Today's the day for our trip to Veradero beach. It costs $45 each for transportation and a "private locker and shower," plus lunch. We get up early since the bus is supposed to leave at 8am, shower, eat breakfast, pack beach essentials, and go downstairs to wait. The bus shows up more like 8:40, and we're the last ones on. The bus is small and packed, and there aren't two seats left side by side. The tour operator is nice and speaks good English, and gives us a little history of things we pass as we leave the city. She says the ride will be 2.5 hours! That's a lot longer than I was led to believe, but there's nothing that can be done about it. We do stop one more time at a hotel in Playas del Este to pick up a final person, and we rearrange seats a little so Mary and I can sit side by side. I'm on a fold out seat, which ends up hurting my back.
On the way, the bus driver has to stop several times because it's overheating or something. He doesn't explain, just turns off the engine and A/C and coasts along for a while, then starts up and keeps going. It's not reassuring to look out the window of a stalled bus and see nothing but jungle.
We get to the beach a little before 11am, and the tour operator says we're having a "welcoming cocktail" before we get our locker keys. It seems like a scam to make us buy drinks at a restaurant, but they end up being free. The weather is great, and the restaurant patio is shaded by big curving trees that have termite trails along them. Mary has some fun playing with the termites, and finally we go upstairs to get our lockers. They're small lockers in a public room that has a bathroom like someone's house: a bathtub shower with no curtain and a clogged drain next to a toilet with no seat. Not what I'd expected. At least the men and women have separate rooms.
We get changed and go out the beach. Shade is hard to come by on the beach, but we get lucky because there are two women from Philadelphia who turn their palm-thatched umbrella and two plastic chairs over to us when the go up for lunch. Here's the view from our shady spot.
We lather up with sunblock and play in the water for a while. It's extremely clear, and a perfect temperature. While in Havana you might forget that you're on a Caribbean island, but never while at the beach.
A lot of people bring along their little dogs, and these have a dachshund and two dachshund puppies, one of which is in the arms of the girl on the left:
At 1:30 we abandon our shady spot and eat lunch, which was very good. A band starts playing with very loud amplification, and a group of Mexican college kids dances and drinks while we eat. We flee quickly after finishing the entree, and walk down the beach.
We continue walking East for about 40 minutes, and the weather starts to look a little threatening. (We're on the northern coast, so East is to the right when looking out at the ocean.) Just a few minutes away from where we start, a strong headwind picks up and keeps up the whole time.
There are quite a few topless women along the way, mostly in front of a couple hotels. On the walk back we rinse off at some hotel's beach shower, which feels great. It's amazing how funky you're hair becomes after swimming in the ocean.
Our scheduled departure is 4:30, so to get ahead of the crowd we shower at about 3:30. The horrible shower in the locker room has a single stream of water coming from its showerhead, and I'm generally afraid for my health in there. Once clean we sit down for a mojito and to enjoy the weather and people watching.
Right at 4:30 we pack into the small bus and start the trek home. Two of the people from the trip down are gone because they were staying overnight at a hotel, so there are enough normal seats for Mary and me to sit side by side without using a fold-out. I'm beat from getting up early and spending the day in the sun and wind, so sleep for the first hour.
I awake when the bus stops, and I'm told we're taking a 10 minute break at a roadside shop, presumably so the bus driver can try to fix the overheating problem. We get some water and an Eskimo bar. The icecream is made in Mexico, and tastes much better here than in the US. After 10 minutes we pile back in and get started. I'm fully awake now, and can see the bus is having trouble. Every couple of minutes, the driver has to turn off the engine and coast for a minute. This goes on for the rest of the trip when we aren't in city traffic, but it does get us back to the hotel.
Mary buys some water, and I take a picture of the fountain in the bar and the fish in it.
Here's Mary in the bar with the bottle of water.
We get showered and since the guidebook says no trip to Havana is complete without it, we go eat at El Bodeguita Del Medio, the restaurant made famous by Ernest Hemingway. I stuff myself on hashed and shredded beef, eating more at one sitting than I have anywhere else in Cuba.
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