Las Cuatros Palmas, Varadero, 10th May 1998
Awake early, I look out from my balcony across the palms and thatched roofs to the silent sea and a sharply defined horizon under plumbago sky. Scores of dark amber dragonflies describe circles, parabolas and figures of eight in the breeze. It’s a dance to which we cannot know the steps, a mating ritual where colours and pheromones fuse in coded harmony to perpetuate a species which seemingly created only to amaze us.
We set out to explore after breakfast, but don’t get more than 500 metres from the hotel in either direction. Too hot? Yes. But more, why bother? What can it really add to what we have already seen of Cuba? Nothing because, in a sense it is not Cuba: it’s International Drive in Orlando with dust and crumbling sidewalks; it’s the coastal drag at Limassol with tropical weeds. To sit in the restaurant or by the pool is to enter the placeless global tourist zone. The words are in French, Spanish, German, Italian and English (with or without the North American accent) but the place is anywhere that the sun shines, where temperatures are hot enough for year-round palms. The architecture is an ersatz international Mediterranean concoction of arches, balconies and roll tiles – alright, it’s a nod to Cuba’s Spanish heritage. What makes this Cuba? Only the Santeria dolls on the souvenir stall?
On the beach the tractor driver harrowing the sand tries to sell us a conch shell. An armed tourist policeman strolls by nonchalantly ignoring the tanning bodies.