HOW TO PARTY IN VARADERO CUBA

Varadero Hotels Cuba

Varadero Cuba Worlds Top Vacation

Varadero Cuba is considered to be one of the Worlds Top Vacation destinations. Varadero Beach is for tourist who would rather swim with the Varadero Dolphins and Golf on Cuba PGA Golf Varadero resorts on their holidays than laze around at a resort, this is one city that offers a lot by way of fun excursions.

For those of you who love the thrill of adventure sports, skydiving is on offer at the Centro Internacional de Paracaidismo. You will find this West of Varadero at an old airport. You will be taken up in an Antonov AN-2 bi-plane. History buffs will be thrilled to bits with the WWII plane and will be made to jump from a height of 3000m. Nothing to get scared about as the instructor will be strapped to your back and will be coming down with you. The fall is for about 10 minutes in which you will experience unparalleled tranquility.

When in Varadero, taking in the marine life is something that you simply cannot miss. One of the most popular cruises is the Seafari Cayo Blanco that goes to Cayo Blanco. A show with dolphins is on the cards as is snorkeling trips, some great music, food and all this with hotel transfers included. A complimentary sunset cruise is also yours for the taking. Among the cheaper activities are the catamaran rides which are not really publicized but which promise a great deal of fun.

And for those gentlemen who just cannot miss their weekend of golf, how about a quiet round at the well designed and secluded Varadero Golf Club. The original course had just 9 holes and this is now grown into 18 holes. You will need to do your bookings in advance though. It may be secluded, but it is in demand. If you are up to doing something interesting when at Varadero, you could hop onto some Russia MI-8 helicopters and take a Trinidad trip.

There is also what is called the Sugarcane Trip where you will taken to a now defunct sugar mill and will also get on a steam train ride, to the Cardenas Station.

Of course you have to eat at some point and the Restaurante Esquina Cuba is a one spot you should not miss. One for its delectable food and second for its soft-top from the 1950s that is placed bang in the center of the dining area. The food is reminiscent of Havana’s El Ajibe and is served with a great deal of warmth. You will also see rows of photos depicting how the place was once a mafia hangout.

If you are in Varadero between Tuesday and Sunday, do take a night to go watch one of the most outrageous floorshows in Cuba at the Cabaret Continental. You will have to book yourself for dinner, which begins at 8PM and then you will be able to watch singers and dancers regale you with their wonderful talents. A disco also opens up post this show and you may want to stay back for that as well.

Scuba diving is something that you have to do while here; to do it you head to the Cayo Piedras del Norte where an hour’s ride on a boat will take you to a marine park. This is a manmade sinking hole where old military equipment has been dumped. You will be taken on a really interesting underwater trip here and for those who want to Mambo the night away, the Club Mambo here is the place you want to be.

There is a lot to do in Varadero Cuba Health Spa Resorts no matter what type of entertainment you like.

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The Real Varadero Cuba

Given that Varadero’s present population of 20,000 is twice what it was in 1990, and there are at least 60 resorts, it is definitely not the sleepy little resort town it was in earlier times.

In 1910, the filthy rich Iturrioz family developed an estate on the grounds of what today is Varadero’s Josone Park. It is said that the patriarch of the family so valued his privacy that he had a tunnel built from his property to the beach about a block away, and when he wished to swim, sent servants ahead to shoo everyone else away. He wanted privacy and so did other wealthy families who bought beach properties in and around Varadero. With at least 20 kilometres of pristine white sand beach, there was room for all of them to have privacy, even after 1931 when someone thought to build a hotel. Cuba’s native bourgeoisie, plus wealthy Americans (who by then controlled most of the island’s resources) continued to vacation in Varadero. Among those who built elegant residences on beachfront properties were: Irenee Dupont who during World War I had earned a fortune by the manufacture of munitions; Al Capone who earned his in a less legal but equally reprehensible way; and Cuba’s dictator Fulgencio Batista, who combined the unsavoury qualities of both those men to acquire his wealth.

It was about then that 400-year-old Varadero underwent a 30-year period that could fairly be called un-Cuban. Between 1929 and 1959, Cubans were banned from Varadero unless they owned property on the peninsula or were servants or guests of someone who did. The Revolution, of course, put an end to that nonsense.

One of the first things the Castro government did when it took power in 1959 was to open all Cuban beaches to all Cubans. The wealthy fled and their properties were confiscated. Al Capone’s “cottage” became a restaurant. Dupont’s Spanish Renaissance mansion, Xanadú, became a six-room guest house with restaurant, bar, and adjacent golf course. Batista’s compound, Cuatro Palmas, was first used to by the Revolutionary government to house young people being trained as teachers to be sent into the countryside to eradicate illiteracy and later recycled as a beachfront resort—one of the few right in town. Once again Varadero had become wholly Cuban.

But not for the rich alone because under the new regime there weren’t supposed to be any rich Cubans. La Vanguardia (model workers) were given government-paid vacations at the Cuban-owned resorts. About the only foreigners one saw in Varadero in those days were a few white-bodied Russian advisors who had driven from Havana in their government-issue Lada. On my first visit to Varadero in 1997, I stayed not in a hotel but in a campismo (Cuba’s version of a campground). That beach, as beautiful as any I have ever seen, swarmed with Cuban teenagers who had been bussed there by their school and were lodged, for free, in little on-the-beach A-frames.

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