Lazing on the beach

No MORE RAIN.. WOOHOO!!!

Yes that was to be the end of the rain for the next 10 days or so.. the weather had brought a very welcome surprise to Varadero the next day though: HUGE WAVES!

The water was well salty though, as seems to be the same around the coast of Cuba. Varadero in particular was almost like the Dead-Sea (!), although it was easy to lie back and sunbathe on the surface as a result


Spent most of the day body-surfing some really good waves and at one point was even joined by a group of about 10 local kids who wanted me to teach them how to do it as well. In exchange I learned a few more words in Spanish such as the word for waves "holas".

One thing I was pleased to discover about Varadero is that it's not solely "reserved" for foreign tourists (as beaches in some parts of India or Thailand seem to be), but there is a liberal number of Cuban resorts interspersed among the huge hotels along the beach where the rich Cubans go away for the weekends. In fact most of the people enjoying the beach that day were locals which was great fun for a game of beach volleyball.

Cuba isn't 3rd world. It's 2nd world. Locals are not sub-classed to tourists like in some countries around the world, yet they don't have anything like the spending power.


"Rich Cubans" is a bit of a misnomer generally speaking, as many people in Cuba obviously earn a low wage regardless of their profession. Thus 85% of the income generated is from the black-market, hence why I found most Cubans would eventually try to sell you something even if you at first thought that you were just having a friendly conversation. In fact of all Cubans I met, only Ines (girl who I met later in Vinales) and a few of the guys in Trinidad turned out to be genuinely interested in becomes friends for the sake of it.