Cuba is a wonderful country...
Cuba is a wonderful country. . .
Apparently, I was overwhelmed by nostalgia, or a feeling of some kind of incompleteness of impressions from Cuban travels, so I decided to take up a pen. Cuba struck: nature is a riot of colors, a variety of shades, which I can’t describe. Personally, I was most impressed by the ocean. His roar, which was heard at night to the smallest detail, was remembered, probably, forever. The Cubans were impressive: open and friendly, hospitable and hospitable, despite the well-known economic problems, completely devoid of a sense of self-interest. In any case, for the most part.
As for the shortcomings, we did not notice any. Actually, probably because we do not belong to that small category of tourists who must necessarily confirm or refute the declared star rating of the hotel, evaluate every nail or tile laid, check the conditions for preparing each dish in the restaurant and the quality of work of each hotel employee, including those responsible for cleaning the rooms.
The national composition in the hotel roughly reflects the national composition of tourist flows to Cuba: 40 percent each are Canadians and Latin Americans (Mexicans, Peruvians, Argentines and other Spanish-speaking neighbors of Cubans), 10 percent are Chinese (the new Big Brother) and other representatives of fraternal Asia, the remaining 10 percent - Europeans, including extremely small Russian tourists. The poor fellow from the USA does not let their homeland into Cuba: they say that for visiting Cuba in violation of the sanctions imposed by the guys from Washington, an American tourist can continue his vacation in a federal prison after Cuba - for five years.
A few words on the topic of gastronomy. Meals and everything connected with it (“all inclusive”) are quite decent (fruits and vegetables, meat, seafood, etc. - the choice is quite rich), rum and its derivatives (pinacolada, mojito, daiquiri, cuba libre, etc. ) - in unlimited quantities. Wines, mostly Spanish, also nothing. There are several a la carte restaurants in the hotel, everyone visited. I liked some more (Italian “About myo salt”), some less (Chinese “Oshin”)
Entertainment in the hotel. The show team (or show group, I don’t know how it’s right) of the hotel (I don’t dare to call them the Turkish-Egyptian word “animators” (no offense to Turkey, in which we also rested many times and will rest many more times)) - beyond praise. Every evening - an entertainment program: Cuban, Spanish, Latin American and other rhythms, songs and dances, at a very decent level. I was impressed by the "Russian hapak" (that's right, "Russian" and "hapak"! ) Performed by swarthy (to blackness) Cuban Cossacks in appropriate equipment, in the process of dancing cheering themselves and the audience in the Russian-French dialect (it turns out there is such a thing! ). Once or twice a week they invite "creative groups" from Matanzas (this is the center of the province, on the territory of which Varadero is actually located) and other cities: Tropicana shows (Matanzas), circus groups, etc. During the day, they also try to entertain tourists on the beach, near the pool and other places where these tourists come across (the very same “animators”)
Beach and pool. The beach is great, the pool is the pool. Umbrellas and sun loungers are in abundance, you don’t need to run in the morning and borrow. The ocean is simply beyond words! By the way, on some tourist sites they write that "the hotel has its own beach. " This is so and not so. According to the Cuban constitution, beaches are a national treasure and belong, of course, to "the entire Cuban people. " Therefore, no hotel can “barricade” itself a piece of Playa Varadero and the hotel area ends just at the place where the beach begins. Theoretically, any Cuban or any guest of a nearby hotel can welcome you to the beach and sit in front of your hotel. Although there is nothing wrong with this, in practice this practically does not happen.
By the way, some mistakenly believe that Cubans almost need permission from the authorities to visit Varadero. This is not true. In fact, you have to pay an environmental fee (the equivalent of several dollars) to enter Varadero by any vehicle, which is quite expensive for a Cuban (with an average salary of 8-10 dollars), not to mention the problems with personal and public vehicles (there are many written on the Internet, I will not repeat). By the way, the peculiarity of the beaches of Varadero is the absence of sharks (unlike, say, the beaches of American Florida, located a hundred kilometers to the north). Locals explain this feature by the presence around the Hicacos Peninsula (it is on it that Varadero is located) of coral reefs that have almost reached the level of the ocean surface, due to which the shark cannot swim across this reef. I don’t know how this explanation looks from a scientific point of view, but since the time of the shark of capitalism DuPont, who actually opened the beaches of Varadero to the whole world in the twenties of the last century, attacks by ordinary sharks on people with a fatal outcome have not been recorded (in any case, I I didn’t find this on the Internet, I was especially interested before the first trip).
As for the weather, it was absolutely comfortable in January-March, as well as the water temperature in the ocean + 26-28.
A little about excursions. We went on excursions both through Cubanaсan and privately, having met our former compatriot, who has been living in Cuba for fifteen years (he married a Cuban during the Soviet Union). This guy previously worked in the tourism industry, now he is in a state public organization (in Soviet times we had the same, All-Union, I will not name). So from his old specialty - knowledge and experience, from the new one - a realized permit to purchase a European car, born in 2007 (with these permits in Cuba it is strict, buying a new car and bringing it into the country is a practically insoluble problem). Plus sociability, openness and easiness, which makes it an absolutely indispensable companion for Cuban travels. With him we visited Havana (day tour of the city, lunch in a private family restaurant of his friend), Matanzas, Cardenas and some other places in the province of Matanzas, looking, as they say, from all sides at the real provincial Cuban life.
Through Cubanaсan, we went on a sightseeing tour of the city of Matanzas, with a visit to the Belyamar cave with its stalagmites and stalactites, went on an excursion to the Zapata Peninsula with a visit to a crocodile farm (to complete the experience, we tasted crocodile meat), an Indian village (built for tourists, stylized as a village pre-Columbian Indians), visiting the Bay of Pigs, or rather its shores - Playa Giron (not so much to visit the place where in April 1961 Fidel Castro and his guys drove the Cuban counter-revolution armed with Uncle Sam, through the mangroves and the Zapata swamp, and for swimming in the Caribbean), flew on a day trip to Cayo Largo, an island in the Los Canarreos archipelago in the Caribbean off the southwestern coast of Cuba. Cayo Largo deserves a separate story. Although, however, its beauties before me and better than me have already been told on the Internet by numerous travelers, including from among our compatriots.
Souvenirs and more . . My opinion: in Cuba, apart from rum, coffee and cigars, there is nothing more to buy souvenirs. Prices for "national export products" are the same, state-owned, in all stores. The choice is about the same. What we bought (coffee, rum, etc. ) in Havana (in the tourist shop in the El Moro fortress) can be bought for the same money in the Plaza America shopping center, next to the hotel (five minutes "by train" or ten minutes on foot). By the way, about Plaza America, more precisely, a small sketch from Cuban life. This very Plaza was visited on the second day of our stay in Cuba (not a trade famine, it was just cool to dive into the ocean, especially in a storm, so we considered the surroundings).
As for national products (rum, cigars, coffee), in the hotel local “businessmen” from among the service personnel always, to everyone and everywhere (under the counter, as we have under the Soviet regime) offer one and a half to two times cheaper.
Well, that’s probably all, I want to once again note the incredible beauty of this country. I wish everyone a great trip and of course a good mood. And many thanks to our tour operator, with whom we hope to visit many more countries... If you are interested, write in a personal, I will answer questions.
P / S flew from Moscow, 14 hours (if from Kyiv, then with a transfer, so we decided better directly and immediately to Varadeo. ) From Kyiv it flies to Havana and then a transfer to Varadeo in the region of 3 hours.