From Cuba's worst to Cuba's best
A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Sun 24 Apr 2011 01:24
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"On the left, ladies and gentlemen, the Iberosol
Barcelo hotel, with a capacity of 250 guests, each room with its own
bathroom.
"Now on the right, Varadero's oldest tourist
complex, the all inclusive Playa de las Americas, with a loos on every
floor..."
And so on for two hours. We'd rashly hopped on the
'hop on - hop off' bus that runs the length of the peninsular. To give you
a picture of how bad an idea this was, this sandy apostrophe stretches for some
15km. What we'd mistakenly expected to be a romp through the parks, past the
caves and other interesting sites of Varadero rapidly degenerated into a
hotel spotter's dream. The bus visited every resort forecourt the length of the
peninsular, with some choice commentary on each. By the end (having been to many
places twice), we were dying for a coke / pina colada (depending on which side
of the under-10 spectrum you come). Luckily, we know just the place - a shack on
the beach where we've now become regulars.
Earlier in the day, there'd been great excitement
at the locals' market in nearby Santa Marta. A simple array of the season's
fruit and veg is what's on offer, including pineapples, guava, papaya and more
prosaic things, such as cabbage. Prices are in the national currency -
equivalent to 1/24th of the tourist convertible currency. The boys enjoyed
handing over fivers and tenners for fistfuls of fruit. There was also a kindly
fellow selling churros - deep fried sausages of doughnut mixture, squeezed out
of a turn-of-the-last-century device with a big handle and lots of cogs. For the
equivalent of 8p, you could get a little packet of steaming churros, caked in
sugar. When he saw the boys, the fellow gave them a free packet with a broad
smile. Timo handed him a little bar of soap from the stash we carry around for
gifts. Soap can only be purchased in convertible pesos, which makes it an
expensive luxury for a typical Cuban earning the equivalent of 50p per
day.
Yesterday, Summer Song spread her sails and set off
early for an abandoned cay with a lighthouse on it, called Cayo Piedras del
Norte. After a four hour beat into 20-knot plus winds, we hoved up in a
sheltered little cove, fringed with sand and palm trees. The boys pumped up
Jemima the dinghy, in whom we buzzed to the beach. The snorkelling from the
shore was superb. A complicated jetty had collapsed into the water, creating a
series of large chunks of concrete connected by rails along the sea bottom.
Coral had quickly colonised the structure, in turn attracting shoals of many
coloured fish. The boys were induced to swim out about 50 yards to the first
chunk of concrete in 4m of water. They were so excited that they forgot any
fears and spent 20 minutes buzzing around with snorkels, masks and fins whooping
at the fish they saw. The whole island is in fact a military zone, and indeed,
there were a couple of men loafing about in khaki swimming trunks. They
swaggered out to the dinghy to inform us that the rest of the island was off
limits, before jumping into wetsuits and heading off with a speargun. Tough life
in the military...
For the evening we puttered over to nearby Cayo
Blanco and anchored up amongst the mangroves in a strong wind but protected
waters. This is supposed to be a favourite spot for day tripping catamarans, but
there were only two souls on the island - both caretakers, who looked surprised
to see a yacht there. A strong easterly wind kept the mozzies at bay, while the
terns, tropicbirds and frigate birds wheeled around us. Fish jumped, and a
couple of elderly men paddled very slowly past towing a net. As the sun set
behind a giant statue of a naked Atlas on the beach, Dom and I fired up cigars
we'd purchased in Varadero. With much protestation that he'd never smoked
anything in his life before, Dom gingerly set about puffing through his Romeo y
Julieta and was soon posing for Wise Guy photos. I sparked up as well, and we
relaxed blissfully, pina coladas in hand, while Alex slaved away preparing
supper below and the boys hopped about excitedly demanding to see bigger
and bigger puffs of smoke. We barbecued chicken and burgers for supper and
retired at the advanced hour of 9.30.
We'd caught a giant, hungry looking barracuda on
our way up, but let him go in case he carried ciguatera - reef poisoning. A
Cuban would undoubtedly have been aghast at our cavalier rejection of the beast,
but barracuda in this part of the world are a risky meal, best left in the
briny. On the return leg we got into another smaller barracuda, which we landed
and presented to one of the dockmaster's lackeys, who seemed mightily pleased to
see it. Edmund was initially scandalised by the killing of the fish,
accomplished with a sharp knife, then fascinated as he touched first the tail
then the jaw of the fallen monster. We're back
'home' at the marina in Varadero, where we know many of the other boats.
Happy Easter one and all!
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