It was just a very unexpected opportunity: "Would you go with me to Cuba?" my friend Hop asked. There must be some climbing. So the aim was the limestone paradise of Vinales, but for some organizational reason we went via the snobby beach resort Varadero, and there we discovered bouldering potential.
So in Varadero we began to acclimatize. Varadero was originally a small village with only one industry: salt production, but it has grown into the biggest touristic resort on the island, with high price hotels, beaches about 20 km long and clear blue Caribbean sea. The peninsulas coasts are flanked by popular beaches with luxury hotels above.
Next to our hotel, Arenas Doradas, the beach had coconut palms casting shadows on the white sand, washed by calm azure warm ocean with chocolate Cuban girls and all inclusive, ... well it was not anything for our group of climbers. After 24 hours we began to explore teh quite interesting coastal boulders. Then we fled the peninsula and set out by rental car to Vinales to the real climbing, which will be describe in the 2nd part of the article.
Boulders in Varadero
Let´s describe a little bit our new discovery - the beautiful boulders in Varadero.
A keen boulderer would appreciate a visit to Varadero, no crash pad, no ticks and really only a few sit starts.
But as the bouldery-climbing exercise we think it is perfect.
In Varadero you should prepared for sharp limestone and strips of hundreds of meters not too high rock walls beginning in water or in sand (you can leave crash pad home), where you can climb traverses or direct lines. The potential is immense.
Access to the boulders is described from the hotel complex Arenas Doradas, which is localized roughly in the middle of the peninsula. There you can find probably the only rocks among the mainly monotone sand beaches.
According to our explorations the rock strip can be divided to three basic sectors:
In the sector Varadero III. , that is the closest to the mentioned hotel complex (just go to the beach and you can see on the left side about 500m away crags.) Bouldering there is limited for short traverses from one or the other side of about 60 m long and to 4 metres high limestone wall, almost entire overhanging and almost entire above the water.
Farther you can walk about 1 km along the cost to southwest and you would reach the area Varadero II. , which is a bit higher but also a bit smaller.
May be the best possibility could be in the area Varadero I. . It is quite high massive (to 7 m) falling mostly vertically to the sea. The landing is mostly to 1 meter deep watter with a sand bottom.
Somewhere you should take more care, because the limestone overhang broke down and created a narrow gap with not very comfortable landing.
When we finished our exploration of Varadero, we set out to the journey Viñales, on the way to Havana we found one interesting limestone tower 20 metres high tower close to city of Matanzas.
There were no routes yet during our visit, but the potential is also quite interesting.
The local Cubans ensured us that our climbing or route setting there would not bother them at all.
The tower on the way from Matanzas to Havana – visible from the road and except the overhanging wall offers also dominant vertical wall facing to the sea.
Acces:
There is an international airport in Varadero, where some airlines arrive from Europe but most of the flights terminate in Havana (about 2 hours away).
Ubytování Kemp bivak:
Accommodation in official hotels is, in this part of Cuba, probably the only possibility. We will write about the other possibilities in the next part of the report.
The climate is tropical, that means comfortable or warm through the whole year. That means that in May/June there the rain season starts and the humidity is higher and temperature is going up a bit above the normal 25 degrees C.
We were there just in June and we enjoyed the climbing quite well but the winter or early spring time is recommended more.
According to our experience the rocks and soil dried quite quickly after raining.
Swimming in the warm Caribbean is always very pleasant.
Guide books, maps, navigation:
No guide book exists, hard to say if anybody there bouldered there before us. The quite well is visible the crag situatiun on satellite photo by Google maps. Look in new Map section here on CzechClimbing.com, the Varadero bouldering area has been entered there.
You will be able to communicate in Varadero with English, but you would learn more with Spanish at lest its basic knowledge which is quite easy and you can gain it in three months of study. Spanish is then very useful everywhere in other places in Cuba, where you would not be able to communicate at all or local people behave to you much more friendly.
Food and water:
In hotels there are no problems, guides recommend you to buy bottled watter, we drank without problem water from Varadero taps, but outside in the country we rather kept in the recommended bottles bought in shops for convertible pesos. The other food you can buy in some limited supply in the shops for convertible pesos.
Because in Varadero you have food in the hotels, we will write more about food in the next part of the article.
Prices are not very high but roughly comparable with Europe conditions. The prices are much lower in local shops, but with poor supply.
(Difficulty of the climbed boulder problems is about 5a to 6a Fb, mostly OS sends. Concerning the film atmosphere framed to rhythms of Cuban salsa, be aware of that Varadero is not Cuba, it is fenced and guarded touristic resort, where even ordinary Cubans are not allowed to come, the real Cuba begins behind Varadero.)
Look at a video of our reader bouldering in Varadero:
i was in varadero this winter and i also had this super boulder juste in fronte of my hotel..
you can go see my video on youtube type (escalade cuba) juste to bad that i hadent seen your artical befor...
Hi, buddy. I like your video. Looks like very nice boulder problem and its fairly long and overhanging. Could you be more detailed about the location of it? I am realy curious.
Registration
lezec.cz
It was just a very unexpected opportunity: "Would you go with me to Cuba?" my friend Hop asked. There must be some climbing. So the aim was the limestone paradise of Vinales, but for some organizational reason we went via the snobby beach resort Varadero, and there we discovered bouldering potential.
Acces: 
Ubytování Kemp bivak: 
Weather: 
Guide books, maps, navigation:
Food and water: 
Video 23 Mb, 6 min. 
