It was time to brave the Cuban transport system again and head to Cienfuegos ($6 CUC/7.80 AUD). Thinking we were being a little ridiculous we headed to the station a full hour early for the bus we had booked when we had arrived in Trinidad (if you are going to bus around the country we would recommend booking each journey at least a few days in advance) only to discover that the ticket we had been issued (yes this time we had paid for and been given a ticket even though it was the same bus company) was not our real ticket but the one we needed to check in with then exchange for the one to use on the bus. Leaving Dani with the bags inside I stood in line to receive my new ticket and I waited, and waited and waited! A full 45 minutes later I was about 12th in line thinking I may never get on the bus when Cienfuegos is called and all of us patiently waiting were ushered to the front of the queue. After exchanging our tickets we were told that we must put our bags in the holding room (despite being due to depart almost immediately) and then get on to the bus. Not really trusting the system, we watched anxiously as they loaded every single bag but ours onto the bus and I am not joking when I say Dani literally had to get off the bus and bring our bags over to make sure they got on while I informed a woman we had met that her bags had just been put on another bus. Once seated, Dani decided to inform me that while she had been sitting in the station waiting she had watched a scene unfold where not 1 but 7 people who had booked their tickets online for a bus to Santiago de Cuba had not had their reservations honoured by Viazul and the only bus going there that day was full. These were 7 people who didn’t know each other and had booked in advance between 5 days and 3 months prior to travelling. Viazul response “not my problem”. When we pulled out of the station 2 off them had boarded the bus anyway and we’re in a standoff and the bus had been due to leave 45 minutes before ours. The moral of the story is that you’re better off not using the Viazul buses as they are unreliable, slow and almost as expensive as a collectivo without the ease. We did finally make it to Cienfuegos, after our driver stopped several times to run errands and pick up some chicken and we vowed that we would avoid the company for the rest of the country if possible! We arrived at yet another lovely casa in Cienfuegos ($19 AUD/15 CUC) and were once again greeted by a lovely family. We would definitely recommend this casa as fantastic value but did feel after some exploring of Cienfuegos that a casa in Punta Gorda would be much nicer, simply in terms of location. We had given Jess from Trinidad our address so that she could leave us a note if she wanted to meet up (old school right) and we had arrived to a note saying she’d swing by at 6pm if we were up for dinner. We headed to a place around the corner, which became our regular for the next 3 days called Big Bang. It had the best value vegetable rice dish ($4 CUC/5 AUD) and certain items on their menu could even have been described as tasty. Cienfuegos’ old centre is beautiful. It’s got a great central square that is full of unusual architecture and the theatre is definitely worth checking out ($2CUC/2.50 AUD). There is also a great sea walk down to Punta Gorda which is filled with 50’s Miami style beach houses and at the end is a strangely beautiful Moor inspired palace/restaurant. There are also plenty of casas available down here that looked great. We had decided on a day trip to see the flamingos at Laguna Guanaroca while we were in Cienfuegos. The entrance to Laguna Guanaroca is $10CUCpp ($12.95 AUD) and can be purchased from a tour agency in town the day before you go or at the laguna itself for the same price (you will be prioritised at the gate if you’ve pre purchased). We had of course waited the now customary hour to get tickets the day before as we had been told we would need them, only to then arrive and have to queue for the voucher we had been given to be exchanged for an official ticket once we got there (are you noticing a trend here?!). In terms of transport we had arranged for a taxi to pick us up that morning, wait at the laguna for a couple of hours and then return us to Cienfuegos. The going rate for this service from everyone in town was 10CUCpp which didn’t seem unreasonable. This trip was very pretty and we had the most fantastic guide who had an awesome sense of humour, but I’m not sure it was worth the money. Dani and I have been lucky enough to see flamingos in Chile and Ecuador so in comparison this trip wasn’t quite what we’d hoped but I think we would recommend it if you haven’t had other close up experiences with flamingos before. One thing I really admired about this trip was how respectful of the flora and fauna the guides were throughout. Cienfuegos had been a great stop and we were finally ready to head to our last stop in Cuba. We had arranged a collectivo to Viñales and we were picked up on time and taken to Havana where we were transferring to another collectivo to finish the journey. All went well until Havana where we were transferred to another car and asked to pay for the first car. Not a problem you may think but we had agreed not to pay until we reached Viñales (which was the norm on all other collective journeys, pay on arrival in your final destination) and now here we were, only half way being asked to pay $50CUC of the $70CUC we’d agreed on. After an initial stress we decided to pay the money and thought we’d soon be on our way to the next destination. Not so! Having had our bags put into one car soon after arriving, we were then informed we would be changing cars (but obviously we were not told why) and then had to wait for over an hour to actually get going. Stressed and annoyed we arrived in Viñales to discover that the casa ($21.15AUD/16.80CUC) we had booked was out in the middle of nowhere. Luckily for us our concerns about this melted away once we met Leticia, our casa owner. We had potentially found the loveliest woman in the whole of Cuba. Set out in the countryside it was peaceful and relaxing and we were there, at last! Viñales is quite different to the rest of Cuba due to its location. I’m not sure I’d agree with the common perception that those from Viñales haven’t noticed that tourists are there when every second house is a casa and all food is quoted in CUC (a CUP restaurant is always cheaper and often found in local’s areas) but it’s warm and welcoming. Leticia and her husband offered to arrange a horse-riding trip for us with a local guide. At 5CUC ($6.30 AUD) and hour it seemed like really good value. We were taken to a tobacco farm where they also explained how to roll a cigar and gave us one to smoke. On site there is also coffee grown amongst fruit trees all of which is explained. We then rode up through really pretty scenery to a viewpoint over the valley before heading back via a lake. It’s a great 4-hour trip and we were both really glad we had done it. Due to our location we didn’t really do much else other than walk around the area but Viñales was a relaxing last destination. Leticia’s breakfasts were legendary so after stuffing ourselves silly on our last morning we were ready to head back to Havana. We had arranged our own transport and we were surprised when it did not show up, either on time or the reasonable 30 minutes after. Panicked we went back to speak to Leticia’s husband who said he would help us sort it and less than 15 minutes later up pulled another car ready to take us. Pushed into the back of the car with six other passengers, we were soon speeding down the road back to Havana. One thing we had noticed an abundance of throughout our travels around Cuba was broken down cars on the sides of roads. This was no great surprise to either of us as most of the cars on the road where somewhere in the region of 50-60years old. Clearly, a trip to Cuba would not be complete without our very own breakdown, so imagine our joy when about 70km outside of Havana our car rolled to a stop on the motorway. In true Cuban style the driver said absolutely nothing to us and just proceeded to open the hood of the car and stare into the engine redundantly and then walk away. We finally established after about 20 minutes that he had called someone to come and pick us all up but he was at least an hour away. So we sat and waited, and waited and waited. A full 2 1/2hrs later, up pulled our replacement car and we were finally back on track to get to Havana. As I said earlier we had saved the Revolution Museum for when we got back to Havana. We should have done it when we had the time because our driver had no idea where he was in Havana (this is really unusual) and he took another hour and a half to get us to where we were staying after we had arrived back in the city. This coupled with the delay meant we had no time to do anything other than eat as it was gone 4pm by this point, way past the midday arrival time we had anticipated. Overall we had a fantastic time in Cuba, but travelling around as a budget backpacker, while absolutely doable is hard work. Cuba is an extremely interesting, vibrant, resilient country but no systems or at least logical systems are in place even for tourists. Examples of this are that you can catch buses in one direction (Viñales to Cienfuegos) but not in the other (Cienfuegos to Viñales) or how you can get into a queue at a supermarket to buy soda, wait in line for 20 minutes only to be told that this is the line for the canned fish and you are going to have to get into another line. The trick is to just let Cuba happen. It’s hard work but worth it and we’re both so glad that we went. To help you through a backpacking adventure in Cuba here are our top tips... Rule number one in Cuba - always do something the first opportunity you get don’t think “oh I’ll do it later” because later it will be closed (the times on the door will say it should be open), they will decide to take a long lunch that day, the new rules say that activity only runs on Thursdays and every alternate Sunday, or you can only go in if your socks don’t match and at least one has pink spots. Bring things to make food taste of something: spices, Marmite, hot sauce, ketchup etc. Swap some CUC for CUP in ‘Casa de Cambios’ but only a little at a time because things are so cheap in CUP we struggled to spend the $40CUC we had changed in 2 weeks and you cannot change it back. Do follow the normal route around the country Havana – Viñales -Cienfuegos/Trinidad - Santa Clara - Havana don’t deviate it makes it much harder. Accept that things will happen, just on Cuba time not yours. This means making sure you are back in the city you’re flying out of at least a day in advance. Don’t bother with Viazul buses. They aren’t reliable, they take longer and they often cost a similar amount to collectivos but collectivos always drop you off at your casa particular rather than a central location. Also if your collectivos has been arranged by your casa it will be a door to door service. LGBT:Cuba is a pretty LGBT friendly country. We had no issues here despite sharing a double room across the country in Casa Particulars. We also learnt that Castro's neice who is a well respected politician in Cuba has been very supportive of the LGBT community over recent years which has helped changed attitudes in the country. Castro himself also urged for better treatment of the LGBT community during the last years of his life. Strangely unlike the rest of Latin America Cuba is actually more acceping of gay men than lesbians. This in part has been attributed to a film called Fresa y Chocolate which was released in 1994 that allowed everyday Cubans a glimpse into the world of gay men and see that this was not threatening. Cuba also allows free gender reassignment surgery and has done since 2008. Budget Time $$$Money wise Cuba was nowhere near as hard as I had predicted it was going to be. The dual currency, no American dollars, ATMs rejecting foreign cards, horrendous exchange rates…worries I had had and that had kept me up for multiple nights prior to arriving in Cuba turned out to be largely unfounded.
Here is what I learned:
What it really cost: $1,307.40 Accomodation: $485.72 Transport: $326.10 Food: $189.74 Entertainment: $135.44 Drinks: $104.14 Miscellaneous: $57.48 Souvenirs: $7.80
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After the world’s longest wait at check in (you would not believe how much luggage/items people were checking in...hello karaoke machine) we were finally winging our way to the mysterious land of Cuba. Everyone has the image of Cuba being stuck in the 1950’s but I’m not sure how much you really believe this is true until you touch down at the airport. Even Havana airport is still decorated in red plastic with designs that were the height of sophistication in the 50’s and no, they haven’t decorated it this way to stick with a theme it really hasn’t been updated in 60 years! Out of customs and into the humid Cuban air, we were greeted by exactly what we had been promised…classic cars waiting to whisk us off to Havana. It took us a while to get a taxi to agree to take us but we were soon in the back of a stunning mint green classic ($20 CUC/25.75 AUD). Because we were going to be in Havana for Christmas we had decided to book an apartment ($37.94 AUD/30 CUC via Air BnB) in Vedado, instead of staying in a traditional casa particular (these are the original Cuban AirBnB effectively, and where you will stay if you are travelling Cuba on a budget). This turned out to be a fantastic decision because not only was it a gorgeous little apartment all to ourselves for Christmas but it was run by a really lovely young woman Anna, who was able to help us really get to grips with Cuba early on. Now, we had been pre-warned about Cuban supermarkets and the availability of food before we got there so we had stocked up on some basics to self-cater while in Havana (refried beans, canned fish, spices, hot sauce, flour for tortillas etc.). We were both fairly certain that this was going to be entirely unnecessary, but better to be safe than sorry…boy were we wrong! We fast learned that you don’t enter a supermarket in Cuba thinking “I need to pick up [insert required item]”, you enter a supermarket in Cuba and think “what can I do with [insert random items found on sparsely filled shelves]”. Available in abundance just before Christmas were canned mangos in 5kg cans, vegetable oil and soda. I managed to queue up for over thirty minutes to get some cheese and picked up some soda and felt like I’d achieved something as I exited with my purchases. We also managed to find a vegetable stall and picked up 2kg of tomatoes, some green peppers, cabbage and some dried black beans, which only cost us 71CUP ($2.70 CUC/3.48 AUD). Christmas was going to be strange but tasty this year. First full day in Havana we were up early and ready to catch a taxi ($5CUC/6.45 AUD) into the old town and see what all the fuss was about. We had booked ourselves onto a walking tour to get a better grasp of the city, as well as learn a bit more about Cuba in general. We found the tour really interesting and the guide was wonderful, but Old Havana itself lacked the character and charm of the rest of the city. It felt more like a Cuban zoo where gringos come to gawp at Cubans smoking cigars and eat in the only places in Cuba that can dream of getting ingredients other than rice, beans, chicken, bread and cheese. It’s got a crumbling beauty, and with all those classic cars in the background it’s “totes instagrammable” but it’s not real Cuba. Because of the time of year we had decided to visit, we spent our time in Havana exploring Vedado and Central Havana on foot. The great thing about Havana (and actually Cuba) is everyone is living their lives on their front doorsteps, so all areas are great to just wander around. We visited Plaza de Independencia and decided that we would go to the Revolution Museum on our return to Havana at the end of our trip. Due to it being Christmas and New Year while we were away we had booked our all accommodation around the country in advance, which is not something we usually do. In hindsight this was probably unnecessary but something to note is that the same properties are much cheaper on AirBnB than they are on the ground so it may be worth booking in advance to save money. Getting between cities on a time limit was concerning, as we had learnt the hard way (we went to book at the bus station) that certain routes are booked up weeks in advance and that collectivos are become your only option. Our next stop after Havana was Santa Clara and there wasn’t a single seat available on a bus for the next week and a half. Asking around we were quoted a minimum of 30CUCpp ($38.65 AUD) for the journey which would have only cost 16CUCpp ($20.60 AUD) on a bus. This was not a good start but luckily we discovered that collectivos from outside the National (local) bus station rather than the Viazul (tourist) bus station were cheaper. When we arrived there the morning we intended to depart we only had to wait 20 minutes for the car to be full and we were on our way (25CUC/$32.45AUDpp). As a point of reference, this is true around the whole country. Collectivo drivers with wait outside the Viazul and National bus stations (if they are different) in all cities and towns, without exceptions the drivers outside the National bus stations were offering more reasonable rates between locations. After an easy and efficient station to front door journey, we arrived at our casa ($22.67 AUD/18 CUC), which was another lovely house. Pedro, our host, had maps and advice for us and was able to provide us with breakfast everyday (5CUCpp) should we have wanted it (we found eating at local CUP places much better value for much the same food). The point of visiting Santa Clara is doing the pilgrimage to see Che Guevara. The actual memorial and location of his body is surprisingly understated compared with how revered he is around the country/world. Within the complex in addition to the mausoleum and memorial, there is a small but interesting museum dedicated to his life, which is well worth a visit and the whole complex is totally free. Also worth visiting while in Santa Clara is the ‘Che with a Child’ statue which is, we felt, a much better tribute to the revolutionary. It’s intricacy is fascinating and as a sculpture lover I really enjoyed this piece. Being in Cuba we had also wanted to visit a cigar factory and the one in Santa Clara came highly recommended, but you have to book your tickets through the government tour agency in the centre of town before visiting. When we went to enquire about tickets there on the morning of our first full day and the woman in the shop told us to return in 45 minutes despite being there to answer our question and not seeming to be in anyway busy. On return I asked her about going on the factory tour and her answer was “no”. I asked her why we couldn’t go on the tour and her answer again was “no” I would at this time like to point out I had asked her these questions in Spanish so I am still perplexed when I try to understand why the answer was no and why they had the tour written on their sign if they didn’t offer this service. This kind of inexplicable uselessness/lack of functionality within certain service based industries in Cuba is something we quickly had to learn to live with. Suffice it to say we did not get to visit the cigar factory that day, but we did walk past it and it looked pretty cool from the outside! In spite of not being able to visit the factory we spent a lovely day walking around exploring and observing the day to day life in Santa Clara. Honestly, Santa Clara is a small place and there is probably only a days worth of actual stuff to do but in hindsight it was probably our favourite place in Cuba if only because the pace of life there was so relaxed and with the exception of the Che memorial there seemed to be no other tourists anywhere. While trying to figure out how to get to our next stop in Trinidad we experienced our first (but certainly not last) mysterious lack of any logical system in Cuba. We intended to attempt to take the bus and so went to the bus station to try and arrange this. We arrived and having stated our intentions, were swiftly ushered into a small room where a man at a desk was playing on his phone. After standing there for the better part of 2/3minutes he finally looked up and asked us what we wanted. We explained that we would like to book tickets to Trinidad at which point out a children’s notebook, opened it on what appeared to be a totally random page and asked us to write our names down. No ticket was issued and he refused to take our money, from this point on he would not speak to us again and went back to playing on his phone. So, unsure as to whether we had a ticket or not we appeared to have been dismissed. On return the following day a good hour and a half before our bus ($8 CUC/10.40AUD) was due to leave we arrived at the station wanting to make sure we had tickets and to pay for them, or find alternative transport. This time there was a much nicer lady in the little room who confirmed we did have tickets for the bus but that we could not pay for them for another 45 minutes (WHY?!!!). This whole system made no sense, didn’t seem to follow any logical pattern and indeed would change through the rest of the country depending on what mood the person you were dealing with was in or what day of the week it happened to be, but we were yet to learn this.
Only 10 minutes late, our bus pulled out of the station and we were off to Trinidad. The place we booked ($26.90 AUD/21.35 CUC) was a quick walk from the bus station and Juan Carlos was probably one of the most welcoming hosts we had throughout our time in Cuba. Trinidad is a pretty city just to wander around and it was wandering on our first day that we ran into a woman I had met on the bus and her 2 friends that we ended up spending the rest of the day with. This is how we met Jess who convinced us to take the ‘Train of Tourists’ (literally what it translates to from Spanish) to the old sugar plantations, which was one of our highlights in Cuba ($15 CUC/19.45 AUD). This is a full day trip that takes you through some truly beautiful scenery. At the first stop (Manaca Iznaga) you can watch cigars being rolled and climb a tower that gives you some fantastic views of the surrounding countryside and at the second stop (Feneta) there is an old sugar mill factory you can wander around but it’s the seemingly untouched landscape that really makes this trip worth it. It being New Years Eve the day we did this trip, upon returning we then headed to the main square for some mojitos, daiquiris and salsa music. Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling well so Dani and I headed home to see out midnight watching movies in our casa. On New Years Day we decided to treat ourselves to a lunch buffet ($10.50 CUC/13.65 AUD) they have in Trinidad because they had an all you can eat salad bar and we were both starting to feel the effects of no fresh fruit or vegetables in Cuban cuisine and although it had the familiar flavourlessness it was definitely one of the best and most nutritious meals we had in Cuba. Needing to walk off lunch we decided to explore some of the surrounding neighbourhoods. Trinidad has some interesting areas to wander around and we found the Santa Ana church particularly interesting because not only are the ruins of the church quite cool but the offerings around to all the Santaria gods were really fascinating. There is no denying that Trinidad is obviously a very touristy city (by Cuban standards) and that affects the vibe and the people in less than positive way. However, having said that, we did really enjoy our time there and took full advantage of the smaller areas around the centre that could be explored. To be continued... |
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