Who's been here?

Our trip to Cuba has been fantastic: the life and atmosphere in Havana, sheer beauty in Vinales, recent history in Playa Larga (and yet another CIA meddling failing is just too much fun), time warp in Trinidad and, eventually, the Caribbean dream in Varadero.

When we’ve planned our Cuba trip we weren’t sure about how things would work out. We’ve heard too many stories of travellers reporting food ranging from inedible to incredibly boring, cumbersome travelling, lots of hassling – in other words not as much fun as you would like. Therefore we’ve decided to end the trip in a reasonably high-end all-inclusive resort to make sure that we’d leave Cuba on a good foot. Now, as it turned out, we had a fantastic time everywhere in Cuba – nice food, great encounters. I am amazed how often we exceed expectations and sometimes even hopes on this journey – and Cuba was yet another incredible step.

So, when we then arrived in a rather professional, fully standardised temple of Western beach vacation dreams we were, to put it mildly, a little bit shocked: on first glimpse (and I love my first glimpses and initial judgements) we ended up in a soulless tourism enterprise visited by mindless, aesthetically challenged morons that shovelled tons of food from the buffets into their greedy mouths. And, let’s be honest, would you believe the following: “I was thrilled to see my fellow guests in the hotel so outgoing, happy and active – the animation team was doing a brilliant job in helping these beach beauties to discover the Cuban in their souls!”? Or would you rather go for the following: “Where are Q’s beautiful inventions, like the flame throwing beach chair, when you want to mow down a bunch of ugly, hopelessly clumsy, mojito fuelled morons?”

But, eventually, we got to terms with the all-inclusive thing and enjoyed our time at one of the best beaches ever. That what I call a textbook ending.