Viva la revolucion! Well... not really.
I had planned to do a whole bit on the politics and history of this place but I don't really know enough to say my piece, but what I will say is that Cuba is such a beautiful country, so busy, vibrant and colourful and yet it's so saddening to see some of the people struggling to get by everyday, even more so for the older generation who have lived through the golden years and then have to live with all these restrictions. I'm very glad to have come here before the all the changes with the US happen, it's still somewhat...innocent? Don't really want to imagine what it's going to be like come ten years time.
All right, back to me being a "wanderer".... as you can tell from the title, I haven't had the best experience with the language so far, but thankfully I met this awesome Aussie chick named Jeanette, who slowly but surely taught me some of the basics, although it didn't help that whenever we asked for help from the locals, they would be looking at me like 'Why are you letting your white tourist friend talk you bloody Cuban??'. Inglaterra mate, Inglaterrrra!
La Habana - Valle de Vinales - Trinidad - Santa Clara - La Habana
Landing in Havana, not only did I get conned out of around a tenner at the cambio in the airport (bitch) but then I was dropped off in the dark ghetto streets of Habana Vieja, thinking what the fuck.
Thankfully found my hostel/casa - Rolandos on San Miguel - which is technically a casa particulares but has dormitory style rooms. That's the thing about Cuba, there's not really any hostels (I came across only three) so it's not really a backpacker haven. You either stay in a hotel or a government approved casa, where locals rent out a room in their homes. Cheap cheap! In some casas I paid 10 CUC per night which is like 7 or 8 pounds, this was luckily due to me sharing with others!
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| Habana Vieja |
Couldn't wait for daytime to come so I could go exploring! The best thing was to get lost just wandering about Habana Vieja, absolutely fell in love with the architecture, the abundance of old Chevys and just the vibrant and busy streets! Obispo street was a favourite, even though it was full of tourists! It was also where we discovered 1 CUP ice creams, that's like under 1 pence!! While we're on the topic of food, my diet. My bloody diet has consisted of mainly pizzas and ice creams... wahhhh! Considering I'm trying to be on a budget, these were the cheapest and most accessible. Add in Pan con Queso / Jamon / Ceboulla... basically bread, bread and more bread! Thankfully we had a couple of salad nights in our room - much to our hosts' disdain!
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| Pizzzzaaaaa |
I should mention the two different types of currencies in Cuba, they say that tourists can't use the CUP but we had no trouble using it! Basically, £1 = 1 CUC = 24 CUP, everything is much more expensive if you're using CUC and the locals only use CUP. So imagine our reaction when we found our ice creams or had 10 CUP pizzas! We were also tipped on a place on Calle 23 called Casa Balear (a little student hangout) which sold 10 CUP mojitos, you better believe we spent a few nights there!
Everyone was so friendly, always more than happy to help with questions or directions. I guess I should lead onto the amount of... ahem... 'attention' Cuban men like to pay to the opposite sex. It was quite funny actually, all the clicking and kissing noises, I didn't really find it disrespectful or insulting, I mean it's a way of life, the Cuban women don't seem to be offended so why should anyone else, and if you are then get over yourself! :)
We hired a shared taxi for our ride to Vinaless - it was a Chevy!! So excited! (Shared Taxi = all the old Chevys act as mini buses picking up people going in the same direction). Vinales was beautifulll, big open colourful streets with giant craste like hills in the background. The casa we stayed at fed us lobster on the first night FML. It was so good! Again, wandered about the streets, bumped into this older guy and he showed us his tobacco leaf farm (if that's what you call it) and even rolled us up a cigar right there and then for us! Quite cool! Also went for a bike ride around the Valleys - that was pretty epic, especially since I was able to play around with my SICK Gopro! Did I mention that my amazing friends got me a Gopro?? :D
On one of the nights there they had a dance/music/salsa night in the plaza where we bumped into one of the guys from Havana. At one point we had about three old men gyrating in front of us - god I hope they were drunk. I even got to try out some salsa dancing, apparently I move like a Cubano - high five to me!
We also went on a little trek with the tobacco guy - at one point I heard the sound of a chainsaw - doesn't bring up good thoughts when you're in the middle of nowhere! The guy also took us to meet his family afterwards, which was really nice, it wasn't even one of those 'let me do this for a tip' things!
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| The epic bike ride sesh in Vinales |
We then went onto Trinidad and met this fascinating guy called Javier, travelling for what I'm guessing is around 40 years now! Had some lovely words of advice for me.
It's so interesting how each place I went to in Cuba was completely different to the last!
Trinidad - the place where I discovered Guava cake and ice cream (yes you heard right girls)!
We walked around the cobble stoned streets of this sleepy little town with bright, colourful houses and then ventured further out the touristy area and found perhaps the 'real' Trinidad, an even sleepier place, so tranquil and authentic compared to the shiny clean hub we were staying in.
Visited Playa Ancon, played around with the Gopro again and tried to do some Baywatch type action shots LOL - happy to say that those videos (of me acting like a drowning duck!) won't be surfacing.
Watched some salsa and afro-Cuban performers on the famous 'Musical' stairs. We even got to go to a discotheque in a cave called Disco Ayala (after ALOT of rum)! Wasn't too impressed with the cave, but it was an interesting night... got to salsa again! Nice to know that rum doesn't give me a hangover! :D
Also visited Parque El Cubano, a national park with Javira waterfalls, we got there late afternoon and my friend decided to wait for me at the entrance and not partake in this little trek, boy did I get paranoid! As it was late afternoon there wasn't many people around so walking through a forest type area doesn't really instil happy thoughts - chainsaw massacre part II! But it did make me do a 6 km roundtrip in about an hour!
Also did a 5 km walk (on another day) to La Boca - a quiet fishing village - a pretty active week for me hey!
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| Trinidad |
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| Disco Ayala |
Onto Santa Clara next or should I say Che province! Walked around pretty much the whole of the town, saw the monuments, had a very young and trendy vibe to it!
A funny story - so we'd got off the bus and had all these people hassling us to stay at their casas (already had an address to go to) and this one guy kept shoving his card in my face and being very annoying, ended up being rude to him. So we arrive at our casa and the guys occupied so he calls round all his friends to find somewhere for us. Finally found somewhere and got taken there, the woman was lovely and we headed out to go explore, lo and behold who do we bump into at the door - Marco the annoying guy from the bus station, the woman's husband - the looks on our faces!! It was all good though and we just laughed about it, him more than us cos we ended up paying more than what he was offering!!!
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| Touring a Teatro in Santa Clara |
Last night in Che town was so nice! Just happened upon a bar in the square and saw these old guys setting up, turned out to be one of my favourite evenings! They started playing their salsa music, so small and so cute on their instruments! People were getting up to dance all over the place, strangers were grabbing eachother, even people dancing by themselves cos that's what the music did to them! Amazing.
Back in La Habana, we stayed at another hostel - with a woman named Mirella, lovely lovely woman. Visited Playa Guanabo just outside the city - just getting on the bus was a chore in itself!! Everyone shoving and pushing - bladdy hell!
Also went back to our 10 CUP mojito place - was a fun couple of nights! Paid a visit to the famous Jazz bar, paying 10 CUC!! Was not happy when they weren't actually playing jazz that night?!
So that is basically my two weeks in Cuba, I know I've most probably missed a whole bunch of stuff out, but it's late and I need to make my early bus to Holbox Island tomorrow.
I have to say though, no internet or contact with anyone for two weeks was quite nice, how backpacking is supposed to be I guess. Interesting to think I'll have a different experience to those who have gone before me, what with all the forms of communication now available. Maybe I should just 'accidentally' lose my phone and laptop..... JOKE. I wouldn't do that to you guys.
