Varadero

            Yesterday, we got to have a little vacation!  Our professor decided that since we had been working so very dutifully on our semester projects and the rest of our classes, we were going to spend our Saturday in Varadero, the exclusive beach town of Cuba.  Let me tell you, this was one swanky place compared to the rest of the island that I have seen.

            The majority of Cuba that I have seen, and by now I have seen quite a bit, is struggling to make ends meet.  Most homes are aging and in a state of disrepair, people are getting fired all of the time, and everywhere you go you come in contact with the black market (the only thriving market in this country).  People are poor, and there is a constant fight for people to try to earn enough to do enjoyable things and have nice things.

            Varadero is not like the rest of Cuba.  It is about an hour and a half outside of Havana on the coast, and the biggest city nearest it is Matanzas on the other side of a large bay.  Even while we were passing through Matanzas, I was shocked by the differences that I saw between it and Havana.  All of the houses were newly painted, there were more modern cars, the people themselves had nicer clothes, I saw more stores, and I was completely blown away.  I asked Marci, our driver, why Matanzas was so different from everything that I had seen before and he said that it was because a lot of the people worked in Varadero.

            Once we had finally driven around the bay and driven onto the peninsula that Varadero is located on, I thought that I had left the country.  I have always grown up going to the beach and I literally thought that I was on the Florida coast.  There were pristine sand beaches, massive hotels, places that you could rent beach chairs, the only thing that made me realize that I was in Cuba was the music blasting from the hotel bar’s speakers.

            As the day wore on and we stayed on the beach, I slowly realized that there were absolutely no Cubans on the beach.  The only people that I saw were sunburned Europeans and Canadians playing bocce ball and drinking mojitos.  As we were driving back to Havana, we lamented with our professor about the fact that Varadero is quickly losing all of its Cuban aspects.  It is turning into a glorified resort town and losing all of the distinctive Cuban qualities that make this country so wonderful.  I enjoyed the break, but it was definitely disconcerting to be in a country but to have completely left it at the same time.