All the people who have me on FB already have been bombarded with my Cuba pics, so I decided I’ll share my Cuba experience in words here.
I went to Varadero for a week last week with a few close friends. One of the best vacations of my life. We stayed at a very nice resort called Iberostar Varadero, if you’re planning Cuba, do go there!

The Good stuff
- The beach was amazing! Cuba water was much better than Dominican in my opinion, warmer, clearer and overall just breathtaking.
- The maid/waitress service, they were friendly, prompt and did go above and beyond!
- Excursions, lots and lots of excursions to choose from, it will appeal to the traveler who want to see the old towns to the people who want to enjoy water sports. We rode a jet ski, which is something we always wanted to do but it was banned in Dominican.
- Weather. We went at the beginning of rain season, and would get 5 minutes of it everyday but it was the best thing ever because it would stay partly cloudy in the afternoons, so the ridiculously hot sun wouldn’t burn us constantly.
- The papaya…You have not had papaya if you do not have it in Cuba, because I swear it tastes perfect…it’s firm, and really sweet…I had it every meal, every day…
- Scooter/Vespa ride, we rented a scooter and went to the mall, best ride ever, especially because on the drive you had the ocean on one side of the road….simply unbeatable.
- Catamaran ride, Cuba is not complete without a catamaran ride…the ocean breeze, the snorkeling…sigh…. Fun fun fun
- Finding real starfish in the ocean floor (mommy and baby)
- Finally, a trip like this really lets you get to know your friends… a road trip adds in extra stress of driving, camping adds in task of cooking food etc. over there it’s pure relaxation, and just chatting about fun stuff…I swear we spent hours in the pool/ocean just joking around…I truly do love my friends!
Some memorable quotes,
“Even Shit floats”, after a 2 hour convo regarding not being able to float in water.
“Gayness is celebrated whoriness isn’t” my big argument with S about him calling every metro guy gay and me calling skanky girls whores, and how it’s the same thing (he argued its different)
“I don’t like it deep, just in my mouth” S’s comment after smoking his first Cigar, he realized the double meaning after he said it
There were many many more and I swear sometimes we almost drowned cause we laughed so much.

The Gripes
- Food food food….we stayed at a 5 star resort, and the food was not even close to the Dominican 5 star we stayed at. The a la carte restaurants were okay, we did have lobster twice, the buffet got repetitive for lunch… but I understand that because of the sanctions trading is limited…and I was warned about this before….also if you only eat halal, prepare to live in hell…cause I wasn’t very impressed with the seafood, kind of found the fish dishes fishy smelling(that’s the only way I can explain it, but I think you guys know what I mean), and the veggies dishes were meh..except they did make amazing brussel sprouts! I practically lived on their roast beef!
- The tipping thing… I am a good tipper… don’t have any issues with it, and we always make sure to take enough to tip all but in Cuba they kept on repeatedly reminding us to tip! Like sometimes they would tell you how much to tip… I know they are poor, Dominican was poor too, but I never felt like I was coerced into tipping…found it a little uncomfortable..
- The currency thing… they really rip you off over there, 1 Convertible Peso costs you 1.25 Canadian…and it really is this made up money that you can’t use/exchange anywhere else…. A total rip off

And just general Whining

I’m back so tanned that 95% of my clothes don’t suit me anymore, since I wear a lot of bright reds/pinks/greens/yellows! I have to stick to more neutral and earthy tones for the next little while (sucks that its summer though). Still haven’t shown my new face to mom or mother-in-law, they are bound to freak (again)

And my contacts now look a bit off, I wear the grey contacts which looks good normally, but now looks like I’m trying too hard. And what makes it worse is in the past 3 days I’ve been asked 5 times if they are my real color, or hear someone say, “I didn’t know you wore colored contacts”, while before the contacts blended in more, now it just stands out…. If I didn’t have 10 more pairs of this color, I would’ve opted for hazel or green for the next 3 months!

Overall a great week, great memories, and hoping we can do it again