Cuba

(12 – 18 Jan)

Cuba… Wow, it’s difficult to put into words our experience of Havana. We had obviously read quite a bit about Cuba before we left and also watched quite a few travel blogs on YouTube. Everything that you hear on the blogs is true – the 1950’s cars, the rum, the cigars. It’s all there, but you could read every blog and it would still not prepare you for what awaits.

Our one tour guide summed it up best. He told us during our tour to the cigar area “Cuba is a crazy place. Enjoy it, but don’t try to understand it or make sense of it. Just go with it and enjoy.” Solid advice.

We landed in Havana on the afternoon of 12 Jan, and got a taxi to our accommodation in Old Town Havana. We got a registered yellow cab as is the norm to avoid any scams (Uber does not exist in Cuba).

Our driver seemed like a decent guy, and when we got to the destination, he told us it was $25 each. It seemed like a lot, but he assured us it was in line with the taxi policy to charge per person. It seemed really odd to us, but it’s Cuba, who knows how anything works when you just got off a plane. Turns out we were scammed, it should have just been $25 in total. Great start.

Our accommodation was at a ‘casa particulares’, which is when a local family hires out a room in their house.

When we arrived at our spot, we were greeted by our hosts (who do not speak English), telling us that there was an issue with our bedroom door so we could not stay there that night but that we could stay at her friend across the road who also had a room available.

To set the scene, central Havana does not really inspire a feeling of safety when driving or walking through it for the first time. Most buildings need at least some sort of maintenance (paint etc), a lot of those buildings require significant repair work (doors, windows, major cracks), some of the building are structurally unsound and some have already collapsed. There are some piles of garbage lying in certain places, potholes in the roads and a very distinct smell of sewage in a few areas. The streets are very dark at night. Being South African, we would definitely not like to drive through an area like that back home, nevermind walk.

So we kind of had no choice but to go with it and stay at the friend across the road.

We checked into a small room on the 1st floor with no windows to outside, only a small one which opened to their internal courtyard.

And there was no internet. We were massively out of our comfort zone.

Cuba does not have internet as we know it. There are only certain hotspots in the city that have wifi signal, and you need to buy a prepaid card to log on in these zones. These wifi cards are only available at certain official outlets throughout the city.

Thank goodness Dylan had downloaded an offline map for Cuba on his phone! We took a walk to find an atm. We knew Cuba operated only on cash (no swiping credit/debit cards) and that many/most cards do not work at atms. Just before leaving Mexico, Dylan had read that HSBC cards work in Cuba, so we did not draw a large amount of cash to last our whole trip.

When we got to an atm the HSBC card did not work. We were stressing that we might not be able to get any more money for the rest of our week in Cuba. It would be a very different experience to what we had planned.

In a country where hardly anyone speaks English, living in a stranger’s house, no internet and with the prospect of no cash for a week, we were massively out of our comfort zone. We spent our first night in Cuba silent, stressing and in bed by 9.

The next day we went back to the atm with Alika’s FNB card from SA. It was our last hope to get some cash. As she put in her card and tried to get some cash out, time felt like it went super slow-mo.

It worked!

We were so relieved when the machine spat out some cash. Instantly our moods changed.

We went straight to drop our bags at our original hosts (they had finished fixing the door 1st thing in the morning) and headed into town to explore.

We had a list that showed places with the (supposed) top mojitos in Havana, as well as some other drinks such as daiquiris. So we spent the rest of the day exploring the old town and stopping at various bars sampling their mojitos, daiquiris and rum. It was a long, hot day and we were pretty well done by the end of it.

Needless to say, we both felt a bit rough the next day. But we had a good strong coffee from our hosts (Cubans do like strong coffee).

We headed to the Museum of the Revolution, which was quite interesting and details the progress of the Cuban revolution under Fidel Castro, along with Raul Castro and Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, to name only some of the most well-known names.

There were still a few bars left on the list that we didn’t manage to get to on the first day, so after the museum we picked up where we left off the previous day and did some bar hopping.

We ventured into an interesting looking (yellow) building that we had noticed during the previous day’s exploring but had not visited. We stopped here for a Mojito and some lunch – the Mojito was good but the food was fantastic! A total surprise.

We were so impressed with the food that we made a booking for dinner later in the week.

During this day’s explorations we found an area of old Town that had been noticeably more renovated and restored with a lot of restaurants and bars.

We stopped at a bar that had ginger mojitos. They were really good so we stayed for a few more and then decided to have some food too, without keeping track of our cash reserves. When the bill came we were short (although we did have cash at our ‘home’, but it was far away), as we only planned on having a few drinks. We went to a few atms, but none of them had cash. So the restaurant gave us a lift home to get some of our cash stash at home. It was a bit embarrassing, but a good lesson for Cuba. And we didn’t have to walk home!

When booking accommodation for this trip, we decided that we’d probably appreciate some time on our own and decided to book an apartment for the last three nights. We booked it through AirBnB and the reviews were good so we felt quite confident. Our confidence in the taxi system however, was non-existent, so we decided to walk/trudge (heavy bags) the 30min route to the new place.

From the middle of Centro Havana, we relocated to the outskirts. The surrounding buildings were not much to go by, but we were closer to the Malecon (waterfront promenade) with a bit of a sea view. Our host, Mercedes, was lovely and let us drop off our bags early so that we could head to the beach for the day.

Of course, after 3 days of beautiful weather, we arrived at the beach with clouds and wind. But we decided to wrap up in our towels and catch up on reading – a change of scenery was nice.

That night we’d booked a table at a well known restaurant, San Cristobal. Apparently they have entertained a number of celebrities and even the US President, Barack Obama, in 2016 (and countless tourists as a result).

The interior is reminiscent of a bric a brac shop, with numerous clocks, sculptures, artworks and chandeliers. Kitch for sure!

The waiter was incredibly attentive, and we felt a bit rushed even though we were the only people there. But soon after we’d started eating, a big group arrived and we learnt that it was the beginning of Jazz Fest in Havana. There was a local band that played so that was fun. Overall the food was average, but at least there was some live music thrown in (we decided to skip Buena Vista Social Club).

Wednesday finally meant that we would do our first tour! We booked a full day tour to Vinales, the area famous for its cigars. Vinales is an area known mainly for its tobacco farms and cigars, but also for its beautiful countryside.

Included in the tour was that you get collected in an old classic car, so we were excited about that. A beautiful, red 1950’s Chevrolet rocked up at our door and we headed out of Havana with our guide Sergio (born and raised in Havana) and one other couple from South Korea.

Sergio was very knowledgeable and it was great to finally get some insight into this fascinating country. He mentioned that because internet is fairly new in Cuba (think they got it in 2015), there’s not a lot of official information online. So he actually needs to go to the library to verify certain historical facts. Another interesting/disturbing comment – most jobs are paid by the government and a typical salary of an engineer or doctor is around USD 30 per month!!! Obviously many things are subsidized, but still crazy.

Our first stop for the day (it turned out that there would be many – bargain!) was at the tobacco farm where we went for a half hour horse ride (which initially we thought would be too short, and then promptly realized that neither of us are used to sitting in a saddle!) and then learnt about the process of farming tobacco and producing cigars.

All of the farms are government owned, so the farmers must hand over 90% of his crops which then go into the production of the famous cigars like Cohiba and Monte Cristo. Farmers are allowed to keep 10% of their crop for production of their own unlabelled cigars. Interestingly, farmers are allowed to choose which leaves they keep, so they often have the best cigars for their own use.

It was very interesting to see exactly how they are made, and Dylan had the opportunity to try and roll one.

Of course we got to try them too, and a neat trick they showed us was to dip the back in honey first as it then acts as a filter.

We stopped for lunch in a small town nearby at a paladera (home restaurant) and tried a wide variety of local food. The food was simple but delicious!

Afterwards we headed to the Indian Cave, so named because the first explorer to discover it found a dead “Indian” inside. Lovely. There is a river that runs through the cave so we could take a short boat ride through part of the extensive cave.

Our second last stop was at the painted mountain. A well known Cuban artist (who trained with Diego Rivera in Mexico) designed and managed (he did not paint it himself) a ginormous mural that depicts evolution in the area (apparently they found dinosaur remains in the area) Quite a substantial tribute to dinosaurs! It makes an interesting tourist attraction though and they serve the best Pinacolada we’ve tasted.

Following a quick stop at an info centre, we were headed back to Havana. It was a full and fascinating excursion and so we all took a nap!

Our last full day in Cuba had arrived, and it was strange not to have mixed feelings about leaving. It’s not that we were overly excited to leave, but certainly ready. We booked a mixology class to learn how to make their three most famous cocktails: the daiquiri, mojito and Cuba Libre. The class was in Marimar, one of the suburbs and a good 1 hour walk from our accommodation. We decided to do the walk (yup, still hesitant to try and use a taxi) and see another side of Havana. It was so different! All of a sudden we were back in the 21st century, walking through regular suburbs. We stopped at a little restaurant, Paseo 206, for an early lunch. It’s a beautiful boutique hotel with an Italian restaurant open to the public. Alika was very taken with interiors and we enjoyed delicious pasta and cocktails before completing our journey.

The mixology class was fantastic! It turned out to be more than just a lesson about making cocktails and involved a little bit of history and tradition. Our host, Yuri, and his business partner/translator, Laura, were great. Yuri studied tourism and worked in bars for many years. He’s passionate about his country’s traditions and bar tending, and so the lesson was very precise. At the end we could choose our favorite cocktail and then compete against each other to remake it as we had been taught. Alika won! In addition to a certificate, she also won the designated mojito-maker title (aka the right/duty to make all future mojitos)

After the cocktails, Yuri showed us the tradition of “marrying” cigars with rum and coffee – 3 very important aspects to the Cuban lifestyle. He said that it’s all about balance, so if any flavor becomes too strong you must balance it with another. So you dip the back of the cigar into coffee or rum, smoke it and then sip coffee/rum. An interesting and different option to the honey!

At the end we received gift bags with the cocktail recipes, a bottle of rum and a Cohiba cigar.

With a midday flight to Panama, we decided to pack up and head to the airport a little bit early. Luckily our host assisted with the taxi booking and ensured us it was CUC25 in total (not each!).

Cuba has been on our list for a while and we certainly satisfied our curiosity! While our trip started off a bit on the back foot, it really did redeem itself nicely. We feel Cuba is so different that it takes a few days to ‘acclimatise’ and settle into the pace of life and the lifestyle.

The people all seemed very happy and were very friendly and helpful (as far as they could with our limited Spanish).