4/21/2016 – 4/23/2016
Our final class presentation was on Thursday 4/21, and since then we have been trying to get the most we can out of these last few days here. On Friday the 22nd we took a two-hour road trip through Matanzas as the sun was rising, ending up at Varadero, a peninsula that juts out into the Florida Straits. Have you ever seen commercials for Caribbean resorts? Those ones with the soaring aerial shots over crystal clear water and fine white sand, not a soul in sight? If it weren’t for the tangled mess of legislation that keeps Americans from coming here (which is waning!) these commercials might very well be featuring Varadero. For now though the resorts here are dominated by Europeans and Canadians, the occasional Brazilian or Argentinian showing up too. We laid out on chairs in front of a small hotel, pina coladas in hand with about 2 dozen young Cuban lifeguards conveniently running practice drills in the water a few meters away from us. Lost in our memories that this entire semester entailed, I don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure of a moment as relaxing as this one.
The next day we embarked on another sunrise road trip, to the valley of Vinalles. While we spent more of the day driving than we did exploring, a multi-day trip here is definitely on my itinerary for when I return to Cuba. The town is surrounded by a spattering of bulbous mountains, these enormous rock formations that look as though they’re wrapped with lush green forests, as thousands of trees seem to defy gravity in scaling up the cliffs’ edges. We passed a sampling of guarapo around as we waited in line for a boat ride through a cave under one of these mountains. Guarapo is pure sugar cane juice—a sugar cane stock was squeezed through a grinder into the little plastic cup right before our eyes, with a shot of orange juice thrown in it for some flavoring. I’m not too mad that this was the first time we were sampling this traditional Cuban drink. As far as flavor preferences around the world go, Americans aren’t the ones with the sweet tooth (despite our obesity rates). As far as liking sugar and all things super sweet, Cubans take the cake.
