Varadero

Varadero, Cuba

2009-11-26 to 2009-12-03

Varadero is foremost a tourist resort town, boasting more than 20 km of white sandy beaches. Varadero is a resort town in the province of Matanzas, Cuba, and one of the largest resort areas in the Caribbean. Varadero is primarily visited by European, Latin American and Canadian tourists. The population is about 28,000.

This is a very beautiful beach resorts. I believe Canadian is one of the major tourist source. It is hard for US to visit here, there are alternative ways - from Canada or Mexico. Our passport does not have any Cuba stamp because they give us a tourist card when we come in, of course, we have to bring our passport. When we leave the country, we have to pay a 25 Cuban peso fee to get a receipt and hand our passport along with the leaving fee and tourist card. When we leave the place, the schedule of our flight was 11:40 AM. The tour guy picked us up at 7 AM. We had to arrange the early pickup and to get small sandwich at a small cafe for breakfast. In this place, you do not do any shopping unless you want cigar or rum. It did not take too long to get to the airport. When we get through all security check, it was only 8 AM. We sat in the boring waiting area for our flight to come. I looked at the monitor for the flight schedule, there are only about 10 flights for that day.

We bought one day tour bus for $5 USD. There is one mall - American Mall, it is too small and nothing to buy. Just for one trip, we did not take any advantage to ride the bus again.

We did not talk with any locals. The most spectacular scene is the old cars - 1930's or 1940's. They still keep them running, I believe their mechanic craftsmanship must be very good.