A day in the life of a beach (Day II )

At 6:30 it starts getting lighter outside. I consider showering and having breakfast before heading down for a look to the beach, but it is still the Year of the Snake, so off I go, even though I have a muscle ache in my feet (!) from yesterday.

A note on the beach:  It is almost the opposite of the beach in Saint Malo as can be seen by the absence of reflections. While the Plague du Sillon consists of very fine sand that approaches concrete in its consistency and reflects like a mirror, the consistency of the sand along Varadero approaches that of quicksand. It’s like climbing stairs because every step one has to climb out of the hole one sank in before.  Is there something like snowshoes for the beach? No wonder I have muscle ache in my feet ;-)

After running into the left-overs of yesterday’s party crowd I almost wish I hadn’t:

But as soon as one's away from the beach right in front of the hotel it gets better ;-)

Moon-set in the morning

Then there are some sunrise pictures from my balcony:

Down at the beach again

All kinds of things on the sand:

German shadows

stinky tourist leftovers

Portuguese man o'war

Dirty Cubans

shadows point left: still morning

The view south (towards Cuba)

Shadows still point left, but it's evening. All relative ;-)

Now that's a sunset

Still Day 1 in Varadero (Adventure time)

At 11:45 I exchange $500 CDN for 425 CUC (Cuban convertible Pesos). A measly exhchange rate, but Cuba wants to live too and the Canadian $ dropped against the US one recently.  

Just for fun, I drop by the scooter rental place at 11:50 and ask the senor who I recognize from 2 years ago just 4 words: “hay o no hay?”.  He answers ‘hay’, which leaves me utterly confused because it was always ‘no hay’ for DAYS the last time I was here.  After I tell him that I have to go to my orientation meeting he says ’10 minutos’ (he knows it won’t be long for another prospective customer to show up) and after I say it would take longer to get my driver’s license from my hotel room, he rents me the scooter with just my passport but without my driver’s license and makes me promise to show him my driver's license later.   TRY THAT in Canada ;-)

After enough wine with lunch I spy this from my hotel room: 

A book I’m reading right now call it the ‘imp of the perverse’ and as described in the book it seems to sit on my shoulder at various times: Let’s go  ;-)

When I get to the 1/3 mark, I realize that the black areas actually consist of concrete covered by SLIPPERY  seaweed.  I also realize that the waves washing over the thing exert a measurable lateral force on my feet, or - in less scientific language - the waves could push my feet off the ground.  I cautiously place my feet on areas where pieces of the concrete (including their seaweed cover have splintered off.

Given the 3 hours of sleep and the 3 alcoholic drinks I had within the last 2 hours, I actually don’t go all the way to the front.  There still are 6 days left to do that!  I cautiously head back to the beach.

When I'm almost at the beach, 2 not quite sober guys come onto the pier. I tell them to have a coffee before they venture out there, a warning that goes unheeded.

the top balcony on right is my perch

I head back to my room for a bit.  

 2 hours later I meet one of the guys in the elevator. His white T-shirt is smeared with some red substance.  Apparently they went onto the pier, where one of them was swept into the canal, spent an hour in the water trying to swim against the current, while the other guy managed to fetch the life guards, which then rescued the 2^nd guy and sent him to hospital.  Turns out he was swept into the ocean by a wave at the very front, where I chose not to go today.   WOW!!!

YVR to Varadero (Despite contrary belief, there ARE colours in the world)

I leave Vancouver on another sunny (read foggy) day. This was one of the few glimpses of the sun along the way from North Van to the airport

foggy runway

My Plane lands in Varadero at 3:30 am; customs and immigration are quick to get through (Hear that, Vancouver Airport?) After I step outside to look for the bus that will take me to the hotel, I spy a cab driver who wears a tuque and GLOVES !  it is 14 degrees, but for Cubans that is ‘mucho frio’  A young Cuban speaking perfect English (Memories of Shenzhen: English earns $$$s ;-) tries to sell me 2 beer for 5 Pesos. I don’t want two beer and ask how much one beer would be. So he offers me 5 beers for 6 pesos.  I finally get the one beer for 3 pesos, overpaid but hey, the welcome is friendly. And keep in mind: the beer sellers are at the airport with cold beer at no later than 3:30 am which deserves a reward in my world ;-)

And I feel that I have arrived in a civilized: I have a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other while I wait for the bus.  OF COURSE, there are no no-smoking areas ;-). 

At 4:02 I’m still in the airport; the combination of tiredness and alcohol starts to work its magic. Of course my favourite album from the 80s is playing:  Tina Turner, What’s love got to do with it.  I was 19 at the time this came out and had the cassette tape playing in my car for 5 months solid.  I can’t stand the Raiiiin ! ;-)

At 4:45 I am in my room. I have a room on the 6^th floor (there is a 7^th floor). I got the corner room (the hotel is rectangular with ocean side and a land side) so not only do I get sound of the waves in the channel (check a map of Varadero) but sitting on the balcony I also see the ocean towards the West, which should make for spectacular sunsets from my balcony ;-). 

I explode wide awake at 8 am, flip over on my bed to face the window, run to the window, and thank whoever brought back colours to the world overnight! 

Why would anyone take an elevator if the outside stairs offer this view ?

Time to grab some breakfast.  And I get an instant refresher course in NO HAY!

NO HAY plates

HAY saucers

NO HAY cups

I stay away from bacon, sausages, omelets and focus on olives, papaya, pineapple, and a slice of toast with cheese.

After the breakfast I go to La Tienda, the hotel store.  And no surprise, NO HAY toothpaste. Ah well.  But HAY: a pack of cigarettes and 1.5 litres of spring water for a total of CUC 2.6. Yes, that’s right: A pack of rather good cigarettes costs C$0.65.  

Since my room is on the 6th floor, this offers a rather good opportunity to burn off calories after over-eating :-)

After a long walk on the beach (with very few other souls trying the same; 40% of the guests lay by the pool, another 40% lie on the beach facing away from the water [Varadero Beach faces North and consequently all the face tanners face away from the water], while another 10% is defending their seat at the various FREE bars of the all-inclusive hotel), I head to the reception to find the location of the money changing location (the reception) and to check whether there are Cartas de Internet. Of course: NO HAY cartas and the computers are not working anyway.  But after only 6 hours in Cuba I already don’t care anymore ;-)

Was it worth it ?

Was it worth booking a trip to a sunny beach even though the Vancouver Weather Forecast called for 2 weeks of sun?

Here are the "sunny" days that I still witnessed:
1 day with cloudy breaks : cold & grey
1 day with fog forecast:  cold & fog
1 night with fog horns blaring all night
1 day with sun forecast:  cold & fog


That last picture is a depiction of the airport so anyone can guess that I didn't stick around to verify the veracity of the remaining days of the weather forecast.
Why can't the Vancouver weather forecast be like the Kona weather forecast?  The weather forecast obtained just before leaving for Hawaii called for a week of high chance of showers and it rained once ;-)

Even if the difference in weather did not render the trip worth it, I am sure Vancouver Police did: The many police cars that usually sit in front of the departure level of YVR today actually did something.  Speeding tickets to MANY full & empty taxi cabs and private cars that exceeded the ridiculously low speed limit at a pedestrian crossing right in front of the terminal building.  All this was observed from a smoking area and all the smokers agreed that Vancouver must have become a crime free area (as evidenced by the cops having nothing else to do) and therefore smoked their cigarettes WITHIN the area delimited by the green line, to make sure that the VPD did not give them a SMOKING-OUTSIDE-A-DESIGNATED-AREA ticket.

The toilets at the south-end of the domestic departure level have moved (Why?)! Food (Calamari & a black-out-torte on the second sitting) was pretty good. Security was what one expects: Employees not allowed to think for themselves but forced to follow procedure.  When I asked one why the NEXUS isle had moved from the very right to the very left I was informed in no uncertain terms that I had an incorrect memory of history and that the Nexus line never had been on the right but had always been on the left. 1984 anyone?  People voluntarily removing their shoes, even though no one asked them to.  My computer being swabbed for explosives.

Just to get away from these last two paragraphs for a week was definitely worth the trip. Canadians are becoming what Germans were 70 years ago:  Rule followers & spineless mute conformists. Getting away from that was a very much needed fresh breath of air.

A change from previous flights to Cuba:  The passengers were informed that the plane cabin would be sprayed with insecticide BEFORE boarding the plane, as opposed to being informed an hour prior to landing in Varadero as on previous flights.

Incomunicado (T minus 9 hours)

In 9 hours I will be in a communist country with atrocious internet access. So there will not be any posts for about 10 days.

some pics from the last time (January 2013):

old cars

taking the ferry across the harbour

Pina colada & mojito

ferry view

Hasta luego