Varadero
Cuba hadn’t originally been a place we had intended to visit, but once I’d had an email from an old school, Spanish, penfriend (Amaia) to say that her and her family were moving out there for two years it seemed silly not to ‘pop’ in on our way past!Varadero is basically a spit of land off the coast of Cuba, about 3 hours on the bus from Havana. It consists of all-inclusive hotels, Amaia’s husband is working there for c. 2 years building another one!
They live on a hotel complex, in a house, and share most of the facilities, except the restaurant. This, has caused some difficulties!
Cuba is an odd place, most of the time you get the impression that the government is trying to keep the locals away from the tourists (eg they are not allowed in the hotel resorts, unless they work there, and are not allowed to talk to you).
There are two forms of currency, the Cuban Peso and the Conertible Peso (CUCs). Generally locals use the first and tourists the latter (although locals do use the latter, expecially when buying more “western” or expensive type things – the government whacks up the prices of some things, like fridges (we saw one in one town for 1,100 CUC = $1,200 for a basic fridge freezer)). Things in CUCs are generally very expensive (fleece the tourist – it certainly isn’t a cheap destination). Shops, restaurants etc are either in Pesos or CUCs and it can sometimes be difficult to tell what type they are.
The locals have a ration book with which they can get hold of the basic foods (rice, eggs, potatoes, bread etc), but often not much else, or even these things, is in the shops. When we were there there was a national shortage of milk. It seems there is never enough of anything in the official shops (the bodegas) so everyone buys things on the black market too. Not sure its that secret though, there were market type stalls around which were apparently the black market. Probably a lot more under the counter stuff going on which we couldn’t see though!
The worst has to be the locals not being able to talk to the tourists, you just don’t get a feel for local life, you are just kept in tourist world. The hotel that they are living in is more relaxed than some others and we did talk to some cubans – it seems half of them are always on the look out for someone to marry and take them out of Cuba…
It was lovely staying in a family environment for a couple of days, very different from the rest of our travels. It was all very relaxed in the morning when the older two girls were at school and we could leave the baby with the house keeper and head to the beach for an hour! Chaos arrived at lunchtime when the two girls came home, but it was a very happy chaos!
One afternoon we took a horse and buggy around Varadero with the girls, which was a nice way to spend an hour or so. Surprisingly, Varadero had a lovely park, with ostriches in – but the two tearaways were more interested in chasing baby chickens!!
Tags: Argentina, Cuba, Travel
Jenni
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