Our journey began with a stop in Winnipeg, and then through Toronto to our destination, Havana. Airport security was an issue for the first time – I have carried my Swiss Army Credit card in my wallet through security in Europe, the US, and domestically, and I haven’t had a problem – until this trip. The cool things were confiscated (even though I claimed the knife was just a dull nail file), and then I was wanded and given a ‘random’ pat-down.
From the look of Cuban customs, I was nervous for a similar experience. You must go through each window as an individual, not as a family, and they all looked very serious. There is a do not cross line that is strictly enforced by government personnel, who look intimidating, but it’s hard to take anyone in sweat pants too seriously.
Pepe, our driver, met us and took us to our sweet hotel, the Telegrafo. There, we began the festivities with a mojito on the patio looking onto central park and the sweet 50s cars circling past. We went for a walk in what we would later learn is an unsafe neighbourhood. Everyone knows how to ask “where are you from?” but they don’t know any other English. Learned quickly that social rules are much different – as in don’t look at anyone, or they will think you are interested in them. And they talk about you. A lot. And they stare. A lot. It was a challenge to keep my eyes looking low when I wanted to take in the sights of central Havana. At times it looked like a formerly war-torn city, with lots of reconstruction work going on.
We walked along the Malecon, which is the beautiful street beside the ocean. This is where some sneaky kids threw a gigantic spider at me. Well, they wanted me to think it was a spider – they looked devious, so I knew something was up. They got close (personal space is also much different here) and screamed ‘BLEH!’ and threw a rubber spider replica at me, which this arachnophobe just calmly walked away from. I’m sure they must get some pretty sweet reactions from tourists, but not this one!
Another challenge on our first day was dealing with traffic. In Cuba, pedestrians have no rights (legally true or not, that is the reality), so crossing the street is a caution. We made the mistake of crossing at the lights on our first night, which is a rather complex setting that is best to be avoided at all costs – there are cars going all directions at ALL times, apparently. So, when I tried crossing the street and quickly realized that a car was going to hit me, I turned back, only to have my foot run over by another speeding vehicle. Many firsts happened on this trip – being run over was one of them. On an unrelated note, there are a large number of three-legged dogs in Havana.
After the excitement, we decided to stay at our hotel for dinner, even though we had heard that Palodares (home-based restaurants) are the only place you will find good food. Our experience verified that statement. I was not expecting to have much luck with eating good food in Cuba, but I had a surprisingly difficult time finding any vegetarian food, especially in a place where the national diet is rice and beans! Salad here meant shredded cabbage, cucumber, canned beans, some sliced tomatoes, and oil and vinegar if you’re lucky. Cabbage was in season, and, like all produce here, is made in an organic community garden. Still, that doesn’t get me too excited about it. Our dessert was another common item – crème caramel, which was paired with chocolate ice cream (that tasted like soy ice cream. Ugh. Ice cream is very popular here, but they would never turn back if they had tasted my homemade ice cream.)
We got an early wake-up call (no alarm clocks in any of our rooms in Cuba), which called twice. Apparently, real people make wakeup calls here, and not automated voice systems. They must have thought we were pretty rude to have hung up on them, twice!
Breakfast included many savoury items like salads and cold-cuts, which we quickly stuffed in before our bus arrived to take us to the southern city of Trinidad. Like many things, the bus arrived on Cuban time – late. It was decent, though. Not a 50s bus, but a Chinese bus! The headrests were about a foot too low, but we survived. We made a few stops a touristy coffee venues. To my mom’s dismay, milk is not served with coffee – it’s either strong and black (and caffeinated), or nothing. They just can’t understand why anyone would drink coffee if it didn’t have caffeine in it. Another interesting experience is public bathrooms, where you pay for 1-ply, and no toilet seats, and the doors are about 5 feet tall.
We disembarked from the bus at the wrong location in Trinidad, and were quickly surrounded by hoards of casa touts trying to get us to stay at their houses. Casa Particulares are something like bed and breakfasts, but the breakfast is not always included. Through my mom’s Cuban contact Jorge (pronounced Hore-hey), we booked a casa with Jesus.
Pretty sweet, considering it was Christmas and all (I stayed with Jesus at Christmas!)… okay, so you pronounce it Hey-Zeus, but still, pretty sweet. Once he came and rescued us from the touts (he was waiting for us at the bus station, of all places), we arrived at his gorgeous home. We walked, because our luggage alone filled the taxi. We chilled out on their rooftop patio overlooking the city, with freshly squeezed OJ in our hands. The home had an open concept, with a large mango tree growing in the middle of the kitchen! Like many people here, they have a caged bird, in addition to the many wild birds that enjoy chilling out in their courtyard.
Once we settled in, we walked around the old part of town, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. Very lovely cobblestone streets, which cars are forbidden to drive on. Everywhere was very clean – people sweeping their sidewalks and washing everything down. Lots of dogs wandering around everywhere. Most of them are small, like wiener-dogs, probably because that is the threshold of size that can survive on scavenging here. They never barked, unless they saw a dog they didn’t know inside a house. That was the only time our casa owner’s dog, Mealy, barked – it was at the strays. I’m sure their dog’s name has some pleasant translation.
The drinks are ALWAYS strong in Cuba. One popular drink here is a Canchanchara, made with Cuban honey, lemon, and rum. Still, I continued my quest to find the best mojito in town, and found it at their most popular tourist location – Casa de la Musiqua. We spent many nights here on the expansive stone steps that were filled with people listening and dancing to the bands. The dancing that they do is unbelievable! It made me wish that I learned to Salsa before I arrived.
Sometimes children approached us for bonbons (I brought Chicklets with me, which went over well). I totally don’t blame them, though. Despite their thriving sugar-cane industry, there was nary a candy in sight. They make some gross chocolate, but no actual candy. The confectionary store is full of cookies (as in digestive biscuits and ice wafers) and rum. I think I would beg people for candy, too, if that was all that was available.
We sampled a few paladares for dinner, and the food was a bit better than the restaurant – the seafood eaters did well here. Black bean soup was good, served with rice, salad, fried plantains, and tortillas (which are, disappointingly, omelettes). For dessert, fruit plates are the norm. The fruit here is exquisite. Every morning we would be given a plate mounded with mini-banana slices, oranges, papaya, pineapple, and guava. Mmm. This was always served with omelettes, fresh buns and honey, and freshly squeezed OJ, or on special days, fresh pineapple juice (drool).
Their portions here are a bit out of hand. I thought they served us big portions because they think Canadians like to eat a lot, but when we met with Jorge, we found out that the portions are that size because that’s the way Cubans like to eat! No wonder it’s hard to find a place to eat for lunch – they are still stuffed from breakfast, and can look forward to eating a gigantic meal at dinner. Well, that might not be true for all Cubans – they are very skinny! Everyone is provided with monthly rations of various beans, rice, flour, sugar, etc. This is generally enough to eat well for 20 days, so some creativity is used to make it through the other days.
We had luck with finding food in Trinidad one night, after we ventured into a restaurant. This is different than a Paladares because it is government owned, while some Paladares are not legally sanctioned, and thus don’t pay taxes. This worked well for us when we invited
some people that my Dad met to have dinner with us. They didn’t know a lot of English, but were very lovely to get to know. My minimal French background came in handy when trying to decipher some Spanish phrases. All three of them ordered the seafood platter, which included lobster. After further interpretation, we found out that it is illegal for Cubans to eat lobster (as in, you get put in jail if you are caught eating it) – it was the first time one of them had ever eaten lobster. I was curious why they don’t hate tourists – we come to their beautiful country, and they give us everything they have, even things they can’t have themselves. I’m pretty sure I would resent that.
Our Christmas eve was much different than normal. We decided to have a Scandanavian tradition, and open our stockings that night, instead of our standard Christmas morning tradition. We set up on the rooftop patio, and ripped into our gifties and ate chocolate, before going out to listen to more Cuban music at a club. We left my dad at the club and decided to venture into a Catholic church for midnight mass, another first for us. This Catholic service was like no other – rockin’ music, clapping, parrots decorating the nativity, skanky dress code etc. They had a procession of the baby Jesus, carried by a very obviously pregnant teenaged ‘Mary’.
Trinidad is up the hill from Ancon, a peninsula with some all-inclusives on it. The beach is beautiful! The water was colder than expected – Varadero was warmer – but it didn’t have any waves on it, which was great to swim in. On Christmas we ventured out to the coral reef to do some snorkelling, which was amazing! When I went snorkelling in the Dominican Republic, I found myself occasionally saying – ‘Look! A fish!’. In Cuba, there were fish everywhere! Lovely colours and shapes – sea urchin, sea cucumber, brain coral, and the cool black and white stripey fish like in ‘Finding Nemo’. I often felt like the snorkeller in that movie, observing the fish as they did the same to me. Except I wasn’t quite as g
raceful – every once in awhile I would get a mouthful of salt water and have to take a spit break before continuing my observations. Seawater is so hard to get used to!
Back on the beach, a caution: sand flies. They are about as big as a grain of sand, but they have a huge impact if many of them bite you. I was spotted with itchy bites for days after our beach adventures.
Another jaunt that we made out of Trinidad was to a nearby sugar plantation. We walked around and found a ’55 Chevy Taxi that took us to the plantation for a huge sum of money – average Cubans make 20 CUCs/month, and we paid 40CUC for a 15KM trip! They didn’t seem too eager to take us, perhaps because it wasn’t an actual taxi (totally illegal, we later found out, after he took the taxi sign off the dash), perhaps because they thought it was such a cool car. Who knows.
Our pimpin’ driver dropped us off behind the plantation (which probably had something to do with it being an illegal trip), and we hiked up to the Mansion and watchtower at the plantation. Beautiful view from the top of the tower, which was probably built to watch slaves, but the story says that it was built because the plantation owner bet he could build a tower higher than the depth his brother could dig a hole. It was pretty clear it was not the latter – no one has found this fabled hole, and it would be pretty hard to miss – this is a big tower! We drank fresh OJ serenaded by a charming musical group that was my favourite of the whole trip. One of the members used to be a high school teacher, but quit because he needed to make more money, and could as a musician.
Money in Cuba is in CUCs for tourists (tourist pesos), and the locals have their own Cuban Pesos. Unfortunately for locals, no one accepts Cuban Pesos. So, when Cubans get paid, they must go to the exchange agent and get tourist pesos so they can buy things. We had to exchange Canadian money for CUCs a few times – the lines get long because both locals and tourists need to get different currency.
The internet here is miserable at best. Takes about 5 minutes to load each page, no exaggerating. The internet is illegal for Cubans, except those who have a permit to have it for their place of work. Some people, like Jorge, find ways around this. When we were waiting in line at the internet café, a local cut in line due to her connections with the moderator, and wrote like crazy, constantly looking behind her to see if anyone was coming.
We found surprisingly little to no military presence here. We saw a cop driving by on a motorcycle as we were being dropped off at the beach by our illegal taxi guy, which made me nervous, until our pimpin’ driver said not to worry – they were friends – and the cop drove right by and waved!
Transportation in Trinidad is not limited to old cars – there are newer ones, too, including Russian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese cars. Also, they still have horse and carts clopping through the cobblestone streets, and bikes are very popular, too. We took a newer car to go up into the hills behind Trinidad to see a fabled waterfall (only 2 of the 4 of us actually made it). A horse would have been the preferable mode of transportation on this trek!
I left Trinidad wanting to meet more of the locals. Everyone we met had such joie de vivre (we haven’t found an appropriate Spanish equivalent to that saying yet). I have much to learn about their appreciation of life.
We left early the next morning for a bus trip up to Varadero for a few days of indulgent excess.
This time, our luggage was carried by two bicycle taxis, as we walked along beside. The bus ride was quicker than our trip from Havana. Except when the drivers started doing their errands on the way – buying banana plants, oranges, sandwiches, fresh juices, etc as we looked out from the windows at them. Once we got into town, they became our taxi, and drove us down to our resort, the Iberostar Playa Alameda (the best on the strip, donchaknow). It was clear that they hadn’t done this before, because they stopped several times to ask where it was. After one of these stops I saw an accident that will make me think more than twice about driving a moped – seeing one stuck under a bus, with a sneaker lying beside it. The day got much better after that, though – our resort was beautiful! We lounged around until my Aunt Carole and Uncle Duane joined the party, and we went to the enormous buffet for dinner. It was my kind of heaven – wheels of blue cheese, decent salads, and a dessert buffet!
At the resort we spent lots of time relaxing by the beach, pool, and getting into the activities with the entertainment staff. The water aerobics, salsa and merengue lessons got us warmed up for the evening entertainment – nightly shows put on that should have had parental discretion advised. No, they should have advised everyone – these are tacky displays that embarrass everyone involved. Nearing the end of one of the performances, an older audience member even went up and interrupted the show to share her disgust.
Later, we ventured off to the town for a short visit, only to confirm our speculation that it was nothing more than touristy garbage for sale. It was too hot to investigate further, so we took the sweet double-decker bus back to the resort.
Our adventure continued with our trip back to Havana, which included a stop for the BEST Pina Colada EVER! Our driver was lovely. He wanted to get home early though – it was New Year’s Eve, which is also a celebration of the revolution – it is the 49th anniversary. This event seems like our Christmas Eve, which involves lots of family time. On New Year’s Day, many shops and museums were closed.
Once we arrived in Havana, we waited for our hotel room at the luxurious NH Parque Central, which was received in Cuban time. In the mean time, we went up to the rooftop pool to take in the sights and have some less-than-stellar food. And, we had to pay for it, which was an adjustment from the all-inclusive.
That evening, we had a 7-course meal at the hotel restaurant, which had a special menu for New Year’s Eve. Then we walked through old Havana, and watched a band and heard canons fire into the ocean to ring in the new year. It was pretty memorable. As was the walk home. They have a tradition of throwing buckets of agua off the balconies as a metaphorical way to cleanse for the new year. Another interpretation is throwing buckets of water because it’s funny to watch people run around trying to avoid it! It would mostly be tourists, too, because all the locals stay in and celebrate with family, and watch Castro make speeches.
Later in the week, it turned cold (17C ish!), but we still did a fair bit of walking around, venturing to the Hotel Nacional (where Al Capone once rented an entire floor of rooms), around the university, and around the cultural district of Vedado. This area is a bit of a distance from old Havana, where our magnificent hotel was, so we took a horse-drawn carriage
to get there. Everyone seemed to be pointing and laughing at us, presumably because of the ridiculous weather we chose to ride a horse in (the Malecon was closed because the waves were coming over the road and flooding it), and the fact that we were holding up traffic for blocks, but it turns out the attention was more likely because the driver was poised precariously at the rear of the horse. There was definitely more of a government presence in this area, with police or military personnel on every corner. They were just chatting though, they didn’t have guns or anything. Still, they were there.
We also took in a couple museums, including the Museum of Fine Art (Cuban edition), and the Museum of the Revolution, housed next to the preserved boat that Castro
used in his foiled surprise attack. Later we did some touring around Havana, renting a driver and guide (Del Toro, translated as The Bull) to take us to Pinar del Rio, a beautiful valley district. We stopped at an orchid garden on the way, and then ate lunch at the base of a limestone mountain, where a (somewhat tacky) mural of civilization had been painted. There were many caves around this area, and we ventured into one of them, which we boated through.
Along the highway there are propaganda billboards about supporting the revolution and the people, etc. The highways were empty of cars, but not of people. Many people were standing on the side of the road, waiting to hitchhike. And many times, cars that were not full (and full here is not two people, it’s 8) will pick people up.
Public transit in Havana consists of semi-trucks pulling cattle carriers filled with handles in the roof, to make sure you have something to grasp so you don’t fall over. However, I never saw any that weren’t so packed that you could just stand in the middle, and be held up by the pressure of other people. Personal space rules are different here! Still, people are respectful for the most part.
Women in Cuba have good status – they were an integral part of the revolution, and have maintained respect since then. Still, guys make comments and noises as you walk by. Once I got back, it was a bit of an adjustment not to be catcalled. But I never questioned my safety in Cuba. In fact, I felt much safer in Havana walking at night than I do in downtown Calgary.
We made our way back to Havana for dinner, passing one of the vegetarian restaurants in town, which is called The Rock. Del Toro mentioned that the name had something to do with the fact that rocks and vegetables are all they serve there. We didn’t test his theory. Instead, we found an Italian restaurant that served really delicious food. Everywhere we ate, it was fancy (as in, more forks than you know what to do with, fancy). But at this restaurant, it made more sense to be fancy, because the food that was served was above par. So much so, we ate their twice!
To sum up, I had a spectacular trip. I would totally recommend going to Cuba, especially venturing out of the resort districts and meeting Cubans, who, along with my family, made this a very special trip.
They started us early on Monday morning with a campus tour. Since I am in South Africa, I expect it to be warm, even hot at 
times. So, you can imagine my surprise when I walked out of my residence building and was cold! 
It was 22C, which is freezing here! Not only that, but it was the first time since I got here that it rained, so I think we got the abbreviated version of the tour (“See that building over there? That’s the library; and that big one beside it – that’s a lecture hall. Have a good day!”). We did learn that the lecture halls will be hard to find. The maps are useless, and no one seems to know where anything is, AND there are no clues as to which building on campus the rooms are. So, if you have a class in Lecture 3, your room could be in several buildings. 
wasn’t my favourite surprise after I had already drank from the cup! Luckily, mosquitoes haven’t been such a big challenge. They do have moths here, though. And, they’re the size of birds. One night when I fell asleep with my light on, I woke up to a bat-like creature squeaking around my light fixture. I wasn’t taking my malaria medication yet, so sadly, I wasn’t hallucinating. It hid somewhere in my room, so I woke up periodically to the twitching of an unknown creature somewhere in my room (illogically or not, I closed my windows so that no more would come in). There are some pretty nasty looking cockroaches, too, but I haven’t seen them anywhere near my residence, so that’s a bonus.
city bus with cracked windows, and every once in awhile, our guide would yell a fact about an area we passed (“This is north beach…this is south beach…”etc.). More interesting, I think, would have been a tour where the guide told us what was a good place to visit (“This is an area that you should never go in; this is an area that is only safe in 
groups over 10 people during the hours of 10 and 2…”etc.). It was nice to have a better idea of what the town looks like, though. It is a beautiful, historic downtown. We also drove on some of the Grand Prix route – it’s happening on Feb 24th, I believe. 
the beautiful Valley of 1000 Hills and visited one of the few rural AIDS orphanages. For some reason, the government won’t fund the rural orphanages, only the urban ones. Unfortunately, the kids were all at school, so it was an odd tour through the rooms of some African children who weren’t there to connect with. Next on the tour, we tried to visit a community library that is just down the hill from my school. It’s in the centre of a ‘settlement’, which is similar to the shantytowns on the outskirts of the city (where 2 of the 3 million people in Durban reside), but it’s unsanctioned, and it’s in the middle of town. Unfortunately, due to the load shedding (which is another way of saying blackout. They are having an energy crisis, so often lights will be off for about 2 hours at a time) the gates wouldn’t work to let us in, so our tour ended rather abruptly. This was our last activity organized by the school for the exchange students, so we are free to arrange our own events now.
