Varadero: Blue, How I Love You Blue…

By Ramon Andujar

HAVANA TIMES, Feb. 21 — A few days ago Ferran, a six year-old Catalan boy, asked me where I was from.  When I said that I was from Cuba, he told me that he had visited there.

“And what you remember about it,” I asked him.

“I don’t know because I was too little.  All I remember was that the sea was real blue,” was the boy’s response.

The conversation ended at that point, but I have to admit that a spark of pride lit up inside me.  Cubans love to think we’re superior in many respects, and one of them is our beaches.

Varadero, especially, is the best beach in the world for people from my country, even if we’ve never seen other beaches to be able to compare.

Located in the north part of Matanzas province, 80 miles to the east of Havana, the waters of this beach are so clear that it’s possible to see your five toes perfectly when looking down from above the water.

This tourist center is a part of the Hicacos Peninsula, the place in Cuba that’s closest to the United States.

Over the last 20 years the resort’s network of hotels has grown to the point of transforming this site into the second most important tourist destination in the country, surpassed only by Havana.  There is not an overabundance of waves and the beaches are right next to the hotels.

These images taken through the lens of Ihosvanny attempt to demonstrate why Cubans are so proud of our most well-known beach.

Click on the tumbnails below to view all the photos in this gallery