y: As we know, haste, brevity, and narrative are obstacles that deep and critical thought must overcome, or rather, realize and express its meaning. However, I’ll be brief and anecdotal, as is my custom, because the subject—which always encourages me to write and to speak to a difficult audience—is impelled by daily life.
Anecdotes, like memes , allow us to react quickly to complex realities. But if precocity can lead us to make mistakes, there’s no doubt that slowness can too. If my text were simply a personal, biased, and useless opinion, it would simply leave me to my fate in the vast, dark, and impassable sea of public opinion.
In principle, there is not much to say about Varadero: the Mecca of Cuban tourism , that’s what Ecured says , Sun and beach destination on the advertising billboards, What is produced here is for the people , another advertising billboard.
Because Matanzas, the province to which it belongs geographically, is close to the capital, has its own airport, and is easily accessible by road, Varadero is practically the country’s main tourist destination for both domestic and international travelers, especially for domestic visitors during the months of June, July, and August.
In my great-grandmother’s childhood, in the early 1930s, Varadero was still a tiny fishing village. The abundance of mangroves, which attracted mosquitoes, and its peninsula-like condition made it an inhospitable place. During hurricanes, the northern and southern seas met, destroying the wooden buildings. For this reason, many of its inhabitants fled inland or simply settled early on in what are now the towns of Santa Marta, Guásimas, Boca de Camarioca, La Conchita, and Cárdenas. Even so, the Varadero peninsula continued to be, along with the city of Cárdenas, one of the focal points of life in the province of Matanzas, due to the pleasant waters, sailing, fishing, and because it offered work to the local people. By 1860, the Hotel Torres, the first establishment of its kind, already existed.
Hotel Torres. Source: Ecured
Over time, it ceased to be a fishing village, becoming first a holiday retreat for a few months of the year, and then, after the triumph of the Revolution and the nationalization of the tourism industry, an area for tourism from January to December—preferably international tourism, as it brings in foreign currency.
And since the country’s leadership considered tourism a fundamental part of the economy, Varadero has essentially been an area of hotels, specialty restaurants, nightclubs and bars, shops, and diving centers. The majority of the area’s workforce is dependent on tourism.
By the time my mother started working, in the 1990s, Varadero offered work to a good portion of Matanzas residents. Not only in the nearby towns mentioned above, but also to the inhabitants of the entire Matanzas province, including rural areas. It was also a time when old sugar mills expanded into towns that continue to grow. Amid the critical conditions of the Special Period, people from other provinces and their families moved to Matanzas, hoping to prosper by working in Varadero. The hamlets grew and continue to grow to this day, with no roads or few of them, no sidewalks, no sewage system or public lighting, and no physical planning.
It was also a time of penalization of the dollar and remembered by local residents for the constant illegal departures from the country, the persecution of those who trafficked or possessed foreign currency, and the rapid rise of prostitution.
From that time to the present, the number of opportunities for international tourism in the area has multiplied. Thus, we have seen how part of the Ecological Reserve became the El Patriarca Hotel; how the Cultural Center became a salsa and folk dance academy for foreigners; how the carnivals, water festivals, music festivals, and popular festivals disappeared; how the Coppelia was reduced to nothing, then to Ocio Club (a technology park for children whose entrance fee was 5 CUC); how access to the beach beyond 62nd Street became increasingly difficult since it was part of the hotel territory and only accessible to those staying there; how the corner playgrounds disappeared; the museum was left to decay; and there is no longer a movie theater or theater.
The lungs of Varadero. Source: Lookuot
Recently, almost all stores, including and especially those selling food, appliances, and toiletries, switched to selling in Cuban pesos. The last shopping center that maintains sales in Cuban pesos is looking forward to its successful opening to Cuban pesos on the significant date of July 26th.
Although only three small public transport buses enter the peninsula until 7 p.m. and do not cover the entire Varadero area or all the nearby towns, the buses for transporting workers travel from one end of the city of Matanzas or Cárdenas to the very tip of Varadero and operate 24 hours a day.
In 2010, with the new political-administrative distribution, Varadero came under the direct jurisdiction of the Council of Ministers, taking into consideration the importance of the peninsula to the island’s economic development. Varadero is no longer part of the province of Matanzas; it’s there. Most Matanzas residents worked there, but Varadero is no longer a municipality; it’s a special territory.
The moment of scarcity removed the veil
My distraught great-grandmother went to the meeting with the local residents to demand, at the very least, explanations, but the good man, trembling before an angry audience , pulled an official note from his guayabera pocket and said he had not been summoned to that meeting to discuss the new restructuring.
Year 2021: COVID. Impossible to exploit tourism as expected. And a huge mass of workers were laid off. But as soon as Russian citizens began to be vaccinated with Sputnik, the residents of Varadero in Cárdenas saw those visitors walking through their streets without protection. Concerned residents called their attention, and they tried to reassure them by pointing to their arms and saying “Sputnik.” The Matanzas residents had not yet begun receiving their first dose of Abdala, not even the tourism workers who were among the first to receive the vaccine candidate, along with the healthcare workers.
As summer approached, travel agency websites launched offers, in Cuban pesos, for vacations at Varadero hotels. The lines to book were long. Few places are more prone to virus transmission than a hotel. Families and families went to enjoy themselves. Every day, tourism workers came and went, and continue to come and go, from their homes, inhabited by children and the elderly, to the hotel, their workplace.
Many of the tourism workers who have received three doses of Abdala have not yet passed the 14-day mark. The president asks that Matanzas residents respect social distancing measures. But it’s difficult in a hotel. Not only for those enjoying their vacation, but especially for the workers who come and go every day.
With tourism being one of the main economic sectors, along with remittances, which also allow for shopping at the luxurious and expensive resort, it is difficult to stop the activity that is causing repeated cases in such a dire situation.
It’s a cruel crossroads. Matanzas, like the rest of the country, is also facing an intense crisis of food, hygiene products, fuel, and medicine; health personnel and facilities seem overwhelmed. Cases of infections and deaths are increasing.
The foreign currency that Varadero and its workers have brought into the country, and especially into the province of Matanzas, for so many years seems nowhere near enough to overcome such a situation with greater glory and pride and fewer deaths and pain.
Let this bitter experience serve as a reminder that Varadero is not, and cannot be, just a sun-and-beach destination.