Kenneth Bagnell. Special to The Globe and Mail. Saturday, February 19, 2000
Set among lush gardens on a fine beach, the hotel has several pools, a choice of quality restaurants, and a highly educated staff.
Varadero, Cuba -- Cuba is back in the hearts of Canadians. Visitor figures from this country to the Caribbean nation dropped for two consecutive years, then shot up by 90 per cent in the first quarter of 1999.
Despite this, Cuban hotels continue to be sterotyped -- quite unfairly -- as drab and swarming with flies. During a recent trip, I visited several hotels on my own, saw none that deserved that slur, and stayed in one that I'll remember above all else as immaculate, from its spotless rooms to its
impeccable staff.
It was Melia Las Americas, a resort hotel opened in 1994 on a Cuban shore five kilometres from Varadero and owned jointly by Spain's Sol Melia hotel group and the government of Cuba. It has much to commend it for those who desire only a restful, if somewhat insular, holiday in the sun. It has
large rooms in its main building and many garden suites, which are spread out and secluded among lush tropical gardens. Its beach, many insist, is on the finest shoreline in all of Cuba. It has several pools, water sports, tennis, horseback riding and so on. In fact, once you check in you're given a
passport with access to two adjacent, luxury resorts, managed by the same Spanish company. That lets you take in cabaret shows in all three or dine in any of a dozen high-quality restaurants: Cuban, Italian, Chinese.
One afternoon, I spent a couple of hours in the large conference room of the nearest one, Melia Varadero, at an art show, exclusively Cuban, wishing I could afford the $1,000 (U.S.) for a painting with bare-breasted angels floating above and around tenements, presumably in Havana.
Finally, Las Americas is beside an 18-hole golf course, practically sparkling green and overlooking the shimmering sea.
With all of this, it would be only too easy to forget you're in Cuba, and that would be a sad mistake. Cuba must be the longest-suffering society in the hemisphere, exploited for 400 years of Spanish rule when absentee masters prospered on the backs of Cubans and then, for much of this century
by the United States which, for its own interests, controlled and propped up leaders who were deeply corrupt. It was this culture -- in which Cuban farm workers got five cents a day until the 1940s -- that shaped the mid-century revolution led by Fidel Castro. Given this, we seriously shortchange
ourselves and Cuba if we are oblivious to history when we visit.
The social impact of the revolution is felt in Cuba's hotels, including Melia Las Americas. One afternoon its affable general manager, Carlos Perreda Navarro, told me that roughly 70 per cent of the hotel food -- vegetables, fruit, meat -- is imported. And because of the American trade blockade,
it comes from Canada.
Then came a more startling fact: "About 75 per cent of my staff are university graduates, many postgraduate. To hold a staff meeting here is very different from countries where I've managed hotels where the staff knew only the alphabet. Here if I discuss a problem with air-conditioning, the
staff people dealing with it are often professional engineers."
In fact many lawyers, physicians and accountants work as bellhops and waiters. They can't get by on the very low Cuban income. Whatever the rights and wrongs of Castro's socialism (with free university education and free health care), it hasn't produced a buoyant economy. For example, a
graduating doctor in his or her early years makes about 200 pesos a month -- the equivalent of about $15 (Canadian). Many are lured by tourism where they earn more through tips paid in U.S. currency.
"I have many friends who come from such professions but are now in tourism," said Osmoni Ricardo, a Cuban employee of Canada's Signature Vacations, himself with a Masters degree in French Literature from the University of Havana.
No one who stays at Melia Las Americas, or other hotels nearby, is isolated from Cuba or Cubans. I spent time in Havana, the capital, where, partly with a guide, partly on my own, I saw the faded, enduring beauty of elegant buildings dating to the 1500s, some slowly being restored as tourism
becomes the primary industry. I visited the hotel where Hemingway wrote, the restaurant where he ate, the bar where he drank.
And, here and there, at Melia Las Americas and elsewhere, I got at least a slight sense of the people: industrious, motivated, cheerful despite the hardships of history. They have their eyes on tomorrow, hoping that after Fidel Castro, now nearing his middle 70s, the country will open the door
to more private-sector co-operation. In the meantime, when you go to Cuba, be assured of one thing: the people who serve you will be most deserving of your tips.
Canada's Signature Vacations provides package tours to Cuba that include charter flights and accommodation. One week at Melia Las Americas, including air fare from Toronto, Ottawa or Halifax and two meals daily, is priced from $1,269 for each of two people sharing. Once you're there, Signature
will also arrange tours from the hotel -- to Havana, the countryside, the jungle, and to Pinar del Rio, famous for cigar production. See the Signature Vacations Sunbook available from travel agents or visit Signature's website http://www.signature.ca.
Kenneth Bagnell is a Toronto-based freelance journalist.
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