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I'm back from Cuba, had a blast and am glad that I went, though I did return with a peeling tan and a mild case of Montezuma's revenge. I could probably write a book on my experiences there. But I think I'll just try and keep it short and sweet with what I learned from my various activities in Cuba.

On Drinking: I'm not much of a drinker and I don't know much about drinks. Seeing as how drinks are included in the vacation and all you have to do is ask the bartender for whatever drink you want, I learned the names of some fun drinks. I'm game for Mohita, Rum Punch, Pina Colada, B-52 and Bailey's straight up, though they didn't have any strawberry daquiries due to a lack of blenders at the resort. In the process of testing my limit and seeing how much I can drink, I learned that they mix drinks pretty strong in Cuba and when it comes to holding my liquor, my genes are like my mom's in that I can take about 4 drinks before I fall over.

I'm serious.

I took about 4 drinks in one night after dinner and barely made it back to my hotel room, I was about ready to keel over. The drinks I remember having (can't recall the order)were one Bailey's Irish, a Spanish Coffee, a strawberry daquiri (the guy just broke up ice by hand and stuck it in the mix) and sipping from other people's drinks. I didn't puke, but I think one more drink and I would have passed out.

On Scuba Diving: I don't think I'm well suited to scuba diving. I get the squirmies where the thought of jellyfish and slimy kelp and all those other things brushing against me kind of freaks me out. Plus I'm not a fan of deep water, especially when the only thing keeping me alive in it is a thin tube of oxygen as I try to control how deep I go so the preassure doesn't crush me like a tin can. Yet oddly enough, I had an amazing time scuba diving. The resort is built in a cove which not only makes the waves on the beach calm (the waves break up on the coral) but also makes the place a great scuba site.

After a short lesson in the pool on how to use the equipment, there's a scuba hut you can go to at the edge of the beach after making reservations. On the way there I lost my shoes in the swamp (more on that later) and a begger asked me for money (I gave him a tourist peso, which dad said is about equal to 6 of their pesos, though I kind of wish I'd just used french and pretended not to know what he was saying). In addition to the beginners like me on the beginner's tour, there were also experienced hardcore certified divers with their own wetsuits and gear who went on the advanced tour in a boat. I just went off the platform and played with the fish as Carlos the dive master fed the fish with the bread I swiped from breakfast.

It was beautiful, but I didn't have an underwater camera to capture it. Nothing really dangerous like jellyfish or urchins or anenomes, those were probably in deeper water. There was mostly harmless fish and brain coral where I was. It was still loads of fun though.

On Horseback Riding: While I'm not a huge fan of horses, I enjoyed horseback riding so much that I actually went twice. You can have a horseback riding adventure in the Cuban countryside for just 4 tourist pesos plus tip (about 6 or 7 Canadian dollars) compared with at least 30-35$ CAN up here without the nice country view. I went first with my family. I had a nice horse, while my younger sister's horse bit and head butted the other horses. My dad got a well behaved horse as well, but my mom's horse didn't want to listen to her and would just walk off and eat. Many of the Chans also went. I think Brian was a jockey in a previous incarnation, as he loved to gallop his horse and wack the behinds of the other horses with a switch and make them run too, causing us to freak out since we're all from the 'burbs.


The next day I went with the teenage children of Mack, a friend of the Chan family and their friends. Mack's 2 kids were Donovan and Michelle and their neighbors Hillary and Frances. I spent a lot of my vacation partying with them in the evening at the small bars and discos in the resort (though there were mostly older people there). We had to ride bikes to get to the stable (there were mopeds too, but my dad said no way) and these were kind of wimpy bikes not made for rough terrain, Donovan literally broke his before we got out of the lot and had to go back and get it. Frances had experience with horseback riding and Hillary and Donovan had fun too. But Michelle declared herself a city girl after walking away with a sore behind.

Beach: We spent the majority of our time here. The beach was really nice beyond the rocks that jutted out because of the reef. A fun thing the Chans liked to do was book the Banana Boat, a huge inflated raft with handles that you ride on while being towed by a boat. You can go fast or slow and the first time on, I made the stupid mistake of going on with Justin, Jason and a friend of theirs, a local named Ernesto. They had a super fast ride where everyone jumped and shook the ride, ensuring you got thrown off the boat off on purpose while the driver went really fast. I wouldn't have minded but without my glasses I couldn't see, I got water up my nose and I almost lost the lower half of my bikini. The second time I just did a slow ride which was more fun.

Around the last day of our vacation we found a sea cucumber in the shallow waters we were swimming in. Jason picked it up with his foot and I carried it around for everyone to touch. They're perfectly harmless, but lots of people were scared to touch it and many had a hard time realizing it was alive. Oh, and I had fun on the catamaran, but that was rather uneventful beyond the fact that I rode with Donovan.

Misadventures: While going to the beach, I lost my shoes and had to get them back. You see, in order to get to the beach you have to cross a bridge because there's a huge swamp between the resort and the beach. This swamp is full of reeds and muddy slimy water and serves several purposes. It leaves an 'ecological area', as Canadians and Brits do care about the environment, so it makes them feel less guilty about being in this nice lavish resort. It's also a barrier, holding runoff water that runs right off the beach when it rains at the resort and would otherwise flood the apartments.

Anyways, there are tiny fish in this swamp, so while trying to feed them and see them better, I leaned over and my shoes went into the water. I didn't really care about my wading shoes too much, since they were old and cracked and was going to toss them anyways, but I felt bad about leaving them in the swamp, so I finally got them out with a broom handle and paddle that I borrowed from one of the staff and fished them out. The Chans were laughing at me afterwards because I looked like such an idiot on the bridge trying to get my shoes out of the scummy water.

Another notable incident involved some of the locals and security. Most of the time locals can't enter the resorts that tourists book, but in our case, the way the beach was designed, locals could go into the cove and staff would swim at the beach on their off days too, as the small town that they lived in was walking distance from the resort. Anyways, most of the locals are friendly, but you still have to be careful. My group made friends with the security, giving them cool drinks and chatting with them as they watched the enrty points to the resorts and the tourist's things.

I personally kind of wondered about how some of the locals viewed tourists. I always kind of thought they'd be somewhat resentful of tourists using their resources and enjoying lavish resorts that they couldn't set foot on with nice food that they couldn't eat. But my dad tells me that they're probably happy for the money tourism brings in, especially with the U.S. government putting the screws to them lately. There's also the remittances that families abroad send in, and a old British guy named Peter who I made friends with told me how he made friends with a staff member and her family, then tried to send money with a letter as a gift when she got married and had her first baby but the letter got intercepted and the government took the money. The Chans also bring goods for the staff that they know personally as they've been to the resort several times and bring clothes and toiletries and other items that they're grateful for.

There are 3 resorts in the cove where we were and with staff and locals
in the water with us on the weekend, it was rather crowded. This worked out well for us in the afternoon where my dad told me how some guy tried to beg money off him while he played dumb and pretended he didn't understand before the security guy told the beggar to move in along. I also saw one guy picking at stuff out of the garbage can, but most of the others just plucked fruit off of the trees that grew on the beach.

I don't know the names of the fruits, but they were kind of tart with big seeds inside and we just called them Cuban grapes. I think they would have made a nice juice, but they had very little flesh on them. The younger kids in the Chan clan just liked to pick the green ones off, toss them in the water and dive for them for fun or use them for poker chips.

There was a final misadventure that didn't happen to me but that I heard about from my dad involving the Speargun Fishermen. The locals are not supposed to spearfish, but locals sneak their spearguns into the water and dart fish to eat on the reefs. Justin and Jason went with one guy and talked about how there were so many fish you could close your eyes and shoot and you'd still hit something. Ernesto to them to his favorite spot in the reef and came back with green and blue parrotfish, flounders and even a huge slimy green moray eel strung on some copper wire.

An accident happened on one of the nearby resorts. Two locals were speargun fishing without a buoy or other marker to show they were there. One fisher came up as a catamaran with tourists was going by and swerved to avoid the fisher. He managed to avoid the first one, but wound up striking the second guy at full speed as he was coming up. My dad was walking along the beach when he saw them bringing the unfortunate guy back on the catamaran. He was grey and unconscious with a large gash and blood streaming down his face. He coughed up water on shore and was rushed to the hospital, but we didn't find out what happened to him afterwards.

Food: The food was pretty good, a lot better then the other resort last year. My family really liked the Cuban soup but one unnerving thing was the wildlife. Birds were rather brazen and would fly right in the open buffet and peck at the corn, bread, fruits and desserts. Some food was covered and tourists seemed to think it added to the tropical island paradise feel, but it was kinda gross. They had a lot of seafood, spiny lobsters and fat shrimp. The shrimp were nice, but I kind of wish I could have had the lobsters with black bean sauce.

On mondays they served food by the pool. Grilled pork and chicken or crab claws and there were coconuts that the staff cut down from trees all around the resort and then hacked open with machetes. My dad got some rum in his.

My only real complaint about the food was that their white rice was very crunchy. When we came home, the first thing we did was head over to my Aunt's house for some curry, as there wasn't any there so we were craving it when we got home.

Wildlife: A lot of neat critters everywhere in the resort. Little fish sometimes swam by you in the water, though the larger ones were out in the reef. Feral cats sometimes begged you for food, sitting and looking up at you while you ate at the buffet. And there were little land crabs around the area. Michelle showed me a picture of a tarantula that had crawled up the side of their apartment. There were some big bugs in the area that you really couldn't do much about.

Shopping: We made one visit to the marketplace and I got sandals for my friends, getting honey and cigars too at the resort's gift shop. My dad got the green hats with red stars because my brother asked for them. My brother couldn't come with us because he had to go to a friend's wedding, but when he was in Cancun earlier this year, he had a communist hat from last year's Cuba trip. He said the locals really liked the hat and some even tried to buy it off him. So he asked us to pick up a couple of hats for his friends. I think people seem to want the caps, as much for the aspect that it pisses off the U.S. Government that people are more sympathetic to Cuba as for a fashion statement.

That's all I can think to write for now. I'd also like to rant on Hurricane Katrina and aspects of the home front, but I'll save it for a little later, I've got some things to do.