Melia Peninsula Resort, Varadero, Cuba

DAY 1

After our 2hr ride to the airport, 3hr wait for our Plane to board, 20-minute wait because they had to fish some guy’s luggage out of cargo as he was too anxious to fly and a 3 HR flight we arrived in Cuba.

The airport in Cuba was the most ghetto I’ve ever seen and the look of it was reminiscent of a 70s Mexican bus station, although the floor was insanely shiny. I made my way to customs, they sat in make shift plywood boxes that would drive any claustrophobic person crazy. After a quick picture and a passport check, I was through. Passing through security I got stopped and asked to open my backpack, and asked if I was carrying any electronics as if the guy saw my fancy camera in the x-ray and wanted a better look.
After that, I headed outside and stood in line to convert my hard earned Canadian dollars into useless Cuban Paseo. I had to ditch my efforts because our bus was leaving. The guide on the bus was friendly and spoke English with a unique Cuban accent, she pointed out all the landmarks as we passed them, which was pointless as it was night time.

She told us about Cubas no.1 sport, hitchhiking! Also a common method of transportation back and forth to work. After about 45mins we arrived at our resort. We headed to the counter to check in and the staff wrapped gold VIP bracelets around our wrists, without any explanation. She informed us that we had about 45mins till the main buffet closed, so without any questions, we headed to our room to quickly drop off our luggage and then rush to the buffet to feed our ever-growing hunger.

We worked our way blindly along the dark path stopping in the scarce light to check our map to see how close we were to our temporary residence, luckily the main path was straight forward and led directly to the building housing our room. We dropped our luggage off and moved quickly back to the buffet. When we arrived at the buffet we had it all to ourselves except for the staff and one other couple, we grabbed plates and filled them with familiar foods and sat down to eat.

The food was as expected from a buffet and tasted like it’s been sitting for half a day, but was rendered delicious as all food is when you are very hungry. After dinner, we headed to the main lobby bar for some drinks. I went with a basic beer but my partner in crime got a mojito which turned out to be the BEST mojito we have both ever tasted. Something about entirely fresh ingredients and Cuban rum made the glass turn into a magical cocktail for our taste buds. After a few drinks, we retired back to our room and got some much-needed rest.

Day 2

The day started off with the usual morning routine, shit, shower, shave and then off to find some food. The buffet was kind of busy, being about 9 am I would have expected most the fellow tourists had already eaten, but I was wrong. The breakfast buffet consisted of your usual breakfast foods, along with some re purposed leftovers from the night before and some unrecognizable fruits. The food was average at best although the bacon was superior. I am guessing they raised pigs nearby.

After we finished eating we went to meet our ‘Transat’ travel rep for orientation. Her name was Margarita, she was extremely pleasant and spoke with what I think was a Cuban accent but she seemed to over pronounced every word so she was easy to understand.

After the usual spiel of what the resort had to offer and pickup time for our flight, I asked about our gold bracelet and what the difference was between the red and blue ones the rest of our fellow tourists had been wearing. She was baffled so she lead us to customer service to find more info. The gold bracelets we were wearing were for travel agents and travel writers/reviewers, because my girlfriend’s cousin who was a travel agent booked the trip for us and passed a message on to the manager at the hotel whom she knew from previous trips, we were awarded special treatment bracelets, which really showed in the speed of our service throughout our stay. We also got to book a couple extra al la Carte restaurants for dinner. We went with the French, Japanese and Cuban.

We spent the rest of our day self-touring the resort stopping for infant-sized drinks at every outpost (usually 1 for each hand) and the occasional snack. The resort was a fair size and extremely easy to navigate, although the beach was slightly hidden and would have been impossible to find at night if you didn’t already know where it was. We had dinner at the French al la Carte restaurant. The atmosphere felt dated but the food turned out to be the most flavorful on the resort. After dinner, I participated in some heavy drinking and then headed off to bed.

Day 3

We started our day with a late breakfast. So late that by the time we arrived at the buffet we had 15mins to get our food before they closed it down to start preparing the lunch service. We quickly ate then headed to the main bar for coffee. After our morning caffeine indulgence we went to meet with our travel rep to book a couple excursions, we went with a tour of Varadero which included a tour of the house Al Capone built but never had a chance to visit because of the Cuban revolution ($13cuc), and also a Havana day tour of old Havana new Havana and lunch ($67cuc). After that we went for a swim and hung by the pool. I had a Varadero pizza for lunch which had fried egg on it and was delicious. For dinner we did the Japanese al la Carte restaurant, which despite our chefs attire, was Chinese food. Our at table chef was dressed in full gi with a Japanese headband on, was insanely charismatic, and had a great sense of humor. He was probably the most memorable person we met on the trip. The food was average Chinese fried rice, with chicken and shrimp. The shrimp was phenomenal probably because it had just been pulled from the ocean that very morning, but the chicken was sketchy rubberized and did not the taste right so I stayed away. The group at our table was very quiet except for one couple a 30 something man and his Filipino wife, whom I believe must have got food poisoning from the chicken as through the evening when we ran into the man several times his wife was no where to be seen. The rest of the day we went back to the roaming bar shuffle.

DAY 6

This was our serious beach lounging day, with sun till I was feeling crispy and more drinks then my liver could handle. It was beach bliss. We had dinner at the Cuban al Carte restaurant. The atmosphere was the same as the French just different colors. The food, however, was some of the most tasteless I’ve ever encountered. It the worst al la Carte restaurant experience I’ve had thus far.

Day 7

Feeling like complete crap from the nonstop diet of cheese and shit I crawled out of bed and into the shower. After which I packed my luggage and carry on and we went for breakfast. 2 hard boiled eggs, a croissant, and some baked potatoes. Food was shit yet again. After breakfast, we sat and had cappuccino then headed back to the room to grab our bags. After checking out we spent the next 4hrs wandering around the resort killing time.

For lunch I ordered a burger, halfway through it I found a white piece of paper within the patty, I spit out my mouth full and dipped instantly before I threw up.

After playing the wander, sit, drink, repeat game for another hour or 2 our bus finally arrived. We then headed to the airport picking up our fellow Canadian ‘Transat’ tourists 2 by 2 by 4. When arriving at the airport we got a quick tutorial on how the departure process worked then we were kicked off the bus to collect our luggage. We headed inside, checked our luggage, and headed to the security check. I headed into the ghetto plywood booth to be greeted by an older lady with a very dissatisfied look on her face, she said “glasses off” sternly, snapped a pic, handed me my passport, and buzzed me threw. On the other side of the door I was greeted by several rows of bag x-rays and metal detectors, with 3 lanes open and cluster with about 15 Cuban security officers. I headed to the shortest line. The guy in front of me could barely stand and reeked strongly of vodka. Little did I know this tall bean pole drunk would become the entertainment for our long wait at the airport and 5+ hours spent on the plane. He wore a brownish orange cowboy hat with an extremely over worked brim. I’ll refer to him as cowboy as we never did learn his name.

I started the airport walk through, as I like to call it. Belt off, backpack off, dump your pockets in the tray. Took me a whole 20 seconds but cowboy was struggling. He fought with getting his bag onto the line then turned to stagger at the metal detector, ” sir your hat” the security girl yelled. He spun around apologizing at the top of his voice. He plopped his hat in the tray and then realized he forgot his belt and decided to announce it to the room as he removed it. The security girl repeated her self several times ” sir your watch” until it finally got through to him. Cowboy yelled out, “ its 4:30!! “No sir put your watch in the tray” said security. It finally clicked and he removed it. They finally told him to walk through so he spun around and started staggering beside the detector. One of the guards actually had to walk over and guide him through it . Took 5 or more minutes at least. When it was my turn I said to the security girl “I promise I won’t be as difficult as him” she laughed a little. I pushed my stuff threw and walked threw.

It took all of 30 seconds.

The guard on the other side asked for my lighter from my backpack. I gladly handed it over and began to collect my things as cowboy finally made it to his belongings. The guard asked him for his lighter waving mine at him as an example. Cowboy replied loudly, ” that’s not mine”, “no sir your lighter from your bag” said the guard. I left cowboy digging in his little yellow duffle bag frantically looking for his lighter and making more of a fool of himself yelling stuff drunkenly out. All of the guards at the back had a nice chuckle going by now.

I made my way out and up to the air bound waiting room and started my search for food to fill my now growling stomach. I hoped to find something that couldn’t be tainted and might actually taste good. I walked passed strangely unexpected scattered duty free booths and shops, down a small flight of stairs to a narrow walkway sandwiched between a duty free counter and a handy-crafts counter. Just passed them I saw a cafeteria. We were greeted by a very pushy waiter who started listing off the scarce selection of food. We both landed on pepperoni pizza, possibly because we haven’t seen pepperoni in more than a week. The pizza was Cuban style consisting of a bland. generic crust and sauce, cheese that tastes slightly sour and a meat that might have slightly resembled it’s actual flavor at one point in time but definitely didn’t that day. We reluctantly ate and paid insanely high prices for 2 little pizzas and 2 waters ($18cuc). I guess airport food is always a complete rip off.

We went back up to our waiting room for the next couple hours. Picked a seat close to our gate and parked it. Cowboy decided to sit on the row of benches behind us and a few seats over. He was rummaging through his bag yelling about a $70 Quick silver shirt and how he lost it. Eventually he gave up looking for it and decided he was going to find somewhere to have a smoke. He stashed his yellow duffle bag between the seats and asked the couple sitting behind him to keep an eye on it then took off.  For the next hour or so he would pass by us staggering quickly and looking like he was on a mission stopping only to ask the duty free guys if there was anywhere to smoke. He got the same answer from everyone. NO.
He disappeared for about 45mins but popped up again walking a little straighter and faster with a worried look on his face. He passed us 3 or 4 times yelling about losing his bag and swearing extremely loud. Finally, the couple spoke up and stopped him. A look of relief rolled over his face and he thanked the couple profusely for a minute or 2. Then he started telling them about how he lost his quicksilver shirt and how he loses things all the time. He went back to digging in his bag. After a few minutes, he yelled out “I found it” buried in his bag was, low and behold, his quicksilver shirt. He then got up and disappeared again.

After a long wait our plane started to board which felt more like a cramped, snails paced mad dash to freedom. This is probably how cattle feel when they are being ushered through narrowing passages to the slaughter house. Once on the plane we found out they double booked our seats with Cubans trying to get home to Holguin. A family was taking up our row and the row across the aisle. All but one seat that happened to be my partner’s seat. Once my girlfriend got tucked in I was instructed to move to the front of the plane and wait. I remember thinking ” I better not get stuck in Cuba and have to endure this shitty food L…”. Before I could finish the thought I was crammed into a seat and instructed to bucket up. I had the whole row to myself. It was nice but why the idiot ‘Transat’ employees on the ground didn’t see this row and insert that family into it is beyond me. A short flight later and I was reunited with my long lost sexipotomous on the layover.

Dead tired, with my bowels in knots from the constant diet of the Cuban cuisine, we were thrown off the plane and into the customs confusion. Once we had our cards filled out we zipped through both security checkpoints with out the customs agents not even making eye contact with us but just mindlessly waving everyone through and taking cards.

I suspect they were robots. Like a greeter drone that’s been reprogrammed to make a different hand movement. By some sort of mysterious bullshit, we were among the first 3 couples to make it through the checkpoints but the last to get our luggage and the last to make it to our pickup.

Cuba is a beautiful country. Don’t go there for the food!

Travelling Trev.