Michelle and I arrived in Cuba on the 16th February and were taken to our “Casa Particulares” or homestay in Old Havana. We passed Revolutionary square and were immediately captured by all the beautiful historic baroque, art deco and Spanish colonial architecture in the city. We had four nights on our own before we started our “Cuban Adventure” tour. After Santiago and Lima Havana was quite a shock with wrought iron bars on every door and window in the old section of town and many dilapidated buildings. Some of the hotels or museums or government offices have been totally restored but many others are in a decrepit state from neglect or lack of funds and many on the Malecon, the wide boulevard all along the coast in Old Havana are in a dangerous state of collapse with some just being shored up in some way. We made a wide berth around those. There appeared to be many squatters in the old buildings. Most doors and windows in Old Havana were covered by iron bars and many doors had several locks.
Electricity supply for all of Cuba is a big problem. In Havana they are mostly notified of when they will have it for the next day but in the country areas it is very hit and miss. We operated in darkness in our room and bathroom in Playa Larga, Venales and in Trinidad and must be so frustrating for the locals.
The internet is also not readily available. Our hosts had reasonable internet when it was activated.
Every day there were queues along streets where poor locals with ration cards lined up for bread, eggs and other scarce consumables. The one department store we entered had more empty spaces that goods.
Eight eight percent of the population live below the poverty line and many old people walking along the streets or through their barred windows asked us for any medicines we could give them. Several small shops sold a few items of clothing as well as a small variety of groceries. The few pharmacies that we saw had very little on their shelves and did not want me to take photos.
La Bodeguida and La Floridita are purported to be the bars where Ernest Hemingway drank although some locals dispute this. Most tourists flock to those bars, us included, to have the famous drinks. People were friendly but we could easily be spotted as tourists and many touts tried their luck with offering us tours especially those involving the many varied and bright coloured Classic Cars of the 50’s. We decided on a bright pink open topped 1950’s chevy for 30euros an hour for 2hours which was great fun touring with many stops first along the Malecon to Revolutionary square, the Havana Forest in the heart of the city with a river and lush vine covered trees, Miramar the affluent residential area of Havana where the wealthy families lived in lovely colonial homes before the revolution. Now they are mostly embassies from all over the world. We ended up at the Beautiful “Hotel Nacional” on the coast with a wonderful view across the water to the Malecon and the lighthouse. We had to have a Mojito there and bathed in the old glory of the hotel with its famous “Hall of Fame” bar littered with photos of world leaders and celebrities.
An attempt to do a tour of the Partagas Cigar factory didn’t eventuate the first day as the tickets could not be bought at the factory and when we got there it was to close soon as the electricity was to be cut off. We eventually found the office in a small mall, however in Cuba our Australian credit cards could not be used only US credit cards or a local top up credit card would be accepted so after some advice we went the next day to the very posh Manzana Kempinski hotel and saw a most obliging girl in their tours office who offered to go to the bank to top up her card. She knew how difficult it could be to obtain the tickets. We gave her the ten Euros each and off she went to convert the money. She returned and was able to issue tickets for us for that day for which we were very grateful. A very strange system indeed!
We didn’t have much time to get to the factory so opted for a “Coco Taxi” a quirky tricycle with a yellow spherical open hard plastic cover attached where we could sit behind the driver. It was only a five minutes away but the price was US15 or Euros15 to get there. They didn’t want the Cuban pesos. Normal taxi were USD20 or 20euros to go anywhere in Havana. Our hosts were able to change 200 Euros for 64,000 Cuban Pesos. We did manage to spend our pesos over the 10days as it was illegal to take them out of the country.
The tour of the premium cigar factory was very interesting with a girl that spoke good English and with only four of us we could ask many questions and with our guides permission we could even take a few photos surreptitiously, normally not allowed. Around 12000 cigars of various sizes and qualities are produced every day with over 200workers. Some cigars last half and hour and some for 2hours according to the smokers wants.
The workers are in a very large open room with a huge TV screen in the corner. They can choose when to start work but have a quota to fill every day. Every morning they are read the newspaper and a portion of a book in the afternoon. Their wages are according to their output. The most famous cigar smoked by Fidel Castro was the Cohiba cigar which was first produced in Seville, Spain. Che Guevara smoked the Montecristo No4. There are scores of different cigars with names such as Romeo y Julieta, Padron and La Gloria Cubana to name a few. It was fascinating to watch the process of wrapping the cigars with 5 different leaves from binders, fillers and wrapper leaves. They are then pressed to a certain thickness and in another room they are collated and put through a piece of wood with a hole where the cigar needs to be threaded through to see if the exact thickness and density is achieved. Any rejects are put aside and the workers can take 5cigars a day home to smoke or sell. We watched one
worker who had been there for 25years making cigars.
Our tour comprised only five of us. Cian from Ireland living in Spain, Bence from Hungary living in Brussels, Jayne from Pennsylvania, Michelle and me.
Yunet our wonderful guide arrived with the others on the 19th to brief us all on the tour and and we all went out to “Donde Lis” an restaurant with excellent food and great staff just around the corner from our “Casa”. A walking tour of the old town was first on the programme the following day. I had unfortunately drunk a mango juice from a local shop the previous day and was out of action for 24hours so missed the walking tour which most of which we had covered in the days beforehand. The following day we set off with our very competent driver Rayko and Yunet for the central north Pinar del Rio province of Cuba stopping first at “Fusterlandia” a suburb in Havana created by Jose Fuster An artist of naive works in mostly mosaics and murals in unusual forms and shapes. He is still working on art forms in the town. I hope the neighbours enjoy his work! We stopped in the countryside for lunch. I passed on that. We then entered the pretty countryside town of Vinales about four hours later to the west where some pretty mostly wooden most houses and some shacks had porches and two rocking chairs in front of the house. The town itself consists of housing and a main street with a supermarket and many restaurants and bars. A small market is set up every day in a side street selling souvenirs many made of wood.
The group was divided and Michelle and I stayed in one house with 2rooms with an ensuites for tourists and the others were in a larger house.
A local guide walked us into the rural area on one side of the town which was surrounded by a low mountain range with outcrops of lush green covered Karsts. We were shown to a small coffee plantation where we were shown the process of producing their coffee and could taste and/or buy the coffee produced. A cute fat tree rat only found in Cuba and neighbouring islands was in a cage outside and we were told that they were were also fattened and eaten. I couldn’t imagine eating the cute rodent. Our guide walked us through the fields to our next stop, a tobacco farm where we were shown the involved process of tobacco cultivation, fermentation where the leaves are sprayed with a mixture off lemon, honey, cinnamon and left to ferment for 8months then dried before the leaves are formed into cigars anything up to 18months later. We had to of course try smoking the cigars after they were dipped into a light honey which sweetens the taste of the tobacco and makes them easier to turn and smoke.
This honey comes from a special bee which have underground beehives.
We then had lunch in town and the food available was usually chicken or fish with black rice and beans with plantains or yams. The other most popular things on menus were croquettes which were not potato but made with flour, broth and bechamel and sometimes filled with meat and most things included cheese of some kind even sweets.
On our way out of Vinales 2days later we stopped at a beautiful viewpoint with lush agricultural lands below surrounded again by the karsts. From there we needed to head back to Havana for fuel. The fuel shortages in Cuba are dire. Tour buses take precedence but even so we were dropped at the Havana Golf Club for basis refreshments and food while Rayko the driver went to wait for fuel at a service station where he with another 15 other tour buses waited the 3 1/2hours for the tanker to arrive to fill the bowsers. We saw long line of locals waiting for fuel which can be also for many hours. Along the highways across the country which need repair the most common form of transport seem to be horses or horses and carts or old Lada cars with many people walking or trying to hitch rides. We saw some buses built on truck chassis.
Our trip from Vinales to Playa Larga via Havana took us most of the day with a stop at a private sanctuary for Bee hummingbirds native to Cuba. We stayed and watched the pretty green and delicate blue hummingbirds dive into their sugar water containers dotted around the back of the property. We drove through the National park of Cienaga de Zapata and then stopped for the night at Playa Larga where we had a top restaurant like 4course meal at our Casa Particulares after a short walk to the lovely beach complete with a beach bar. Playa Larga and Playa Giron are the sites of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the 1961 US backed failed attempt with counter revolutionaries to overthrow the Castro government. The only remaining evidence were many simple white stone monuments along the roads to the hundreds of Cuban revolutionalies killed.
We arrived the following day in Cienfuegos on the south coast of the Caribbean sea named after an Asturian born Captain general of Cuba and billed as a city known for it’s structured urban planning with a few working theatres,museums and art galleries. It was midday and there were very few people on the street or along the Pedestrian boulevard with many shops closed as there was no electricity. There was no espresso coffee to be had. We met up at the statue of Beny More a famous Cuban singer, bandleader and songwriter.
We had a good lunch at Villa Maria restaurant where the meals cost less than AUD10. We walked around the small harbour and stopped on our way out at the Palacio de Valle a Moorish inspired very ornate restaurant.
We continued on to Trinidad de Cuba my favourite old town with grand colonial buildings and colourful houses along mostly cobbled streets. It was a centre from the time of the main sugar industry in the 18th and 19th century. Yunet our outstanding guide showed us around the old town and gave us much information about the city and it’s history. We climbed the tower on the edge of the main square to have a good view of the whole town and to see the sunset.
We opted to go the next day to the beach at Trinidad with it’s couple of large hotel complexes. We spent half a day here enjoying wandering along the clear sand beach and some of us swimming in the clear turquoise water.
There were many houses offering massage so I availed myself of one recommended by Yunet and felt very relaxed after that.
Cian found a great bar/restaurant with excellent wifi “Giroud” where a couple provided lovely music with her singing and he on the saxaphone.
The main music venues didn’t start until 8pm or much later so Cian and I went to the “Casa de la Trova” where many mainly older Cuban musicians played great salsa music. We all went the following night however it rained heavily and the venue was not water tight but we enjoyed it just the same. It was a bit precarious walking back to our homestay with no streetlights.
After two days we drove back through lush countryside to one of the old sugar mill manager’s house and tall tower to observe the sugar can fields where local women were selling all forms of embroidered white linen and clothing.
Santa Clara was known chiefly for it’s revolutionary landmarks and we stopped at the site of the railway line where Che Guevara and his revolutionary forces captured an armoured train belonging to Batista which secured the control of the city in 1958. The train is now a national monument in a memorial park.
We arrived back in Havana on the 26th February and we with Yunet and Rayco for a farewell to them to the rooftop “Sibarita” bar.
We couldn’t have had a better team to give us an 8day tour of Cuba.
Michelle and I spent the last day walking around the old town again and down to the Malecon to an art gallery where we each bought an oil painting. At Havana airport we were stopped and our rolled up paintings examined in case there were drugs concealed and we had to pay 5euros and got an export certificate. A way to make money we supposed. The same happened when we left Lima but there was no fee payable. We just received the certificate.
We sauntered down to catch a small boat across the harbour to the other side but were told that it was broken so instead we visited the large souvenir “Mercado San Jose” where we bought a few souvenir items. We met the group for an excellent last meal at the rooftop Antojos restaurant. On the 27th February we started the long journey home to Lima firstly, then Santiago the Following day and then the last legs on the 1st March to Perth via Auckland and Sydney.
Cuba was very thought provoking with such multi faceted aspects of life and so very foreign to us living in a first world country where goods and services are plentiful and the cities on the whole are well kept and in good condition. The magnificent architecture was in various states from totally restored to crumbling which was very sad to see and the lives of most people are a continuous struggle with very small wages and pensions. shortages of electricity,food,medicine, fuel and more. Most Cubans who could afford it have left the country for a better life. Those going to the USA are covered by a law from 1966 – The Cuban adjustment act whereby they can apply for a green card after a year. Many ex pats also support family in Cuba.
It is sad to see a country with so much potential just existing.