Cuba - Lonely Planet [196]
Havanautos ( 25-36-30), Transtur ( 25-36-21), Vía ( 61-47-83) and Cubacar ( 61-44-10) all have car-rental offices in the airport car park. Expect to pay at least CUC$75 a day for the smallest car (or CUC$50 daily on a two-week basis).
Luxury cars are available at Rex (Meliá Las Américas Map; 66-77-39; Autopista del Sur Km 7; Juan Gualberto Gómez International Airport 66-75-39). It rents Audi and automatic-transmission (rare in Cuba) cars starting from CUC$100 per day.
There’s a Servi-Cupet gas station (Map; cnr Autopista Sur & Calle 17; 24hr) on the Vía Blanca at the entrance to Marina Acua near Hotel Sunbeach, and one at Centro Todo En Uno (Map; cnr Calle 54 & Autopista Sur).
If heading to Havana, you’ll have to pay the CUC$2 toll at the booth on the Vía Blanca upon leaving.
TRAIN
The nearest train stations are 18km southeast in Cárdenas and 42km west in Matanzas. See the town sections for details.
Getting Around
TO/FROM THE AIRPORT
Varadero and Matanzas are each about 20km from the spur road to Juan Gualberto Gómez International Airport; it’s another 6km from the highway to the airport terminal. A tourist taxi costs CUC$20 to Matanzas and around CUC$25 for the ride from the airport to Varadero. Convince the driver to use the meter and it should work out cheaper. Unlicensed private taxis are prohibited from picking up or delivering passengers to the airport. All Víazul buses bound for Havana call at the airport, leaving at 8am, 11:25am, 3:30pm and 6pm and arriving 25 minutes later. Tickets cost CUC$6.
BUS
Varadero Beach Tour (all-day ticket CUC$5; 9:30am-9pm) is a handy open-top double-decker tourist bus with 45 hop-on/hop-off stops linking all the resorts and shopping centers along the entire length of the peninsula. It passes every half-hour at well-marked stops with route and distance information. You can buy tickets on the bus itself. There’s also a free shuttle connecting the three large Meliá resorts.
Local buses 47 and 48 run from Calle 64 to Santa Marta, south of Varadero on the Autopista Sur; bus 220 runs from Santa Marta to the far eastern end of the peninsula. There are no fixed schedules. Fares are a giveaway 20 centavos. You can also utilize bus 236 to and from Cárdenas, which runs the length of the peninsula.
* * *
THE TOWN THAT TIME FORGOT
It’s hard to miss in-your-face Varadero, but only a trickle of visitors seek out San Miguel de los Baños, its less celebrated inland cousin, an atmospheric spa town situated 48km to the south that once rivaled Havana for elegance and opulence.
Hidden away in the center of Matanzas province, barely one hour’s drive from the ritzy hotels of the northern coast, this former grand resort is a curious mix of abandoned ghost town and life-sized architectural museum.
Set amid rolling hills and punctuated by vivid splashes of bougainvillea, San Miguel first became popular in the early 20th century when its soothing medicinal waters encouraged wealthy spa seekers to open bath houses in ostentatious buildings such as the ornate Gran Hotel, a replica of the Great Casino at Monte Carlo.
The building flurry included a smattering of lavish neoclassical villas that still line the town’s arterial Avenida de Abril. But, the salad days didn’t last. A few years before the Revolution the bath houses fell into disuse after the local water supply was polluted by waste from a nearby sugar mill, and town quickly faded from prominence.
Today parts of San Miguel de los Baños are still populated while others resemble a scene from a postapocalyptic John Wyndham novel. Passing visitors can stop by at the surreal but now disused Gran Hotel (plans to reopen it have yet to materialize) or negotiate a steep hike up the nearby Loma de Jacán, a glowering hill with 448 steps embellished by faded murals of the Stations of the Cross where you can drink in the town’s best views.
To get to San Miguel de los Baños, follow Rte 101 from Cárdenas to Colesio where you cross the Carretera