Varadero beach

Varadero beach is the most important center for amusement in Cuba. Located 140 km east of Havana, the capital of the country, Varadero represents always a privileged place with diaphanous waters and fine sand.
However, apart from its natural pleasantness, it has a very relevant history and natural values.
In the shield of Varadero is written everything about the place: round circles representing aborigines' traces, a Spanish blockhouse symbolizing the colonization and lines representing 10 families from Cárdenas, founders of the village.
That place was founded on December the 5th, 1887 by the communal fusion called "Los Decembrinos". At that time, some wood and Spanish tiles' houses were constructed and then the place became famous, especially, due to the oar regattas, conches, snails and sea horses.
The geological formation of Varadero come from the quaternary era and the origin of the peninsula's name "Hicacos", is due to a green tree with spiny leaves, a typical cactaceous which by that time was all over those 22 km length (the narrowest part is 700 m).
In the north cost, nature has created an incomparable band of sand and in the south part it protects the Cárdenas Bay. Nowadays Varadero is a 26,6 km² township, the most significant tourist center of Cuba.
The name Varadero derives from the structure of the cost which is sandy and little deep that made ships dragged by the tide get stranded. The Spanish navigator Sebastian de Ocampo discovered the beach in 1508 during his sailing around the island and the first reference about it appears in 1540 in a map made by Alonso de Santa Cruz.
It's talked about a small and primitive aborigine population extinguished by the brutishness of the conquerors. After that the place became a refuge for runaway African slaves (called Cimarrones) and pirates like Francis Drake who on his way to the British islands used to stop there for provisions.
Varadero has 15 archeological places such as grottos and caverns that were used as refuge. Nowadays the most visited cave is the Ambrisio's cave in the south part of the peninsula, where is located, according to experts, the biggest pictography of the Caribbean, (the cave is 250 m long, composed by 5 galleries).
Since 1587 this was only a salt-production territory, until 1961 when the production was stopped and in 1967 the place obtained the condition of municipality.
The original town was founded in a place that today is known as the "8000 Taquillas Park" and the first hotel called "Varadero" was a 10-room hotel constructed in 1915. In 1917 began the real state business in town with a small wood-made palace property of the US-Company Johnson Construction from Wayne, Pennsylvania. In 1926, the tycoon Irenée Du Pont Dehamours constructed his mansion Xanadú, today the Golf Club.
In 1959 there were in Varadero three hotels and nowadays there are more than 40 with an amount of 10 500 rooms and a progressive development. Varadero is becoming an amusement axis in the whole land.

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