Tag: All-Inclusive

Things I Get Myself Into

Arroz a la Cubana: Resortworld 2.0

by NikkaLeave a Comment on Arroz a la Cubana: Resortworld 2.0

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I may have lived in Canada a bit too long. I’ve gotten used to the sterility, all the bylaws that treat smokers like social pariahs, relegating them to the fringes, forced to smoke nine feet away from all entrances, skulking somewhere their second hand smoke won’t cause cancer for everyone. This must be literal paradise, because they’re treating this resort like a cigarette fuelled free-for-all. Smoking in the lobby. Smoking at the bar. Smoking at the beach. Smoking at the pool. Smoking in the elevators. Smoking everywhere. (Thankfully, no smoking was done by any of the other folks on the same floor as I was.) They did say Cuba is a throwback to another age, but this is not exactly the the throwback I was looking for.

Then again – and I’ve heard it at least twice now – Varadero is not the real Cuba. So it serves me right, I guess. For choosing what is in real life, Disneyland for adults, where the booze is flowing and the smokers are lit up quite happily and walking around barely clothed, abusing both my eyes and their internal organs. It’s an experience. I’m not unhappy about it. This solo trip has me walking around bemused, almost like I was given a license to watch people in an unnatural habitat and no one cares that I’m gawking because they’re way too busy having the kind of fun none of us get to have elsewhere. A people safari, is what this is. Back home, like everyone else, I tend to mind my own business. I’m usually lost in whatever movie or book I’ve downloaded for consumption whenever I have to commute, so people watching isn’t something that I get to indulge in. It isn’t polite to stare at people in the big city. It isn’t safe either, but in Varadero the rules have gone straight out the window. For all I know, they’re staring right back at me for being an odd duck on my own in a place where it most certainly should be a group thing, but I guess I don’t care either because kevs ever. Maybe that’s the spirit of Varadero. Kevs ever!

Speaking of kevs ever, the man boobs, oy. I’ve seen enough man boobs to last me into the next decade, I think. All the in-resort restaurants have signs reminding guests to keep their shirts on and cover up when coming in, but people don’t read instructions when they’re on vacation, honey. So it’s an overflowing buffet of flesh and ass and yes there are girl boobs too, but that’s boring to me. It’s all the manly jiggles and hairy buttcracks and the sunburns so severe they look like a level six alarm on legs. Sometimes people don’t tan, they burn. The tan ones look like preserved leather, the red ones look like they need a lifetime supply of aloe vera. It’s painful. One woman was walking around with her skin peeling, red patches blooming on her shoulders, revealing … pink patches. Sunburn on a sunburn. Kind of makes me feel glad to be a tropical girl, because I turn golden brown, like a luscious rotisserie chicken. Gloat. As always, I’m staying out of the sun because I’m a vampire with a screwed up body clock here on a people safari.

Things I Get Myself Into

Arroz a la Cubana: Resortworld 1.0

by NikkaLeave a Comment on Arroz a la Cubana: Resortworld 1.0
Arroz a la Cubana: Resortworld 1.0

The tour guide on the hotel shuttle said something that stuck with me. He said “Varadero isn’t the real Cuba.”

Varadero is a peninsula that juts out from the Cuban mainland into the combined waters of the Florida Straits and the Bay of Cardeñas. It is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the entire Caribbean, with around sixty resorts occupying the entire stretch of beach, an absolute cash cow for the country and a source of employment and income for its residents. For all intents and purposes, Varadero is Resortworld. It’s not about the grim and the gritty. It’s about suntans, booze and fun. I wasn’t there for the real Cuba. Not right then.

In retrospect, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to choose an all-inclusive resort. Not for me on a solo trip anyway… not in a place where alcohol flows like water, and the waiter actually looks disappointed when I ask for some agua, por favor, like I’m letting him down by bucking societal norms and not ordering a glass of red and white, gracias. Unlike my tablemates, who were all in, ride or die, down, insert-whatever-other-phrase-means-completely-invested-in-something. They had paid for all-inclusive, knowing in this part of the world all-inclusive means drink all you can, and by God that was what they were there for and what they were going to do.

I’m exaggerating. Those were the Dutch boys two tables across, who’d been out in the sun so long they were beginning to look like leather. I say Dutch because one of them had a t-shirt emblazoned Sint Maarten and they did seem European. Then again, they could be any random breed of foreigner on an extended tour of paradise. Almost everyone here has a shirt on from some other Caribbean isle like Aruba or Dominicana, as if to emphasize that the Caribbean is their playground of choice. Hell if you can afford an endless summer, why not? It beats holing up waiting for Toronto to resemble a city again, not barren tundra.

Yes, I may have been projecting. Just a teeny tiny bit. My tablemates were a very sweet fiftyish Korean couple over from L.A., here on a group tour (Me: so you went from sunny to… sunny?) assuring me that L.A. is “still very cold.” They did ask for the rioja and the blanco, though.

I like being sober around the completely shitfaced. It’s interesting to observe how one can go from quiet and reserved to uproarious, red-faced, DGAF drunk, unconcerned about how one might come across leering at nubile Cuban dancers in the age of #MeToo and #TimesUp. To be fair, try being around a young girl whose tits haven’t yet succumbed to the pull of gravity, shimmying up beside you in a skimpy pink bikini and tailfeathers, an island showgirl romping through your buffet. If you’re three sheets to the wind, you’d leer openly too. It’s dinner and a show, what’s not to like?

Things I Get Myself Into

Arroz a la Cubana: Touchdown

by NikkaLeave a Comment on Arroz a la Cubana: Touchdown
Arroz a la Cubana: Touchdown

I had nightmares of getting mugged at the airport. The bestie had relayed a cautionary tale about a friend of a friend who’d set her bag down one minute, and found it gone the next. So there I was, in Varadero’s Juan Gualberto Gomez Airport, looking around furtively every so often like I was deep in the heart of Colon Street with a target on my back. I sometimes forget that if you’ve ever emerged intact from the bowels of old Cebu City, you can survive anything.

Still, it never hurts to be cautious.

Then again, I don’t remember the airport he had specified. Had it been Havana International? If it was, I was being overly cautious for nothing. Nothing happened. Everything ran like clockwork. The Cubans have the tourist machinery down to a fine art. Unlike Manila, there is no chaotic mess, no street hawkers, no shady characters lurking in the shadows, waiting to take advantage of you the moment you exit baggage claims. If there were, I didn’t see them. The whole process, from de-planing, to customs, to baggage claim to arrivals, is smooth, easy and fancy-free.

If you’re flying out of Canada, more often than not the price of the plane ticket includes the cost of the required tourist visa. The airline provides you with a tourist card (which is the visa itself) to fill out on the plane before landing. Be sure to read the instructions before writing anything down because erasures are not allowed. The lady beside me wrote the departure date instead of her birthdate and had to pony up $50 CAD for a fresh slip, something that upset her very much, because she spent a good twenty minutes berating herself while her husband tried to calm her down. Not a good way to start a vacation, that’s for sure.

At customs, the immigration officer checks your documentation – as always, it’s best to be sure your passport is valid for at least six months. Cuba does require proof of insurance. While proof of your provincial insurance (like your OHIP card) is acceptable, I took the extra step of purchasing extra insurance from the airline (Air Transat, $22 CAD) just in case. He didn’t ask to see the extra insurance, just took my picture and wished me on my way.  You can speak Spanish if you like, but English is not a problem at admissions. Just in case, I’d recommend downloading Google’s Translate app. It’s only polite to try and speak the language, rather than expect everyone to know English wherever you go. 

Anyway, after customers comes baggage claim and arrivals. Unlike Cebu or Manila, there are no aggressive hawkers waiting outside to get you to take a taxi or a dubiously priced rent-a-car. I had booked my vacation as a package – airline and hotel in one – which came with roundtrip airport transfers. (Highly recommended, if you don’t want to stress about how to get to your accommodations.) Upon exiting arrivals, you’ll find airline representatives – Air Transat, Sunwing, RedTag, etc. – waiting outside. They’ll direct you to the shuttle you’re assigned to, which turned out to be a big, air-conditioned bus that stops at pre-arranged resorts along the Autopista Sur, the main highway that stretches into Varadero. 

I had wanted to get my currency exchanged at the airport, but there was no booth in the arrivals hall so I ended up doing it at the resort instead. Cuba has two currencies, the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC) which is for tourists with a roughly 1:1 exchange rate, and the Cuban Peso, which is what the locals use. While it means visitors don’t get to pay the same rate the locals will for a specific item, I like how savvy it is when it comes to making sure they don’t get taken advantage of.