After the flurry of sightseeing of Havana where better to relax. (Cuba)

Member Name: lm09

Product:	Cuba
Date:	27/04/09 (159 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Perfecr weather, great beaches, azure blue waters, excellent hotels and outstanding reefs.

Disadvantages: Only for a limited time only before it changes for good

...continued from Havana Dooyoo...

So after the smoke had cleared we got back into the taxi. The driver who spoke only the most basic English was unable to explain to me (who only speaks only very basic Spanish) why exactly our car had just been filled with smoke by the police. Having made the effort, prior to my trip, with the One Day Teach Yourself Spanish CD, I feel thoroughly let down that the author, Elisabeth Smith didn't think to include the phrase "Why exactly are they filling the car with smoke?" in the transport and getting around section!
The drive from Havana to Varadaro (including the smoke stop) took just under two hours.

The road throughout was perfect, as good as the motorways in the UK. The views though were stunning. Cuba is such a green country. As soon as you leave the city limits of Havana you seem to have entered endless jungle.

Varadaro itself has a population of around 18,000 and I would guess that just about all of these people make their livings from the massive hotel resorts, which make Varadaro what it is today. Boasting over 50 hotels and 20,000 beds this isn't the place to come if you want to see the real Cuba. This is a massive resort. Our plan had been to see Havana and then come to Varadaro to relax and unwind. As keen travellers, both my wife and I normally have very active holidays seeing cities and sights so just to have a few days on a perfect white sand beach was our aim.

Our hotel, the Iberostar Varadaro was around 2 miles along the spit of land that makes up the resort of Varadaro. To the north of the spit is the Straits of Florida and to the south the Bahi de Cardenas with water on three sides. The hotel itself was lovely. The rooms were very spacious and comfortable. We picked the hotel through Kuoni for its location and its price and for the money we paid we certainly got fantastic value.

We were on an all inclusive basis at the hotel and this was our biggest concern having read some pretty poor reviews prior ro leaving. The food in Cuba, in all the books you read, is said to not be great, owing largely to the US embargo and the lack of resources and products. I have to say though the food at the Iberostar was pretty good. We were only there for five nights so did not suffer "All Inclusive Buffet Syndrone" and to be fair the variety and quality of food was good.

The two highlights of the hotel though are firstly the pool. It is massive and has spots of shade for those not loving the heat and rays of the Cuban sun. It has a great swin up bar (All inclusive so rude not to!) and has plenty of sun loungers so no need to set an alarm for your day relaxing by the pool here. My only slight moan, maybe because I'm getting old, but later in the day the peace of the pool is broken by the pool games laid on by the entertainment team. Most of these games involve loud and poor dance music and inflatables in the pool. Plan your day around missing these if you're anything like me.

The perfect place to go and escape the pool noise is down to the hotel's (and indeed Varadaro's) other great asset, its beach. The white sand on the hotel's beach is perfect. The sea too is beautifully clear, so clear that you see fishes swimming just behind the surf. The beach runs for 15 miles so marathon runners like me can fill your boots so to speak. Sadly Cuba does have a system of seperate Cuban and tourist beaches so the only Cubans you will see are workers from the resort. A word of caution; the sea beach does drop away very quickly, with a drop in the shelf around five meters out so if you are travelling with young children keep an eye out for them leaving the shallows.

I always find it easiest to write my Dooyoo reviews whilst looknig through my photographs of the place I'm writing about. I wish you could see the photographs of the beach. My words above don't come close to doing it justice. Perfect white sands, azure blue water and the bluest of blue skies await! And so this was our base for a few days...

However, I need to be doing something so we arranged to go on a snorkelling session for half a day. We left the resort early, around 6am. Our guide took us somewhere near Matanzas. Sorry I can't be any more specific but the site was just somewhere he knew. The spot itself was pretty uninspiring from the land. Already other early birds had entered the water. Our guide had told us to take some banana with us for the trip. Upon entering the water after a quick brief from our guide, we followed him only around 10 meters off shore and from here we saw the most amazing variety of fish I have ever seen. I had previously snorkelled in Mexico and thought that was pretty impressive but this was a different league.

Very quikcly we were engulfed by groupers and other big fish who, news to us, go absolutely mad for banana. Seriously if you are taking banana in prepare yourself for a fishy onslaught and watch your fingers!! We spent the whole morning gazing downwards at the reef and without straying more that thirty meters from the shore must have seen literally hundreds of fish and reef species. Seriously if you are staying in Varadaro peel yourself off the sun loungers and have a go at snorkelling.

Back on 'our' beach, whilst not to the same extent, the banana trick does a similar job. I would suggest that you use this as your practice run before going to the bigger reefs as the beach fish (like the tourists) are more chilled out about things and less vicious.

Another trip we took (on our relaxing five days) was a trip down the Matanzas river. On the drive over from Havana we had passed over the river, which at the time looked stunning, Now we were back on there on a cruise boat heading down river. Being early in the season we were amongst only a handful of other passengers. The driver was happy to let us steer the boat down river. This is perhaps one of the benefits of Cubas international seclusion - the driver clearly hadn't heard of "Boy strands boat on Norfolk Broads Sandbank horror" because I'm fairly sure he wouldn't have been so keen to hand over the keys to his livelihood so quickly. Thankfully we made it to journeys end safely enough.

Journey's end was a tourist spot with a bad restaurant (food included in the trip), a horse riding stable and tourist tat shops. We went and ate first. I am vegetarian so did ok. My wife, a meat eater, did fall slightly ill after, we believe, eating at the restaurant so I would advise going herbivore here. The food is dire, never-to-return and cheaply turned out tourist food.
Just next to the restaurant is a small jetty where we hired a rowing boat and rowed further down the Matanzas. In the hour we had the boat we must have made it all of 15 meters from the jetty after performing at least 5 near perfect figure of eight loops (rowing is not one of my strengths!). However, in the heat this was a really pleasant way to spend some of the afternoon.

Then for me another first - horse riding. My wife who has ridden many times was happy to criticise my performance on the half mile trot (come gallop!!!) but all in all I did well, managing to stay on board for the full duration. The horses, by the way, were in good condition and seemingly well fed, we always avoid horse riding or carts where the horses look over working or mistreated. After the horse I had my sights set on bigger beasts. A bull. Sounds dramatic, but in truth the bull was tethered and as docile an animal as you will ever see. And after all of this it was time to go back towards the coast back on the boat. Again I would 100% recommend this trip.

For us then Varadaro was a great place to recharge our batteries. Having seen the real Cuba in Havana I am pleased we took time out in Varadaro. The snorkelling and scuba options are plentiful and it is a really stunning place to get back close to nature. A great beach destination.

Summary: The perfect Cuban holiday, Havana followed by Varadaro