Havana
We flew into Havana airport and after a number of checks and rechecks we finally got through customs. It seemed to be a classic case of job creation, with a number of different queues to get through and people all checking the same things over and over again. When we finally got through customs with our bags we were met by a massive crowd of people waiting to receive their loved ones. I’ve never seen that many people in an airport arrivals hall before, it was actually difficult to get through and get to the exit.
We’d pre-booked in to a casa particular (a Cuban peculiarity where someone rents out 1 or 2 rooms in their private home to tourists) in the Vedado suburb of Havana, so we caught a taxi there. On the way we were excited at our first sight of all the old Buicks, Fords and Chevrolets passing us on the road. We arrived at the house and were welcomed by a friendly Cuban man, who promptly told us that the room we had reserved had a problem (plumbing issue caused by the recent hurricane rain), and that he had booked us in to a casa around the corner instead. At this point we were thinking that we weren’t off to a great start in Cuba, what with the flight cancellation, and now the room issue. However we walked about 2 blocks away and he introduced us to the other couple. The room was in a beautiful old house with large rooms and high ceilings, built around an open courtyard. The old couple that owned it were friendly but unfortunately their English wasn’t very good, so the help we’d been expecting to organise our time in Cuba wasn’t forthcoming. Also there were no other tourists staying in the new house, so it was very quiet.
After check in, which involved us providing our passports and visas and signing a kind of vouchers book to confirm our stay, we decided to go for a walk to the Malecon. The Malecon is the street / promenade that runs along Havana’s bay, and we estimated that it was probably about an hour’s walk away. It turned out to be more like 2 hours walk away. One thing we certainly did a lot of in Cuba was walking. Partly because we wanted to have a look around, but mostly because the taxis are just so expensive. It cost us 5CUC for a taxi between the house and Centro Havana, and then another 5CUC to get home again. The coco cab we tried (like a motorbike with a round coconut shaped seat behind it) was even more expensive as the guy put the meter on. What we noticed about most taxis in Havana is that its always cheaper to agree a price with the driver before getting in, and then he won’t put the meter on (in other words he doesn’t declare the income and puts it in his back pocket).
Actually while I’m on the topic, Cuba in general is very expensive. Apart from the taxis, the food and drinks were very expensive as well, especially considering what you get for your money. We had been warned that Havana would be expensive due to the two currencies (Moneda National for locals and Cuban Convertibles or CUC for tourists), but we didn’t realise just how expensive, until we started to experience it for ourselves. You are basically paying UK prices for everything, and in some cases even more. This does come as a bit of a shock when you are walking around a city, which at times looks like its falling down around you. And its more than just the expense, to be honest a lot of the time we felt like people were trying to rip us off / sponge money out of us whenever they could. If it wasn’t the taxi driver claiming he didn’t have any change, it was a restaurant charging CUC when we should clearly have been paying MN.
However I will say that even on that first walk up to the Malecon I was a bit like a kid in a candy store stopping to take photos of all the old art deco buildings, and the classic cars we passed along the way. It is a shame that the vast majority of the buildings have not been maintained, and in some places have even fallen down. However you cant help but think that Havana must have been something really spectacular back in the 1900‘s when all the grand old houses were originally built. PS. Elaine I think you‘d love it here. Saying that, despite their facades even as the buildings stand today with their flaking paintwork, they still give Havana a special feel.
So after our 2 hour trek in the scorching heat (it was very hot and humid) we basically arrived at the Malecon just in time for sunset, to see the buildings of Centro Havana being lit up a golden colour in the distance. There were a load of people just sitting along the bay wall hanging out, drinking and chatting, along with some fisherman casting their lines over the wall in to the ocean. After sunset (and with rather tired feet), we found a local paladar for dinner. Now a paladar is another Cuban peculiarity and is basically where someone is using part of their home as a restaurant. In the one we went to, it was as though they’d put a couple of extra tables in to their conservatory. Looking back, despite the unusual surroundings the food we had there was reasonably good, considering what was yet to come.
The following morning we went looking for the local Cadeca (exchange house) to exchange some of our euros (thanks for the currency tip Nicole). When we got there it turned out to be nothing more than a kind of makeshift wendy house at the side of the road, with a window in it. Afterwards we headed back to the casa to read up on Cuba and plan out the rest of our time (12 days). We decided that since we had 12 days, we would move around a bit and see a couple of different areas. We planned to split our time between Havana, Valadero, Santa Clara and Trinidad, before heading back to Havana for our flight out. Rough plan in hand, we headed back to the original casa we’d booked, to ask him for some help with booking up the casas we would need in the other areas. He was very helpful (despite the fact that we were no longer staying with him) and called ahead to casas in Santa Clara and Trinidad to make the bookings for us. He also wrote down all the details on a piece of paper for us. Lastly he offered us a walking tour of Habana Vieja (literally Habana Old) the following morning, which as it didn’t sound too expensive, we decided to take him up on.
Itenarary planned and casas booked, we went for another walk. This time we walked past the cemetery (we didn’t go inside as they wanted to charge us CUC 5 each), and on to the Plaza Revolution. The plaza is basically, well, a large cemented parking lot kind of area that I understand is used for staging political rallies and the like, and is overlooked by the large metal faces of Guevara and Castro on the sides of buildings. After about 2 minutes of looking at the empty parking lot (I don’t really understand what all the tour buses are doing there for so long?!) we went over the road to the Jose Marti monument, and paid the entrance to have a quick walk around there. Then we took a taxi over to Centro Habana and did a walking tour to look at the old buildings there, some of which were really awesome.
After we’d worked up a bit of a thirst walking again, we stopped at a bar called Floridita (little Florida) to have a strawberry daquiri. This bar claims to have invented the daquiri and was apparently Hemingway’s favourite place for this tipple. There is a life size brass statue of him at the bar (although without a name plaque) so we got a couple of pics with him, before finding out who it was! Whilst on our walking tour its also worth mentioning that we almost got scammed by a couple of locals, who offered to show us to a salsa place nearby but quickly turned off the charm when we refused to buy them any drinks (my fault for being too friendly). Perhaps they were working on commission at the bar, or perhaps their intention had been to get us drunk and mug us, fortunately we’ll never find out. Exhausted by all the walking we took a taxi home.
One thing that really shocked me about Cuba is that no one has any internet access. Apparently regular Cubans are not allowed to have internet access (perhaps lest they realise what they are missing), unless they can prove its necessary for their work. To me its like living in the dark ages and for travellers trying to book their onward accommodation / plan their trip, it’s a nightmare. There are only two ways to get internet access, neither of which are very convenient. You either need to pay a visit to a 5 star hotel (a 10 CUC return taxi ride from us) and use their business lounge facilities (don’t forget your passport at home as we did, or they wont let you on), or try a local branch of ETECSA which may, or may not have computers in it. The hotels we visited actually charged an astounding CUC10 per hour, which was even more than Cancun and by far the most we had paid for internet access so far. On our travels around Cuba we only found one place resembling an internet café (in Trinidad), and the more people that logged in, the slower the connection became. As we had been used to free, readily available Wifi connections up until that point, it came as a bit of a shock to suddenly be cut off. It was also rather inconvenient as we needed to book a hotel in Valadero (they don’t have casa particulars there), not to mention that we needed to contact the travel agent to change our flights from Mexico to LA, due to the Mexicana cancellation. Anyhow as we didn’t have any ID on us that night (so as to prove we were not Cuban), all that would have to wait for another day.
The following morning we went over to the original casa again to meet our tour guide. Somewhat surprisingly he had ordered a taxi to take us in to Habana Vieja. As he had a perfectly good car (a white Llada of course) sitting outside his house, we had assumed that part of the tour would involve him driving us in to town, but apparently not. We also had to stop at the Viazul office to buy some bus tickets for Valadero, and the driver waited outside for us whilst this was going on. When we got to Habana Vieja the taxi driver asked for 10 CUC (double what it would normally cost without the stop, so rather expensive) and instead of paying the taxi driver himself, the casa owner promptly got out of the car, indicating that we should pay the driver. This made it a more expensive tour and we wondered what other hidden costs had not been included in the quoted price! However the casa owner was very knowledgeable about the area and walked us around Havana Vieja for around 3.5 hours, pointing out interesting spots and taking us into all the notable buildings and hotels, so it was worthwhile doing. At one point we went in to a tower to get a great view over Havana and saw a kind of periscope that showed a realtime moving picture of the world outside (very cool and very enemy of the state). Whilst on the tour we also stopped at Havana Club for a tour of how they make their rum (they claim to have invented Rum) from sugar cane in Cuba. The tour included a taster, but I cant say that either Steve or I are big big rum fans and Havana Club did not convert us. We did stop at a chocolate making place (now we’re talking) and one perfumery that will actually make up a unique scent after a consultation with you (what a great idea). Before the tour ended we stopped at a mojito bar where again, Hemingway apparently drank his mojitos. Interestingly they don’t make their mojitos with mint in Cuba, but rather a sort of flower leaf that looks a lot like mint, but doesn’t taste minty. Overall we really loved the old buildings in Habana Viejo, and the Art Noveau work on the doors, windows and stain glass walls in certain hotels along Bishop street were gorgeous. The buildings in Habana Viejo certainly beat the other suburbs in Havana hands down (and in my opinion the remaining areas of Cuba that we would later see).
The other thing that I really liked about Habana Vieja is that pretty much wherever you walk you can hear a little Cuban trio playing music somewhere in a restaurant or hotel lobby. The downside of this more touristy area, is that you do feel a bit harassed when you are trying to walk around. There was one guy that starting following Steve around playing a guitar, and although Steve said no thanks a number of times, he refused to stop playing and then got a bit aggressive 2 minutes later when we wouldn’t pay him for his music. There were always people asking us for money, or trying to sell us something, or offer us a taxi, pretty much whenever we stood still for more than 10 seconds to have a look around, which was a bit of a pain.
After the tour we grabbed a quick lunch and then walked around attempting to draw some more cash from an ATM. After trying all of our cards at various ATMs around town and getting the same ‘Transaction Cancelled’ message, we finally figured out that you can’t use a Switch Card, or a Mastercard in a Cuban ATM. This was rather unfortunate as neither of us had a VISA card, and nor did we have enough CUC to last us for the entire duration of our trip. However, passport in hand, we did manage to find a hotel that would give us internet access, so we managed to email the travel agent regarding our flight change, and started the search for a hotel in Valadero. The trouble with trying to book a hotel in Cuba, is that none of the hotels seem to have an online booking facility (probably because Cubans don’t have internet access). Because of this we had to send off availability requests to a number of different hotels, in the hope that one of them would reply with a confirmation the following day (queue another days internet quest and expense). That night we managed to find an Italian place for dinner that made a good spaghetti (result), before getting a cab back to the casa.
Next day we had to check the internet again to see if any of the hostels in Valadero had replied. They had not, so we had to do another search and managed to find an agent with an online booking system for a cheap all inclusive hotel in Valadero - result. So we booked it in the knick of time. Then we went for lunch at pan.com which wasn’t too bad. The friendly owner got chatting to us and told us they didn’t get many saffers around them parts. As the cliché goes half of the options on the menu were currently unavailable, however they made us some tasty pork hamburgers and even managed to rustle up some surprise fries (no ketchup but you cant have everything, and especially not in Cuba). Afterwards we went to Coppelia for an ice cream and I had the worst choc mint ice cream I‘ve ever had in my life. Those of you in the know will remember that I’m not a big fan of chocolate ice cream and it was basically 2 scoops of chocolate ice cream with a drizzle of mint sauce over the top. Now how can you call that choc mint? Then we went for another walk and saw Cuba’s version of the Empire State building and a memorial with Walter Sisulu’s name on it. That evening we took a taxi over to the fort to see the Canon ceremony at 9pm, which was awesome and definitely a highlight of our trip. They actually light a real canon and even though I knew it was coming that big bang still scared the life out of me. Afterwards we grabbed a quick dinner inside the fort walls (a memorably bad one of chicken and chips, where the chips were like tasteless pieces of stale cardboard) before taxiing back to the casa.
And now a couple of general notes about the odd bits and pieces around Cuba…There is no advertising anywhere. I suppose when everything is owned by the state and there is no competition, then there is little point in spending money on advertising, or for that matter attractive packaging. The cafeterias (like a small informal restaurant, think old melamine tables and wicker chairs) are pretty much all named the same thing (cafeteria) which makes it difficult to know what sort of food they would have on offer. And they don’t bother with silly things like menus, they just display the three dishes they are making that day in a case outfront. The one we went to was making Margherita pizza, a ham and cheese roll, and a hamburger, none of which looked appealing, so we ended up with a very soggy pizza for lunch. Also all the products seem to come in the same rubbish packaging (e.g shampoo / shower gel). Not to mention the bizarre stores, which rather than a traditional supermarket set up, all seem to have a shopkeeper standing behind a glass cabinet, so that you have to ask them for each and every item you want (not easy with limited Spanish). And if you can find a corner shop for some snacks, the chances are they will all have the same 3 types of fizzy drinks TuCola, Lemon and Naranje and 2 packets of ancient looking biscuits. PS I could never live here as they only seem to have one type of crisps (called Papitas, or Chips) and they taste like cardboard. Nuff said.
The next morning we got up early and took a taxi to the bus station and then got the Viazul bus to Varadero, which is about 2.5 hours away. Varadero is kind of like a poor mans Cancun, and is basically a beach resort on the South coast of Cuba. Steve tells me it was a lovely ride along the Cuban coast to get there, although I couldn’t tell you as I was asleep most of the way. What is interesting about the Cuban bus journeys is that the bus driver seems to stop wherever the fancy takes him, at cafeterias along the way so that he can buy himself a drink / have a snack. Although since the bus stations don’t usually sell any food, this is not always a bad thing.
Valadero
So after a short bus ride we arrived in Valadero, where we valiantly thought that we could walk to our hotel carrying our bags. However it was stiflingly hot so after about 3 blocks in the blazing sun, we had to stop and hail a taxi. Now I should say that the hotel itself wasn’t too bad, as it had a pool, an open bar providing as much rum as you could drink, and was a short walk over the road to a fantastic Caribbean beach. However the hotel was filled with some very odd clientele, which I suppose might be what you get when you go for the cheapest all inclusive option. We saw lots of old/ fat men with some very young, pretty girls, a couple of threesomes and at one point a drunken brawl broke out by the pool. Needless to say we kept ourselves to ourselves.
On the upside as the hotel was all inclusive we did stuff ourselves with food for 2 days. The buffet wasn’t too bad compared with the food we’d had in Havana. So we basically spent two days lying around the pool / by the seaside reading our books. This was a welcome break after all the walking we had done in Havana and the beach there was great. White sand, free loungers, free drinks from the beach bar and warm blue water - yippee! On the Wednesday afternoon we stopped at the hotel tour desk and found out that the Buena Vista Social Club were playing that same night, and she could get us tickets for their Premium seats. The Premium seats meant that they would collect us in a classic car, and take us to a private bar before the concert, where we could meet the band and get some autographs, before going on to see the show. Needless to say we were very excited, and practically snapped her hand off to get them. So that night a proper Cuban character (chatting the whole way) came to collect us in his 1940’s open top car, and we did indeed get to chat to the band and we bought a CD so that we could get all their autographs. One of the original Buena Vista Social Club members was there and I managed to get a photo with him as well, which was very exciting. Then we went on to see the show (third row from the front) and they were fantastic. Only the first and last songs were the recognisable Buena Vista stuff, but the rest of it was great too, the band had a great energy about them and we even got up and danced for the last couple, before being driven back to our hotel in the 1940‘s car again. This was definitely the highlight of our Cuba trip for me.
Some general notes about Valadero. We noticed that they have curly tailed lizards. We saw one big fat bright green lizard (about 20 cms in length) that had a big tail all curled up just like a puppy. And later a more black and green coloured one of a similar size with another curled up tail. It certainly makes a lizard look a lot cuter, which of course, must be why they’ve evolved that way on the island lol.
Its true that Valadero is nothing like Havana. Well apart from the old cars and the Spanish lingo. You don’t have the same old buildings, and it just didn’t have the same feel. However it does have a long white sandy beach and some beautiful blue Caribbean water, so its great for downtime.
After 2 decadent days we got up at 06h30 the following morning and headed for the bus station to get some tickets for Santa Clara. Again the bus drivers stopped here and there for whatever they felt the need for and after about 3 hours we arrived in Santa Clara. Now if you haven’t heard of Santa Clara before, it is basically renowned for being the burial place of Che Guevara / generally the spot for Che fans.
Santa Clara
As the man in our Havana casa had called to make the booking, we had been promised that a man would collect us from the bus station, bearing a sign with our names on it. However surprise surprise there was no one there when we arrived, so we walked out to get a taxi and were followed around by a woman trying to sell us another casa (very aggressive) so I ended up shouting at her (No Me Moleste ie don’t bother me) which seemed to do the trick. Our first impressions of Santa Clara were Not great. Frankly it looked like a right sh*t hole from the bus station. It doesn’t have the appeal of the beautiful old buildings of Havana Viejo, and the buildings that are there, are also in much need of repair. We did manage to get an old buick taxi to the casa which was pretty cool (massive back seat, door handles only open from the outside by putting your hand out the window) and on arrival the casa owners were very friendly.
Again we did a lot of walking in Santa Clara, and it was a bit more manageable as it is smaller than Havana. The prices were a bit cheaper as well, which came as a welcome relief after Havana. Santa Clara is a little more off the beaten track, so we didn’t see as many other tourists, and felt less harassed by people trying to get money off us / sell us stuff. We went to Dinos for pizza on the first day (not great), and then went looking for internet access to check if our new flight was confirmed. That night we had a couple of cheese burgers for dinner which was a real rip off, and then went for a walk around the plaza and saw an orchestra of about 20 people playing for no real reason (fab). We sat in the square for a bit and listened to the band and there were lots of people sitting around even though it was evening. The scene was very quaint / sociable, and it guess it comes from all the people in the small town knowing each other.
The next morning we took a horse drawn cart to the Che Mauseleum and Memorial. Unfortunately no cameras were allowed inside and someone asked Steve to take his cap off. We did go inside the mausuleum and see the wall where Che’s bones are buried, alongside a number of his other comrades. The walls and roof are made of the same rough stone and it gives you the feeling you are in a darkened cave.
Then we had lunch at La Concha which was pretty good for Cuba. Steve got enough pork schnitzel for 3 and I had the shredded beef. Then we went to buy our bus tickets for Trinidad and took another horse drawn cart back to the park, to have a look at the schedule at Mejunje. Now I should mention that Mejunje is a club that the guidebook recommended. On the walk back to the casa we went to see the Boxcar museum, which is where Che blew up a train just before taking over Santa Clara, and then we stopped to see the Boulevard, which is basically one street lined with a couple of restaurants (?) and ’shops’.
Lastly we went to Cubatour to get tickets for the cigar factory the following morning. Another thing worth mentioning is that the service is dire in Cuba, the woman selling us the tour tickets spent about 30 seconds with us and was extremely offhand about the whole thing. We had a similar experience in the cigar shop, and the Viazul office as well.
However that night we had dinner at the casa and they made us lobster, which was slightly overcooked by still pretty good and a welcome surprise. Then we headed out and saw a great local band playing in a pub next to the square while drinking mojitos. It was a very informal session with a lot of local people dancing and was very cool (the different between the more touristy Habana Viejo and Santa Clara is that there were very few tourists there). Despite our initial impression, Santa Clara was definitely growing on us.
The next morning we got up early for our tour of the cigar factory. We had a local woman take us on to the factory floor where we got to see a woman actually press the tobacco leaves together and then on to the pressing process and the wrapping and packaging processes which was very cool. However seeing the 200 + people sitting in the factory making the cigars came as a bit of a shocker. It was a pretty unpleasant place to be, and with wages very low, the only upside I could see was the little old man with the microphone reading them the daily newspaper. Its times like those we were very grateful for what we had back home. As I alluded to earlier, we did visit the cigar factory across the way, and despite the terrible service, we did buy a couple of Monte Cristo cigars to send back home as a souvenir.
We had some lunch on the boulevard and the went for a walk to see the statue of Che carrying a baby, and then up the National Monument hill to see the view over Santa Clara, which was good. Then we walked back down to the boulevard and decided to go looking for some toilet paper (its handy to have your own roll as restaurants often don’t provide any, youre lucky if you get a toilet seat). Unfortunately all we could find in the store was a 12 pack so it was a no go. Then a bit more walking around a musuem that wasn’t very good and featured a collection of period furniture like a house. We did later manage to get a cardboard box (from a shop) and some packaging tape (after trying 3 different stores), so that we could box up and try to post the cigars back home. Then we went to the first post office in Santa Clara and tried to post the box, but they said they couldn’t send as the box had some writing on the outside, and we would need to cover it with paper (strike 1)!
After a forgetful dinner on the Boulevard, we went to club Mejunje, which rather surprisingly turned out to be a bit like gay pride except on a smaller scale. Who would have thought that that many gay men and drag queens could be found in a relatively small Cuban town? We managed to meet an interesting character named Geraldo (who managed to get us bumped past the queue) and introduced us to a few friends inside, so we danced with them for a while which was fun. At one point there was one drag queen that was desperate to pick up Steve (much to his dismay), so I had to keep dancing with Steve, to get him to back off lol. Frankly those Cubans know how to party, and party they did. I looked hard and I couldn’t see any inhibitians anywhere, although being primarily a gay club could have something to do with that. Towards the end of the evening Geraldo actually tried to give me his phone number in front of Steve, and he knew full well we were married, so I’m not sure where he was expecting to go with that?! Anyway we had a fun night out, and we hadn’t been out dancing in a while. The Cubans are big fans of something called Reggaeton, and although I cant say it’s a new favourite, it did have a good dance beat.
So after our big night out, the following morning we caught another Viazul bus to Trinidad.
Trinidad
Once again we arrived in the sorching heat, only this time a man really was there to meet us as promised. We dropped our bags off and went looking for some lunch, which ended up being in a kind of internet café (yes the only one we found in Cuba). Steve had a hamburger on toast (no jokes) and I had the worlds worst spaghetti which tasted like it had been made with tomato sauce and took about an hour to arrive. Then we had an ice cream while we walked up to the Plaza de Mayo which is a lovely quite little square with an old church at the back of it. There was a man playing the guitar on the corner when we got there and it was lovely. Afterwards we headed back to the internet café to try and find a hostel in LA, only to find out that you cant actually book anything from Cuba (the websites are blocked / give you an error!). Then we went to the supermarket to get some water and on the way back to the casa we got caught in a real downpour. We tried to wait it out in a doorway, but after about a half an hour it had not abated, so we had to make a run for it and got completely soaked through. As we didn’t want to head out again in the rain, we had a light dinner of chocolate biscuits in the casa (its no wonder my skins turning in to a right mess).
The following morning we had an enormous breakfast at the casa (this particular casa also offered food). In fact, if you said No to their food, they actually tried to find out why you had declined and convince you of how good their food was. We told them that we need to go out and find some wrapping paper for our parcel, and they kindly gave us some of theres (this must be a common thing in Cuba). So we wrapped the parcel and then headed back to the post office to try and post it again, only to then be told that they couldn’t send international parcels from that post office (strike 2).
Feeling slightly annoyed by his point, we went to the Museum Historico and walked up the tower for a great view for Trinidad (very cool). Then we went for an expensive lunch which wasn’t very good (camarones and rice overcooked, took ages to arrive, and was rather expensive (back to Havana prices in Trinidad).
By this point we were really wondering what all the fuss was about re. the architecture in Trinidad. According to the guidebook it was meant to be better than Habana Viejo, but we hadn’t seen any evidence of that. Then we walked back to the Plaza de Mayo, and just above that we found an older area of houses that were a little easier on the eye. However in my opinion the buildings in Havana Viejo are still tops. Then we came back to the casa and they made us a chicken dinner, which was pretty good. We have learnt that the best dinners in Cuba are in the casa’s, rather than the resturants. Afterwards we went out and saw a terrible band and some dancers supposedly doing the congo. Then we went to the plaza and saw another Buena band that were pretty good. Although of course, not as good as the real thing.
For our last day in Trinidad we took a coco taxi to Playa Ancon, which is their local beach, and it was our favourite beach in Cuba. Again with the white sand and beautiful warm blue water, but this time a quieter more relaxed atmosphere.
The following morning we took a bus back to Havana (5 hours) and went back to the same casa. Then we walked to the post office in Havana to try and post the parcel, only to be told that we would have to go to the next post office as they didn’t do parcels there (strike 3 and by this point we are fuming). So we got a taxi to post office number 4 (it wasn’t close) and went to the international post window to try and send the by now much hated parcel. This time the woman takes the neatly paper wrapped parcel from us and actually starts to slit it open with a knife. We ask her what the *&^^ she was doing, and she said that she needed to inspect everything inside the parcel. So she takes out each carefully wrapped item and has a good look at it. Eventually when she gets to the cigars she says we cant send those, as only the cigar factory can send them, and we are just about ready to murder her right there. In the end they wanted to charge us 70 UDS to send only half the contents of the parcel, so we took it all back and walked away from there, very very frustrated with the Cuban postal system and the once neatly wrapped parcel, open in our arms (strike 4). We would just have to take the contents along to LA with us, and try to post it again from there.
All in all I would say that Cuba is the most interesting country we have visited thus far, because it makes you question all of the things you take for granted back home. I constantly found myself wondering where the majority of our everyday products were sourced from back home, and we marvelled at how resourceful a country can be when its practically cut off from the rest of the world (they even have their own brand of Cola!).
We loved the old cars and old buildings in Havana Viejo, and not to mention the fantastic music. However due to the costs, the lack of internet access, the fact that the ATMs didn’t work, and how difficult it was to find a decent meal, it is not a very easy place for a traveller and we were pretty relieved to be heading on to LA the following morning. Roll on our first English speaking country in 4 months!
