cuba is full of contrasts, but it's easy enough to understand when you know that this was a once-prosperous place that had the rug pulled out from under it economically by the US embargo, and again by the collapse of the Soviet Union and, therefore, of their sugar market.

Architecture

The state of the economy shows in the streets.  There are the fabulous new hotels, there are cafes and bars and even small cement block houses that have been stuccoed and painted bright colours; there are places that are faded and in disrepair; there are roofless shells that have been abandoned. All these can exist side by side on any street.

A note about houses - most are cement block and any yard, front or back, no matter how small, is surrounded by a low wall topped with a fence, often an ornate one.  Laundry is dried on clotheslines on the roof or balcony.  Many windows don't have glass - they have plantation shutters or iron grilles instead. Roofs are flat or shallowly pitched - there is no snow to worry about.  Many have water tanks on top.

Cuartel de Bomberos, 1872, Cardenas

Building being restored in Havana

Havana

A block of apartments in Havana

A faded sign over the front steps says Villa Alma.  This building is not abandonned - someone is living here, even though you can see between the slats of the walls in some places. Varadero.

In Cardenas, behind the sugar mill

In Cardenas, a few feet form the house above.  I think the ground floor is occupied.

Socialism

Cuba is a poor country, but it doesn't suffer from the problems of many poor countries.  Socialism ensures that wealth is more or less evenly distributed and the sick, the disabled and the elderly are taken care of.  Infrastructure is good and there is clean water (but don't drink it if you are North American). Education, including post-secondary, is free; your waiter or tour guide may have a better education than you do.  Health care coverage is more comprehensive than in Canada (includes dental, optical, meds) but it is often hard to come by medicines.

The people are largely friendly and polite, but they will not bend over backwards.  They have dignity and a sense of their own worth. They are proud of Cuba, even if they want to leave for a better (or, at least, richer) life in Canada or the US.

Cubans may move at a leisurely pace (as in any hot climate) but don't mistake that for laxity or unreliability.  Cuba is a very safe place because it is a very strict place.  You can walk anywhere; there are no bad areas of town.  Staff materialize out of nowhere on the resort if you hurt yourself of look lost; police are everywhere on the street.

Of course the flipside of this is that you don't want to break the law.  A local man (hearsay only, take note) has been in jail for a year and a half because he tried to buy pot form an undercover officer. Another local man did time in jail awaiting a hearing in a traffic accident. You must have your 25 CUC to leave the county; if not you will visit with the Varadero Policia.

Currency

Cuba is a cash economy.  Make sure you carry enough with you on excursions.  Restaurant prices are about the same as Canada, but drinks are about half the price you pay in Canada.  Neither our bank card or credit card worked to get cash; private business will not take credit cards.  The waitress told us "We are a private business so we have no right to the internet."

Make sure you have small bills for tipping.

CUC = convertible pesos - these are for tourists
1 CUC = $1 USD = 25 pesos - regular pesos are for Cubans
$ = Canadian dollar - the currency I will be using

We were only accosted by beggars twice, in Cardenas.

Convertible 3 peso bill

Bathrooms

I had read that you need to take your own toilet paper when venturing off the resort.  Most places we went to did have TP, but they wanted you to tip for using the facilities.  Some were fairly insistent (at least with tourists).  There are often bathroom attendants.

The throne often doesn't have a seat, even at the resort, but the rim will be spic & span clean.  I wondered why we have toilet seats and why we don't just shape the rims more comfortably.  Bear pointed out the reason: winter.

The Resort & Flights

Getting There

We purchased an all-inclusive resort stay from Sunwing for under $1200 each, and spent another $250 each on excursions, restaurants, tips and rum.  Everything was well coordinated.  We flew non-stop out of Windsor, ON, and while flying the crew gave us the necessary paperwork to fill out for customs and immigration.  You mustn't make any mistakes or cross anything out on it, or a new form will cost $20.

The only question we were asked at customs was "Have you been to Africa recently?"  In about 20 minutes we had our luggage and were met at the exit by a Sunwing rep who directed us to our shuttle.  A modern Yutong (Chinese) bus took us to our hotel.

The Resort

We stayed at Barcelo Solymar Arenas Blancas (four star hotel), so all the comments below apply to that resort.  Your mileage may vary.

The beach is amazing - soft pale gold sand with little bits of white shells and a turquoise ocean under an intensely blue sky. My photos are washed out in comparison to the real colours, and I couldn't find a camera setting that got it right.

Beach at sunrise

There are numerous bars at the resort, and the alcohol is free. Despite that, we didn't really see anyone drunk, certainly not stupid-drunk.  We speculate that the bartenders mix your drinks weaker if you start to get too tipsy.

The good things at the resort

• Free food and drink available all the time
• Sparkling clean pools
• Beautiful, groomed beach
• Hotel and grounds were always very clean
• Water, pop and beer provided in fridge in room, replenished every day.
• Spacious, airy, air-conditioned room
• Nice sized balcony
• Our toilet stopped working, and we reported it, and it was fixed later in the day.
• Friendly, helpful staff

Bad things at the resort

• Bed bugs (it took us a while to figure this out because I was the only one getting bitten at first.  The Bear's brother and sister-in-law in another room had no bugs.)
• Bar sometimes runs out of ice (so you move to a different one, there are lots)
• Drinks are made with mixers, not juice, that are kept in slushy machines with no ice.
• Ask for lemonade and you get a glow-in-the-dark yellow mixer that is, well, awful.
• Our sheets were never changed.
• A/C smelled musty for about the first 4 days.

The resort was beautiful. Here are some shots:

Tree-sized cactus

Baobab tree

Wildlife

We were not bothered by mosquitoes, rodents, spiders or anything creepy-crawly (Bear saw - and killed - one centipede).

The local wildlife includes these curly-tailed lizards that scurry around.

I approached a tree to take a pic and a bunch of little lizards scurried in to the hole.  When I looked in the hole they ran deeper, out of sight.

Sparrows are the clean-up crew of Cuban open-air dining.  Sometimes they don't wait for you to finish.

There were also these very pretty black birds. They would vertically fan out their tails, puff up their feathers and look like they were going to crow like a rooster, and then go "Peep peep peep."

For Kids

The pools (plural) are shallow and broad - great for kids.  They weren't very busy, but we weren't there over a school holiday.  Most of the entertainment is kid-suited, includes audience participation, and ends early enough that your kids can sleep. Buffet eating means toddlers don't have to wait for their meals and teenagers won't impoverish you.

Varadero & Cueva d'Ambrosio

Our first excursion in Cuba was to take the Varadero Beach Tour bus (5 CUC, hop on, hop off any number of times) down the peninsula to see the Cueva d'Ambrosio.

The Beach Tour isn't really a tour of the beach, it just runs a circuit up and down the Avenida Playa, where the hotels are, and loops around in Varadero proper.  Note: fair-skinned people should not sit on the open top floor of the bus for too long, and if your sunscreen says reapply every 2 hours, believe it.

Cueva d'Ambrosio 

The Cueva d'Ambrosio is a cave with pre-Columbian drawings done in red pigment (made from the iron in the soil) and charcoal. The drawings are on the walls and ceilings; anything on the floor is covered in ancient bat guano.

Here you can see the iron-rich rock that the red pigment came from.

Bats also live there.  There is a count or study (sometimes it's hard to understand a Spanish accent) every May of the bats.  Some of them are banded. I tried to get shots of them flying (we disturbed them) but it's hard to get shots of small creatures moving fast in the dark with a crappy camera.

Another neat thing about the cave is the holes in the roof, where trees have dropped roots to access the dampness.  Cuba is pretty dry in the dry season and most of the moisture is in the air, not the ground,

This is the tree trunk going up through a hole.

This is the root, looking like a coiled rope.

It's blurry, but it gives you a better idea of the colours in the cave.

 Then we hopped back on the bus and headed into Varadero proper.

Varadero

Panoramic view from the west end of our hotel that I stitched together. That's is looking landward, along the peninsula, which is very narrow

Varadero is a tourist town. You see the same arts-and-craftsy goods repeated, store after store, and you realize these are mass-produced goods for the tourist market. The market in Havana is just a larger version of the market in Varadero.

You don't go to Cuba to shop.  Prices are about the same as in USD.  The only things worth buying are rum, cigars and coffee. Prices are no cheaper in town than at the hotel gift shop,

The reason you go to Varadero is the beach, and the resorts.

The photo doesn't do justice to the colours of the sky and the ocean here.  Those colours you see on travel posters, where the ocean is a deep aquamarine, those are not photoshopped.

Random Observations

• Ice and paper products are in short supply and doled out carefully
• Everything is accomplished via paperwork.  We bought out bus tickets at the hotel, got a hand-written receipt, and the exchanged that on the bus for the actual tickets.
• The beer is awful, IMHO.  If you like Bud, Coors Light, Canadian, etc., you will probably like it (but I like dark beer)
• Hitchhiking is the national sport; its how you get to work.  Baseball is second.
• Most signs and menus are in Spanish, English, French and Russian.

• You can take your drink anywhere and there don't seem to be any age restrictions on who they will serve.  When our Beach Tour bus stopped for a break the bar owner across the street brought over a tray of pina coladas for sale.
• Roads are well maintained.  Of course, they don't have winter to cause them to heave and sink.  The seasons in Cuba are hot and hotter.
• The soil is so red you might be on Mars

• Castanets at 10' are REALLY LOUD
• Everything melts: ice, ice cream & tourists
• Don't drink the tap water - it has too much chlorine.  It took a lot of the dye out of my hair.
• Cuban merchants may try to sell you stuff, but they can take no for an answer and then carry on a conversation with you. 
• Cubans like Canadians, because we spend money. South Americans don't usually go off the resort.
• They don't like French Canadians because they won't speak English.
• Most people on the resort speak English, or other languages besides Spanish.  Off the resort Spanish-only speakers will try to make themselves understood through signs. Usually because they want to sell you something.