Our shared taxi to Varadero was on time at 8.15am but it was a small car and even though we were picked up first we wondered how many other people were coming along for the trip. At the next casa we waited patiently for over 15 minutes while we discussed what nationality we thought these people would be, deciding that they couldn't be German as there's no way they would be this late. 25 minutes later a German woman and her young son hopped in the car - there goes that theory!
On the three and a half hour trip to Varadero we saw a number of billboards along the way, not with advertising but with pearls of wisdom from Fidel Castro. We have spoken to a few Cubans about their prospects for travelling and it seems that things have improved since Raul Castro took over four years ago. Cubans can now travel, but with the average monthly salary at around $25 the cost is prohibitive. The other problem is that it is difficult to get a visa as there are concerns about people overstaying - sometimes it's the destination country that denies the visa request, but in some cases it's Cuba that is concerned that the person won't return.
Almost every other traveller we've met in Cuba has been from Europe, they all seem to have similar reasons for why they are visiting at this time, and our German passenger was no different i.e. "we need to visit Cuba before the Americans ruin it". The worry is that the Americans and their money will change Cuba for the worse, though parts of it are already quite touristy and there's already a quite obvious attitude with some of the locals of "let's see if we can get away with overcharging the tourists". However that's really not that much different from anywhere else in the world, and with the first regular airline flights from the US starting just a few days ago, it probably will get worse.
Varadero is a beach city with lots of very large resorts spread along a long narrow peninsula. We decided it was time to do something different so we had booked into an all-inclusive resort for two nights. We arrived at our resort not long after midday and were told that check-in wasn't until 4pm, but we were given our wristbands and told we could start using the facilities - which meant we could get stuck into the food and drinks pretty much straight away.
We took ourselves on a short tour of the resort, then sat down to what was a quite nice buffet lunch (where we ate too much), before heading down to the beach bar for a few drinks.
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| Paella anyone? |
That evening we had the dinner buffet, and of course we ate too much there as well .... it's probably a good thing we've only booked two nights!
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