Veradero — Cuba’s Tropical Paradise

by Alyssa Ramos

After spending 9 days in Havana working on the editorial shoot for Geo Chic Magazine, we finally got a day off to relax! Well, technically I was meandering around all of Havana during the photo shoots, but still. Unanimously we decided on checking out this famous beach in Veradero that everyone raves about.

Veradero is about two hours from Havana, and you can pay un choferr around 25-50 CUC (depending on the car, regular cars are cheaper than the classic 1950’s ones) for the day to take you there and bring you back.

If you have time to spend a few days in Veradero, you definitely should — it’s unlike anything I had seen so far in Havana, although very touristic and slightly more expensive. It’s a peninsula that consists of beautiful hotels, ‘casa particulars’, restaurants, shops, and of course, miles of white sandy beaches and turqouise-clear water!

You’ve probably been to tons of beautiful beaches, but let me tell you that coming from a girl who grew up in Palm Beach, FL and now lives in California, not to mention has a knack for finding any and every beautiful beach…this beach was absolutely stunning.

Even the editor in chief and the photographer from Milan who both travel the world regularly were impressed! Our choferr watched our things while we all made a mad dash for the unbelievably gorgeous waters.

It was one of those moments that your surroundings are just so perfect, and the day is just so beautiful that all you want to do is laugh, and splash around like you did when you were a kid. The photographer (Leonardo) insisted that water is his ‘natural element’ and would dive in and out of the water like an Italian dolphin.

We had a field day attempting to make GoPro videos, but unfortunately the only ones that came out were of Leonardo doing a water-performance on the shore while yelling, “Oye chico! Chico!” at people as they passed.

After we were all worn out, and had swallowed way too much salt water, we headed back up to the street to find somewhere to eat lunch. Note: if you ask your driver where to go, there’s a good chance they will recommend somewhere cheap, but good. We passed dozens of cutesy, tropical, nice looking restaurants, but our choferr insisted that they were more expensive because they were government owned.

Instead, he turned down a side street where he knew of a place to get good authentic Cuban food for literally dirt cheap. It was a little hut with a dirt floor that had a hand-written menu at the front (like most places), and a Cubana woman working the cash register with spicy attitude and smiling-handicap (like most places).

I had the fish filet — which is the type of fish, you don’t get to know what kind of fish it is and don’t even try to ask because they’ll just look at you strangely and say “…the filet.” It was good nonetheless; grilled right there in front of me with onions and a splash of mojo, plus the typical side of morro (rice and beans), plantains, and ‘ensalada’ (cucumbers and shreds of cabbage). This place was very “Down to earth” as the editor called it. Yes. Yes it was. So “down to earth” that they didn’t have chairs, or even napkins for that matter, and you just had to wash your hands at the sink next to the food line when you were finished.

Afterwards I attempted souvenir shopping while the others took photos of the touristic beach town, but everything was even more overpriced than in Havana. The town is charming, and extremely safe, but when I say it’s ‘touristic’ I mean the only people there besides locals working…are tourists.

Not the good kind either. The kind that feel entitled and are only there to sit on the beach all day. The kind that says, “What the hell!! We’re walking here!!!” when our car turns in front of them while they’re walking through a crosswalk because they haven’t noticed that pedestrians DO NOT have the right away ANYWHERE because it would take way more effort and gas for the old cars to stop than it would for them to just wait five seconds.

But I digress. Veradero is beautiful, and is definitely worth a visit. Plus you’ll get a scenic view of the many banana crops, farms, jungles, and random horses on the side of the road on the way!