all inclusive

Last weekend, Tulane graciously paid for us (by this I mean they used our tuition money) to spend two days and a night at an all inclusive resort about 2 hours away from Havana. Veradero, the beautiful beachside town where we were staying, is a hotspot among the European tourists that come to Cuba. Now, this is not without good reason. The beaches here are GORGEOUS...I'm talking white sand, crystal clear water with no rocks or seaweed, uncrowded beaches, good (unlimited) food/drinks. Pretty hard to go wrong! That being said, it's pretty crazy to imagine that people come to these all inclusive resorts to spend 1-3 weeks here (according to one of our waitresses, most Europeans stay for 21 days) and this is the only thing they know of Cuba. The resort itself was situated in a very strange rip in the time-space continuum of Cuba, complete with bingo, dance lessons, water polo games, and "Cuban Tuesday" parties...it looked like it was pulled straight out of Cancun! So basically these tourists from Canada, or Germany, or Russia, etc. come to Cuba and spend their time sitting in a beach chair being brought drinks by the Cuban men and women who are lucky enough to get chosen for this high paying and enviable job.

It was a little like this scene in Wall-E...

Now, don't get me wrong. I had a great time spending a weekend here! It was a great way to relax after a hectic first month of school (more on this later). The people who worked there were friendly and helpful; many spoke 4+ languages and enjoyed practicing their English with us. It was, however, a little trippy to see bro'd out Canadians and seriously crispy Europeans lounging around the pool without a care in the world. It was especially strange to see that the five of us were some of the few people there that spoke Spanish, or even tried to speak it. I did, however, encounter one particularly large man from somewhere in Europe asking the bartender how to say "get drunk" in Spanish (emborrachar, for anyone who's wondering...the bartender was happy to tell him). There was a giant group of Canadian guys that looked straight of of the Jersey Shore (wait...what?) that enjoyed talking to us for a while. They were very confused that we were studying here for 4 months, and asked whether we came to Veradero every weekend, one commenting on the lack of air conditioning...if only you knew, bro. One of the few girls that was accompanying them was shocked to find out that there was such a thing as the Universidad de la Habana!

Storm clouds over one of the nine restaurants at the resort

It was really a kind of reality check for all of us, I think. Since we've been here for a month and a half we've gotten accustomed to living in Cuba, and most people don't have the chance to see what we see. Even the tourists that decide to come to Havana usually don't stray off the beaten path as far as I can tell. Living here as students (with a knowledgeable professor) gives us a different perspective than most people that come to Cuba.

Small sampling of the bottles at the pharmacy museum

Cannon and palms on the roof of the castle/prison.

Here are some other pictures from our trip to Veradero. Before arriving at the resort, we stopped in Matanzas to see a castle built in the 1600's that was used as a prison for many year. After that we stopped at a really interesting pharmacy museum...I think it was the first pharmacy in the Caribbean, but don't quote me on it. We were also supposed to go to a cabildo, "ethnic associations" (thanks Wiki)  that also served as centers of syncretic religions that developed from the African people brought to Cuba by the slave trade, similar to the social aid and pleasure clubs in NOLA. Unfortunately our cab driver decided that we would NOT be making this journey. He was very religious, he told us, and there was "nothing to see in Matanzas". Our professor got out to ask directions to the cabildo and apparently she was told that she wouldn't be able to get back in the car if she went into a house to ask! He even went so far as to hold up the bible he had stowed in his center console, essentially refusing to take us to a place where the Devil lived. Moral to this story: there are crazy religious people even in Cuba!