Well, here is a bit of what I did while spending a week in Cuba. Pictures will be coming as soon as I dig my cameras out from the move.
Me and my lovely Girlfriend spent 7 days in Varadero at the 4 star Sirenas La Selina resort. This resort was built less than a year ago, so everything was new and in great shape. We departed Calgary in the late morning on a nonstop flight and arrived in Cuba in the afternoon. Customs was a breeze. Hand them your documents, they take your picture and you are through. The travel company agent was waiting for us at the airport to shuttle us to our hotel.
On the 45 minute or so drive we passed through a small town and a bunch of countryside. Kind of neat to see the anti-Bush billboards all over...even in the airport, as well as the pro-Castro billboards.
Let me just say that driving in Cuba is "interesting" to say the least. The things that the driver did with that bus I wouldn't even dream of doing in my car. Apparently the accident and fatality rate in Cuba is very low, but the bus ride alone was enough to convince me not to rent a car or scooter during my stay. The guide in the bus was very funny, making lighthearted jokes at the American's expense.
We dropped everyone else off at other resorts which seemed nowhere near as nice as the resort we ended up staying at. As we arrived at the resort we pulled through a security checkpoint and up to the open air lobby. It was amazing and I won't even try to describe it. Pictures will have to do. When we pulled up a worked loaded our bags on a golf cart, poured us a glass of rum juice and led us to check in.
My first impression of the resort was that it is huge. There were probably at least 20 villas, each with 3 floors and 30 or so rooms. It was very spread out as well. They had 2 pools, each with a swim up bar. There were also at least another 5 or so bars including a very nice piano bar with live music every day.
The rooms were amazing as well. Large balcony, TV, king bed...all that fun stuff. The daily stocked fridge was very nice as well.
The company we booked through secures all of the rooms in the villa closest to the beach. This means our balcony view was towards the ocean about 200 feet from shore. The only downside was the 10 or so minute walk to supper every evening.
The beach was amazing. Nice sand, warm water. The great thing was that they had most of the villas shut down, but most if not all of the services open. Nothing was busy at all. At most there were maybe 30 people in the pool during the day. This was great for my relaxing trip, but maybe not so great if someone wanted to party hard.
We went into the city of Varadero a couple of times. The city is built on a peninsula 23km long. The resorts extend past the city with ours being one of the furthest from town.
We went out for one lunch in the city and had an amazing lobster dinner with drinks and I think the bill and tip was around 20 bucks or so.
I had a chance to check out the La Casa Del Habano and it was absolutely amazing. I wish I had pictures but managed to forget my camera each time. The ground floor was just cigars. They had the cigars in the box displayed in cabinets and when you pick out what you want they go into the humidor and get it for you. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed into the humidor. On the upper floor they had rum and coffee, as well as a bar in which you could enjoy a drink and a cigar. I would go back just to visit that cigar shop again.
We did a day trip into Havana, seeing all of the major sights. The highlight was definitely the La Corona cigar factory tour. They said that this was the largest cigar factory in Cuba. Unfortunately we were not allowed to bring cameras in, and the armed guard following us around convinced me not to smuggle mine in. One of the rollers wanted to sell me some cigars from his table, but again, the guard was right behind me. The biggest disappointment happened at the La Corona cigar factory store. Once box of Cohiba Double Coronas for around 350 US or so. I tried to purchase them, but alas, my Canadian Credit card wouldn't work in Cuba. Of course I didn't think to bring a pile of money with me to Havana thinking that it would be safer in the safe at the hotel and that my credit card would work. Oh well.
There were people walking back and forth in front of the cigar factory selling Cohibas and I just couldn't pass up the deal on the limited edition glass tops.
We spend a few hours in the open air market and picked up some trinket and stuff. This was the worst. There would be people following you around trying to sell you cigars. I made the mistake of sounding interested, just curious of the prices and for the next while had to fend off dozens of other sellers.
I ended up coming back with a cab of Bolviar BFs, some smaller H. Upmanns from 2002 that I scored, a box of RyJ for a buddy and a bundle of peso cigars for myself. A couple kilos of coffee came back with me, as well as a few litres of Rum.
Once the pictures are up I'm sure I will remember more, but that I pretty much it. We spent a lot of time on the beach and in the pool. I can't wait to do it again. I think the trip was less than 2000 after all of the cigars, rum, travel, etc which is pretty much the cost of a box of BBFs locally.
