Today is my last full day as a tourist, both in Varadero and
in Cuba. True, tomorrow I have the trip from Varadero to La Habana, and I will
probably go out to roam the streets of La Habana tomorrow afternoon, but it
will mostly be a day devoted to getting ready for the trip to Cancún.
So, back to it being my last full day. Now, what is left in
my Cuba list to do? Snorkeling and caving, so I booked a trip with the local
dive shop that included both (39 CUC). The meeting point for me was going to be
in the Club Tropical Hotel, and while I was there I went in and asked what it
cost to stay there. 135 CUC per day, all meals and beverages included. This was
a nice 3-star hotel, in the old part of Varadero, which as I said caters to
national tourism. It had a nice lobby, a swimming pool, and access to the
beach. I suspect the “all included” feature is the way in which older,
traditional hotels are trying to compete with the resorts.
The outfit picked me up at 9 am from the hotel, together
with another family, and took us to their office for outfitting (which I didn’t
need since I had been lugging my snorkeling kit all along) and consolidation.
At the end we must have been a good 30 people, and by 10 am we took off toward
the west (toward Matanzas) headed for Playa Corales 20 km away. We took the
coastal toll road (the only toll road I saw in Cuba) and I could see along it
three oil drilling rigs hard at work, flying the flags of Cuba and China. I
also saw two small donkey pumps extracting oil in small amounts, so clearly
this is an area of interest for the government-owned petroleum company (I bet
the tourist industry is thrilled about it).
Snorkeling was, as always, a lot of fun. Saw many branching
corals and brain corals, as well as innumerable tropical fishes of beautiful
colors. I also saw a moray eel! Alas, no sharks, rays, or marine turtles, so I
still have to rate the Galapagos as a superior dive. There was a type of coral
that looked like a handful of microphones held together, a geometry that is not
conducive to sturdiness; many of these corals were obviously growing over the
pieces of older “microphone” corals that had broken off. Later I asked our
guide and he explained to me that the reef gets trashed every few years by
hurricanes; only last year they had a hurricane whose eye had paralleled the
north coast of Cuba, causing relatively little inland damage, but the eye had
pushed in front of it a surge that flooded the barrier island with four or five
meters of seawater. Because it is elongated in an east-west direction, the
hurricanes that enter the Gulf of Mexico rake the entire length of the island
with dismaying frequency. They do have a good monitoring system, however, so
although property damage is unavoidable it is very rare for them to have
casualties.
We snorkeled for about an hour, and after that headed for
the Saturno Cave, which is a relatively small cave but has the added feature
that at about 20 m depth in bottoms in a crystalline lake of cold, fresh water.
Not quite a cenote because the cave
slopes about 45 degrees, but close enough. Cubans have the reputation of being
good spelologists, and I can say that the map they had on display was indeed of
the highest quality, and included the mapping of two submarine tunnels, and the
bathymetry of the 22 m-deep pool at the bottom. It was a nice experience to
swim in it for 45 minutes or so.
For the afternoon my only plan is to survive. I have
separated the money for the room I have been inhabiting for the last three
days, the fee of the colectivo to La
Habana, my lodging for one night in La Habana, and the cost of the ride to the
airport. With all that done I have exactly 28.50 CUC left. I need to eat today
(say 8.5 CUC), which will leave me 20 CUC for La Habana tomorrow.
Rats! I forgot one more thing I still have to do here in
Cuba: Admire the sunset at the beach. It is summer, and sunset doesn’t come
until 8 pm, so I have missed it every day. Not today, however. I went bathing
at the beach in the afternoon, came back to my room to change into fresh
clothes, and then went for my last stroll down the beach, which was still
crowded with national tourists. It was a handsome sunset and this time I got to
take many pictures. Afterward I went to look for a place to have dinner, and
for exactly 7.50 CUC I had fish Eperlan (strips of marinated fish dipped in
batter and afterward deep fried), and a couple of sodas. Being in an expansive
mode I even left 1 CUC of tip. I like to stay in budget.
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