I was so excited before my flight at 6:40 am on Sat Dec 16 that I could barely sleep. I do not recall falling asleep at all, just at some point I jumped out of my bed and started frantically packing my suitcase with stuff I planned to pack last minute before heading out.

I had people I knew who had been to Cuba before, and apparently they divided into the hating and loving teams, with no in-between. Some would genuinely swear at it, and some would come back with excitement in their eyes. Well, I do not trust anyone, so decided to check myself.

THE CUBAN JOURNAL

Day 1.

I stepped out of the plane and followed the elderly couple into the customs section of the airport. It gave me the 90’s vibes of post Soviet countries, with pale and cracked red and yellow walls, dirty grey floors and overall setting which was at the very least 50 years old. There were around a dozen of visa officers, each sitting in their own cubicle, so we all lined up waiting for our turn.

Unfortunately, specifically my officer decided that the time of influx of new passengers from the landed plane was just a perfect time to go have a break. The lady left never to be seen again, so instead of having my visa done, I had to go back to the very end of the nearby line.

Once it was finally done, I headed to pick up my SIM card so I can have data and let my fam know I landed all good and safe. But that would be way too easy, right? Due to some problems with connection at the airport, they could not issue a SIM card for me, and I was advised to go find ETECSA (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A.) office somewhere in Varadero.

I boarded the tourist bus and headed to the hotels. My hotel was the first one to be dropped off. While driving, a tour guide was giving us the general information about Cuba, and then offered to exchange some CAD to CUP (cuban pesos). Realizing pretty well I was getting ripped off by a horrible exchange rate, I still exchanged 20$, simply because: a) it was not that big of an amount, and b) I did not want to bother and run around the unknown town in a frantic search of a bank or any currency exchange point. Plus, I knew quite well you could pay by CAD almost anywhere, although then you would be robbed by once again anything but a good exchange rate.

Unlike on the pictures, The weather outside was frightening, it was raining and so delightful depressing.

Okay, okay. I never claimed to be a poet, yet along a songwriter – but you did sing the song in your head, didn’t ya? 🙂

When my bus dropped me off at Mar Del Sur (The South Sea) Resort, my heart sunk and skipped a beat. It was so old. I did not expect a lot for 1000$ that I paid for 10 days, but my faint forced smile disappeared completely when I entered the lobby. The feeling was as if I entered one of the sanatoriums back home (for those who do not know, I am from Ukraine – a post USSR country). The lady at reception genuinely did not care about me when checking me in, but showed a few more signs of intelligent life once I complimented her nails. Not to be mean, but we have what we have.

It also turned out Wi-Fi was not free at the resort. I had to buy a Wi-Fi card, which would give me one hour of usage, and it cost me 25 pesos each. I figured it is more than enough to survive the first day.

I unpacked my stuff once in my room, and sat on a bed, thinking what to do next. Due to emotional overload and lack of sleep, I was quite disoriented and did not perceive adequately what was going on. I checked in with the schedule and decided to come down for lunch. My room was in a separate building, but to get to the buffet I only needed 2 minutes at most. On that day, and all the days that followed, dinner and lunch were all same – some beans, golden rice with pieces of meat, as well as separately steamed beef of the lowest grade you could imagine – no meat, just fat and bones.

Hungry me, I did not notice.

I went to the shore, but due to slight rain, wind, and waves, nobody was allowed to swim. Varadero is a long and narrow peninsula, with main street, ”avenue”, going along, and small streets, “calle” (pronounced “ka-ya”) dividing it into small segments. “Calles” are numbered from one till over 60.

I started wandering along the avenue, looking for some restaurants and, probably, shops.

Every man who saw me, considered it to be his sacred responsibility to tell me something in Spanish, honk (if he was driving), and if I was lucky – just stare at me for so long that you could potentially diagnose him with sudden paralysis. I did not feel scared per say – but as I said before, I was very disoriented, and emotionally exhausted from the travel. The inappropriate whistling that was addressed to me were the last drop that overfilled the jar. I came back to the hotel, and fell on my bed, my eyes closing half way. I did not even change or wore my pajamas. My last thought was to check the next day if I could rebook the flight and leave sooner than 10 days. I did not want to stay in Cuba for even a second longer than needed.

Day 2.

I woke up at 6:00 am, having slept for around 12 or 13 hours. The sleep did its job, but I was still sure to check in with the Air Transat representative to rebook the flight.

I waited till 7:30 am for the breakfast to start. The buffet was half full, and I spotted an empty table in the first row. I headed there, but was stopped by a sudden “hey!”. There was no one except for me who could possibly consider their name to be “hey”, so I turned around to see an elderly couple, European looking blond man, and a Latino-looking man (the one waiving at me). I remember thinking “oh my God, even here”, when he mentioned something about my army-styled shirt and said he had similar pants. I tried hard not to roll my eyes, attempting my best to keep blank face and not to burst out giggling out loud. I shrugged, mumbled something that could be interpreted as “okay”, and went to grab some food.

Finishing up my breakfast, I realized that before rebooking my flight I could at least check the tours they offered. Never make big decisions on a hungry stomach, lemme tell ya. The tour guide was coming in at 12:30 pm, so it was worth at least seeing him.

The folks at the nearby table started standing up and heading toward the exit of the buffet. The European guy came to me and politely asked for how long I was staying, and that’s when it clicked and the contact was established. We had a nice chat, and I found out that Chris was staying for the whole 3 months till February. He then joined the rest of the group and I finished my breakfast.

I met Chris again later in the lobby, when I was waiting for the tour guide, and he along with his friends was saying goodbye to the elderly couple I saw in the buffet earlier. They were leaving that day, and already checked out.

Along with Chris, I got to know:

• Justin, a 27 yo Indian software engineer living in North York at York campus. We later nicknamed him the Indian Scammer;
• Rolando (Rollie) – that same guy who claimed to have army pants, born in El Salvador but came to Quebec as a kid. Fluent in English, Spanish and French. He would pretend to be a local Cuban to bargain and get better deals on tickets and taxi rides, hence his nickname “the Fake Cuban” was quite justified;
• The Ghost / White Guy – Chris W., a farmer from Peterborough, who rented out his farm fields to skip cold Canadian winter under the Cuban sun. @Chris – if you are reading this – cannot wait to try your maple syrup in March 2024! If you think you can get away with this, then – whooopsie 🙂
• Fred – Frederick T. – an extremely nice French Canadian from Quebec, who would make us company from time to time.

Skipping a bit forward – I did not know my nickname, but I highly doubt it did not exist 🙂

Me and Justin decided to book some tours together. Unfortunately for Justin, he did not have his credit card, which was the only way to pay for the excursions. So, I paid for us both, and then followed him to his room, checking carefully that he returns me all the money. I am pretty sure I was quite a scary bitch at that moment - I am sorry Justin, I do trust you now, haha.

The last thing we did on that day was saying good bye to the sweet elderly couple – their bus came much later than promised, which was, however, expected, as Mar Del Sur is the last hotel to pick up the passengers on its way to the airport.

Only falling asleep at night, I remembered I forgot to check if I could rebook the return flight.

Day 3.

We all met next day Monday morning at breakfast and decided to go to Havana on Wednesday, by taking a bus there and back. We had higher chances of being sold the bus tickets, because we had Rollie, who was speaking Spanish. Otherwise, they could deny us as we were not Cubans – “go purchase expensive tours instead, you, tourist bastards” is something we could expect to hear.

The bus never happened, but for a different reason. The tickets were all sold, and just hopping into the bus was not really how it worked. There were also gas problems that week, and ours with Justin Tuesday tour got cancelled.

There was quite a bit of back and forth, and our plans kept changing every half and hour. We checked the car rentals, checked all taxi drivers in Varadero, but none seemed to have availability, affordable prices, or accepting CAD instead of USD.

Damn it.

Justin and I rebooked another tour on Wednesday, and so the next available day for us for a Havana trip was Saturday, but there seemed to be no possible way of getting there. Havana was 2.5 hours away, which was not an easy distance to cover.

Out of all of us, I was probably the most disappointed – coming to Varadero and not visiting Havana should be considered a true crime.

We went to the buffet to have some dinner, where Rollie had a chat with one of the waitresses. I heard word “Havana” a couple of times, and hope sparked once again in my dark, unfortunate, and desperate soul. The lady went to the back and returned a couple of times, until Rollie was kind enough to translate to us what was going on.

Frankly speaking, we were going to Havana on Saturday.

The lady knew a taxi driver who agreed to drive us there and back for a quite affordable gratitude and what was even more important, for CAD (as none of us had USD). We agreed to meet at front entrance of Mar Del Sur at 8:00 am on Saturday, December 23.

Day 4.

Instead of Havana, we took a horse carriage to Santa Marta, a town just outside Varadero, which gave a nice glimpse of what the local life looks like outside of the tourist zone. We stopped at a cafe called esquina6, had some tacos, then headed back, stopping by to grab some local avocadoes from vendors on the curb. Specifically, Chris grabbed them as eating just rice 2 times per day for more than couple of days was too exciting to keep up.

Me, Justin and Fake Cuban ended up at Calle 62 that night – a place where nightlife blooms, pina colada (and stuff much stronger) flows rivers, and dancers perform in colorful costumes along a playful Latino music. That night I tried to learn (not too much of a success, however) – how to dance salsa and bachata.

Day 5.

Me and Justin went on a sugar, rum and cigar tour. Apart from these three, Cuba also profits from its coffee production, but that’s pretty much it when it comes to its money generating industries.

The sugar place used to be a fully working factory, which was then closed and turned into museum for tourists like us. The guide at the museum was speaking Spanish, and our own Air Transat guide was translating.

Starting from the manual collection and peeling of the sugar cane (which could be eaten and chewed as a dessert with coffee), it then undergoes a multistep processing, which includes addition of water and later – dehydration, to get rid of the cellulose and obtain sugar crystals. Brown sugar is more expensive than confectionary white one – the cane sugar easily crystallizes and clumps after two weeks, so you end up with some brown rocks instead. The whole process is very time sensitive, and once the worker comes in, they are there for more than 12 hours with hardly any breaks – everything to prevent sugar from spoiling due to chemical reaction and sucrose degradation.

The tour then took us to see the rum distillery, established in the 19th century, which started off as the place where they would create simplest alcohol for further production / sale.

There are only 9 rum masters in Cuba – the only people who know the exact process of producing the real Cuban rum. Used to be 10, but one passed away a couple of years ago; so, currently there are 7 men and 2 women who are to blame for my bad drinking habits.

Finally – the cigar making process, demonstrated in one of the coffee places on the pier of Varadero.

There are 4 different types of tobacco leaves, which serve as the fillers, for aroma, maintain shape of the cigar, etc. Each leaf gets its stem removed, which contains 99% of all the nicotine. You could feel the texture of the leaf and thus distinguish the order in which the leaves are to be rolled to get a real cigar (instead of tobacco origami).

For that same reason, the rolled cigars are placed under press for 24 hours – and voila, you are now able to almost literally burn quite a significant amount of greens $$$ – even hundreds, if you are a big enthusiast.

Day 6.

Snorkeling in coral reefs. What can I say except I love you?

It is hard to say anything here, as it is something you have to see yourself.

You are taken on a bus tour to the Caribbean sea. The drive takes around 40 minutes, and around 1 hour if you stop by at a nearby coffee shop for a washroom break and 5$ coffee.

You then stop at a crocodile farm, tease the crocs behind a fence with some piece of leather flesh on a rope, and taste a 15$ crocodile meat in a nearby restaurant.

The meat reminded of a turkey meat, but with some eelish, maybe even a little rotten aftertaste. I would nevertheless call it a delicacy, because it was extremely tender, juicy, and was still biting.

After meeting the crocodiles, you go to heaven a beautiful snorkeling spot, where you are given the goggles and breathing tube which underwent questionable sanitization practices.

Then you are off to scare your friends with a “shark!!” scream.

Skipping ahead, I have to say that the general opinion was that the time I stayed in Cuba was not considered warm, and that’s true when you look at windy cloudy weather forecast. However, I would 100% disagree with folks who claim the water to be cold – NO, IT WAS NOT, period.

Especially when you dive, and the flock of colorful fish surrounds you, and with the coral reefs below, and the turquoise, unbelievably transparent water, and… and… and… You forget how to breathe.

How do you possibly remember how warm or cold the water was after seeing THAT?!

If it was not for the breathing tube, I would scream underwater.

Day 7.

Another snorkeling – this time on the north Atlantic side of Cuba, on a windy, cloudy day. The reefs were maybe 20-30 meters away from the shore, which was full of sharp stones and the water was extremely wavy. It was quite challenging to get to the calm waters, which started right at the reefs (serving as a natural barrier for ocean waves). You could judge by the height and size of the reefs how ancient they were, and yet once again the flock of purple fish surrounded you, hoping for a piece of bread or cracker. I am still questioning why nobody warned us we could bring something to feed to the fish, otherwise I would have brought half of the buffet menu from the resort.

There are no sharks in the areas we were swimming – however, they do hunt for Cuban refugees on their way to Miami. Very often the boat would turn over in the open sea, and the poor Cubans will never be seen again.

For tourists like us, its more important to watch out for jellyfish, which look like a small blown up plastic bag on the surface, and long, up to 3 meter long tentacles underwater. The snorkeling instructors called upon us once they spotted one carnivorous plastic bag jellyfish not far from the place we were diving. I did not take any pictures on that day since my waterproof pouch was no longer waterproof, or even a pouch.

We were then taken to caves with freshwater, where you could swim and dive without supervision – at a depth of 2 meters, 10, or 22. The water was exceptionally clean, also not too cold, and I regret not grabbing the waterproof light – but who knew?? The cave was full of mineral residues, stalactites / stalagmites, and it was also quite dark – so if you were not careful enough you could hurt yourself really badly while swimming.

Day 8.

A catamaran trip was more like a drinking-tanning-dancing boat party. The host was extremely funny, and his sense of humor had nothing to do with the fact that almost all of us were drunk as hell. The catamaran fit approximately 50 Homo Sapiens, although after a couple glasses of screwdriver, you could for sure leave just the “Homo” part.

They took us to a spot in open sea, too far from the shore to get to it by swimming, with the depth of approximately 4 meters. The host gave us an exercise to warm up the blood in our veins, warned of the cold water, and requested that those who are not good swimmers better stay off the water on a catamaran.

I am a good swimmer. Also, I am crazy. So 🙂

The water was not cold. It was also not that difficult to swim or die dive. Of course, it probably had nothing to do with the fact I did intensified swimming for a couple of years before.

The reef was not as beautiful as during previous dives, and the fish were just regular greyish – roundish fish you would expect. Nothing much.

We boarded at the shore, had a nice lunch with lobster, clams, spaghetti, and some other stuff, and then we had 2 hours of free time to wander around. Cayo Blanco was something. Just walk 5-10 minutes off the restaurant along the shore, and you will see white sand, palms, and shallow transparent waters at your feet. It felt like a small paradise.

Somewhere in between Day 8 and Day 9 (because my chronology got f*cked up a bit).

Havana.

A beautiful city, where each evening they shoot the cannons – a tradition that has been in place for over 200 years already.

A city where you hold on for your bag for your dear life, and are afraid to take it out to even take one picture.

A city where gorgeous Hispanic architecture of El Capitolio, National Theatre, or Plaza Vieja blind your eyes and cover up the backstage full of half destroyed houses with holes for windows, moldy walls, and curtains for doors.

A city of the glossy retro cars, posters with Che and Fidel, sunshine and colors.

A city where you want to return no matter how many times you have been there before.

Day 9.

On Day 9, I was debating if should I, or should I not, go scuba diving the next day. Apparently, the there were two major complications.

1. My check out was at noon. The tour guide promised to pick us up at 9:00 am and get us back to the resort at 2:00 pm, and my bus was scheduled to pick me up at 5:40 pm.
2. The second “small” complication was the fact that scuba diving is not allowed if you have the flight same day. Why? Because you can get decompression sickness, meaning Nitrogen in your blood forms bubbles and can cause vomiting, extreme headache, and if its too bad – you might need to breathe through oxygen mask, with some cases being fatal.

For poetic reasons, I did make it sound scarier than it is, but hopefully you get the idea. I was debating till the very end of the day, and decided not to go and just have a peaceful boring farewell day at the resort.

Day 10.

Obviously – as if you do not know me well by this time – at 8:50 am I was running back to my room, changing into swim suit, grabbing a towel and rushing back to the bus, which Rajith and Justin held till I return.

Many thanks to Chris who asked the lady at reception to delay my check out till later that day.

We stopped at Barracuda Diving Center to grab all the equipment, which was heavy as hell. It included a wet suit, scuba tank with compressed air, regulators, fins, snorkels, pressure meter, buoyancy compensators and dive weights. 20 minutes after, we were dropped off at a small beach, where the instructor explained the purpose and directions on how to use each part of the gear. He also explained certain hand gestures which we would use to communicate underwater, including “come down”, “come up”, “shark”, “barracuda”, “ok”, “not ok”, etc. We knew what to press to sink down to the bottom of the sea, how to remove water from the inside of the mask, how to decrease pressure in the ears, and how to breathe correctly.

We started at a depth of 1.5 meters, and as soon as we went a meter or so deeper, I felt something like claustrophobic attack. The water was literally pressing onto me from everywhere, panic made me breathe much faster and it took lots of control to not let go of the breathing tube, and control my breathing through the mouth only. We were going down, and honestly, at some point I thought I could not make it.

Then, it suddenly stopped.

The reef was so beautiful I forgot about everything. The maximum depth we went down was 12 meters, and the instructor was leading us through the labyrinth of the reefs, pointing out on starfish, and other weird creatures around. I also found giant seashells, which probably weigh good 800 gr to a kilogram. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take any shells from Cuba, as a means of protection of some endangered species.

After the dive was done, we could go for another one, at an extra of 25$, which I did not have 😦

Of course, we did not come back on time from the trip, and my bus dropped us three at the hotel only 1 hour later.

At 5:40 pm, Chris, Justin, Tyler, Rajith, and Fred sacrificed themselves to mosquitoes to say good bye to me. Of course, the bus did not come on time, and I boarded it a few pounds lighter due to all the blood these vampires sucked out of me.

The whole good bye thing looked more like my own little funeral.

I hate “good byes”.

But fortunately, there is also a “welcome back”. I hope I will hear it one day.