Dorktastic Oddments: Cuban Holiday

Last night I was looking at Melanie and Jim's photos from their trip to Cuba and I realized that Cuba was definitely missing from my blog. Here's the cure! For ease of digestion I have split our trip up into 4 parts with about a dozen photos each. We took over 1200 photos (just Paul and I, never mind the rest of the group) so this is only a select few from the scope of our trip.

Paul and I went to Cuba in May 2007 with 18 of our friends. We had contingents arriving from all across Canada to meet in the Toronto aiport in the middle of the night. The Edmonton group arrived first, then the Vancouver contingent, then the Hamilton contingent. This meant that those of us from E-town had a 7 hour layover in the middle of the night. Bleh!

From front to back, left to right (roughly): Jo, Sue, G, Me, Amanda, Mark, Chantal, Harry, Paul, Brandon, Doug, Keith, Leslie, Sarah, Kristy, Helen, Jason, Maja, Margaret and Tom.

The first thing we did upon our arrival at the resort was change into swimsuits, jump in the pool and order a mojito from the swim up bar. (This caused me to switch to Strawberry Daquiris for the remainder of the trip. I'm not a fan of mint.)

The second thing we did was go to see the ocean. When we got to the end of the boardwalk, we all just dropped our things and ran right in.

We spent a lot of time on our trip just hanging out at the pool and drinking. Everyone said that they knew we were Canadian by two identifying features. Number one, everyone else was bundling up because it was only 17 degrees out and we were in the pool in bikinis. Number two, we always had a drink in the pool. They were polite enough not to mention item number three which, depending on the day, was either the extreme blinding whiteness of our skin or the extreme tomato-lobsterness of our sunburns.

The Iberostar Varadero.

Before we went to Cuba, the only complaint we'd heard was about the quality of the food, that it was bland and boring. My only explanation is that these people must have only eaten from the buffet, which after a couple of weeks might seem so. The food at the à-la-carte restaurants was very good. Below is a shot of our friends at the Japanese restaurant (it kind of cracked me up that people would go for Japanese food in Cuba).

Paul and I elected to sample the Cuban restaurant. We dressed up a bit for the meal and on the way to dinner one of the gardeners gave me a flower and told me I was pretty. I wore the flower in my hair for the rest of the day.

This meal was one of the best I have ever had. I finished my steak before Paul ate his, which might be the first time ever (and possibly the first time I have ever finished a steak in one sitting.)

The weather was incredible the entire time we were there. Despite 30+ degree temperatures, I rarely found it to be too hot. (A minor miracle occured and my hair mostly behaved itself in the humidity, contrary to all expections. I guess it liked being on vacation.) It rained about once a day, a solid downpour lasting from half and hour to an hour and then subsiding. The rain was warm though, and we revelled in it. Things worked out far better than anticipated, considering we went right at the beginning of hurricane season.