Cuba - the epilogue...

my final thoughts on Cuba:

What an absolutely fascinating place - natural beauty, rich cultural heritage and identity, and truely unique in its relative isolation. Whether being a Cuban national is miserable or not, as a result of the government currently in power, is not my place to judge. I wish I had known Spanish because i think a lot of the 'authentic Cuba' is lost in the tourist-trail that being a non-spanish speaker inevitably places you on.

I don't doubt that Cuba will change when Fidel is no longer in charge. I personally worry, however, that Cuba will become America's "playground" - a holiday destination, a spring-break hang-out, where Cubans cater to the tourists. It felt like the logical result since the infrastructure to carry an expansion of the tourism industry is already there (and works extrmely well). I hope that the strong Cuban identity won't get lost somewhere along the way because i think that is where the beauty of this country really lies.

I'm going to let el comandante Fidel have the final word in my blogging about 'his' Cuba:

Cuba pt. V - cracks in our foundation and the 728th José Marti experience...

Location: La Habana

Arriving in Havana that tuesday afternoon felt like a homecoming - a place we felt familiar wih and one we knew how to navigate sans Lonely Planet.

This time around we opted for a casa particular rather than a hotel which i'd definitely recommend. we were given keys and could come and go as we wished, and the location on Calle Amistad, Centro Habana, near bar/paladares hot-spot Calle Obispo, was superb.


After unloading our luggage in our rooms, we set off to find a bank to take out more money (Ian had miraculously managed to budget well enough not to have to withdraw money until this point) and an internet café (something the girls were happy spending their money on despite being only 1½ days from departing Cuba). While they used the internet, Ian and I set up camp at the bar across the street. We later realised this cool little hang-out (La Lluvia de Oro) is actually included in the Lonely Planet but that didn't make it any less nice or cosy. A few bottles of CUC$1 Cristal later, the girls joined us and we decided to stay there for dinner. And really, how could we not when they did Cuban style rice and frijole for just CUC$1.05!

Incredibly filling dinner finished, we returned to the casa (Amy and Rach wanted to change before heading out to a few bars). The girls seemed to have a route and destinations worked out and not wanting to cause any unnecessary arguments, i decided to just follow their lead... in the end, it wasn't the most succesful evening. Bars were either too full or too empty and quiet for the girls' liking (ian didn't seem too bothered and i was quite happy to just chill with a beer anywhere, quiet or not) and after walking about for 1 hour, unsuccesfully searching for bars we never found, we ended up at Café Paris where we went the very first evening we spent in Cuba. the same overbearing waitress was still there but after donating what little change we had to the band that was playing [they come around to the tables and it is expected that you tip them - slight downside to being too much of a tourist to know where the locals go for their drinks and musical entertainment] and Amy and Rach being out CUC$4 for the coctails they ordered, she didn't get much of a tip from us that night. Quite possibly the most uneventful and unsuccessful night we had on our trip, we were back at the casa before midnight.

The following day was our last full day of the trip so for me that meant stocking up on souvenirs. I got shaun and ed's 21st birthday presents at the market near Plaza Vieja. i also got 2 scrapbooks to be used as photo albums (in keeping with the tradition i started in india of buying albums that are somehow inspired by the place i've visited - cue the 'Havana Club' rum stickers on the front of the Cuba albums).

After a tense mood at lunch where money once again became an issue (i was soooo sick of that at this point), we ventured west to Plaza de la Revolución (formerly Plaza Cívica, the square was re-named after the 1959 revolution) and our 728th encounter with José Marti. His statue is EVERYWHERE. The decision to go to Plaza de la Revolución at this time was another point of disagreement. Amy and Rachel wanted to stop there the following day on the way to the airport (to save what i thought was a rather pathetic CUC$2 each on a taxi ride) which i strongly protested against - it just seemed completely silly to me to stop there during the warmest part of the day in the clothes we had to wear for a 10 hour flight.


In the end, we combined the Plaza with a visit to the Necropolis Cristóbal Colón which seemed to make people feel that the extra CUC$2 spent were worthwhile.


That evening we went to Castillo de los Tres Reyes Magos del Morro (aka Morro Castle), the fortress guarding the entrance to Havana Bay which dates back to the Spanish rule in the 1500s.

I think the realisation that this was the end of my Cuba experience and the circumstances surrounding my 3 travel companions at that point in time really hit me that evening, sitting on the wall of the fort, watching the sun set. I have wanted to go to Cuba for 5 or 6 years and i felt so unbelievably guilty that, that night, because of how differently i prioritise things in comparison to the people i was travelling with, i just couldn't wait to leave. i wanted to be at home, away from Edinburgh, away from people from uni, and away from all the girly tension a petty discussions and disagreements. i felt guilty because of how lon i had wanted to be in Cuba but also because i spent a lot of money to go there and have that travel experience - money that a lot of people in the world do not have the freedom or ability to spend like that. how ungrateful was it then of me to wish myself away from there? it certainly wasn't how i'd ideally spent the last evening in Havana (ie. crying my eyes out and being anti-social) but what can you do :)

After croisssants and coffee at the French bakery (i write this with extreme Parisian disdain because neither the croissants nor the coffee came anywhere near the standards set the year i lived in the french capital... but points for surpassing all other pastry-type snacks we had thus far encountered in Cuba), Ian and I went to the Museo de la Revolución while the girls opted not to shell out the CUC$4 entrance fee. The museum turned out to be a true illustration of Castro's socialist principles and ideals. Historical facts were presented (twisted?) in a manner that depicted America as the evil imperialist superpower (hmm, maybe Fidel is on to something? :P) and the policies passed by Fidel's government were shown to have elevated Cubans' standard of living to unprecedented heights. I found the way in which things were presented and explained fascinating because of the complete lack of objectivity and consideration of the bigger picture. it gave food for thought with regards to the information to which Cubans have access on a day-to-day basis in a country where all aspects of life seem so strictly regulated by the government and the people in charge.

At 1PM we set off from the casa and headed towards José Marti International Airport (there is just no escaping señor Marti's legacy...) and our Virgin Atlantic return flight. Hasta luego, Cuba!

Cuba pt. IV - El Che and stucco-walled flamboyance...

location: Santa Clara, Villa Clara

Home to all the Che Guevara memorabilia any tourist could ever dream of, Santa Clara's subtle beauty easily gets overlooked. i personally thinks this is such a shame because the mix of architectural styles throughout this city is truely amazing and incredibly fascinating. our opinions on Santa Clara were thus very mixed. while Amy and Rachel didn't seem to take to this city at all and Ian was his usual diplomatic/easy-going traveller self and refrained from expressing strong opinions either for or against, i really liked how none of Santa Clara's true beauty was glaringly obvious (as it was in Trinidad). i liked that you could pass an old, dirty building that was falling apart and after pausing to look beyond that first impression, you would appreciate it just as much as the bright, colourful, renovated house right next to it. i don't know if this makes much sense to people but anyone who understands what i mean will surely recognise that quiet 'wow' feeling that certain things provoke inside you at the moments where you don't initially expect it.

Oddly, in typical french fashion, museums in Santa Clara are closed on mondays so instead of gracing Che with our presence at the Museo Memorial Ernesto Che Guevara on Plaza de la Revolucion, we opted for the cigar factory tour. And this is where the Lonely Planet actually managed to let us down! it's hard to believe, i know (we were shocked ourselves) but the Lonely Planet did not tell us anything about the tricky process of getting tickets for this tour. Patience was tested, we learned that no one gets to queue jump in Cuba (even though explaining the route to the other tour operator took longer than it would have taken to actually sell us the tickets) and the socialist government's control and regulation of the tourism industry became glaringly obvious.

i didn't really like the factory visit itself much - i felt like a spoiled rich westerner who without any second thoughts shelled out 1/3 of anyone in that factory's monthly wage on a 20min. tour and then hovered over the people trying to d a job where their pay is directly linked to the amount of cigars they turn out (and all their work is quality controlled - if a cigar is not of high enough standard, they don't get paid for it until they re-do it).

That afternoon, enthusiasm for exploring this new stop on our journey seemed completely drained so while the other 3 stayed at the casa, i went for a wander and then ended up sitting in a bar in Parque Vidal for a good 1½ hours. it was a really nice break because at this point i was a little sick of people's attitudes and what seemed to me as a refusal to give Santa Clara a chance, and while i don't claim to have been the picture of positivity on the entire trip (but let's face it, i'm not even that normally :) i was missing being surrounded by people who are open-minded to things in a similar way to how i am (and how i felt the people i met in india last year were).

The morning of the day we were leaving, we took a horse carriage to the Che memorial. The museum was really fascinating (i loved all the B/W photographs) and the statue looks exactly like it does on all the postcards.

Apart from being told off by a guard for sitting down on the steps of the monument, no revolutionary drama here... unlike the drama over how/when to set off from Santa Clara to Havana :S

i was quite happy to waste time until 22:00 when the Viazul bus would depart. Arriving in Havana in the middle of the night after 5 hours on a bus of course was not ideal but for the CUC$18 it cost, i would have been happy to. Our other option was getting a taxi which, according to the Lonely Planet, can get haggled down to CUC$50. We talked to one who said he'd drive us to Havana for CUC$60 which i also was happy enough to accept. he said he'd leave Santa Clara at 18:00 which did mean a late night arrival in Havana but once again, that was fine by me considering the price.

But it was the method of travel that we eventually took that showed how differently the 3 of us prioritise (Ian is too easy-going when it comes to these decisions so it would really be unfair to include him in this...). Money was, at this point, a concern for all of us but more so, it seemed, for Rachel and, to a lesser extent, Amy. However, they didn't want to hang about in Santa Clara but rather wanted to have the evening in Havana, which meant leaving Santa Clara at 13:00 and going with a friend of José's (he owned the casa that amy and ian were staying at). His price? CUC$90.

i had already voiced my opinion but in the end, the extra CUC$5-7 really weren't worth the argument with the girls and thus we set off on an extremely uncomfortable, extremely cold (damn airconditioning!) ride back to La Habana.

As a final note in this Santa Clara chapter, i have to just mention the casa me and rachel stayed at. Not only was she the nicest person i think we stayed with, her pork dinner and the fresh guava and mango juice she made us was amazing!!

Cuba pt. III - colonial architecture and tourism's siren call of consumption...

location: Trinidad, Sancti Spíritus

Rather than risking not getting bus tickets onwards to Trinidad after arriving in Havana from Viñales, we opted for sacrificing an extra CUC$3 each to get a taxi straight from the door in Viñales to the door at Mandy y Marilyn's casa particular in Trinidad.

In practice, this was not as horrible of an idea as initially feared. I got stuck in the middle seat since i'm short (Ian needs leg room) and wasn't hung-over (Amy and Rach had been drinking rum and dancing salsa till the wee hours of the morning) but there was plenty of room and natural airconditioning (i.e. open windows) so i really didnt think the trip was all that bad...


After 6 hours and having broken all speed limits, our tired driver dropped us off in Trinidad where our non-english-speaking host, Mandy, soon realised that Amy was pretty much the sole communication portal and proceeded to deliever all messages through her for the duration of our 4 day stay.

Having felt unwell for a few days, Ian stayed at the casa while the rest of us went on an exploratory wander and quest for pharmaceutical supplies and water. Finding the heat too much, Rach and Amy returned to the casa and left me to my own devices till dinner would be served at 8.


Had i not spend the 1½ hours walking along the streets of Trinidad that evening, i doubt this town would have fascinated me as much as it did. the late afternoon/early evening light is ideal and the streets were quiet and peaceful and showed few hints of being a 'tourist-mecca'. If first impressions are as crucial as they say, this was a good sign.




Keeping the pace slow, most of our first full day in Trinidad was spent playing cards at Bar Daiquiri where a few locals joined us and chatted away as Cubans who know english quite happily do, while laughing at us for writing postcards since, as they informed us, it easily takes up to 2 months for them to be delivered. we still sent them...

That evening, we met up with the guys from Bar Daiquiri at Trinidad's town version of resort entertainment, Casa de la Musica, where we joined the many many danish tourists for some live salsa music before heading up the mountain to Discoteca Ayala (aka La Cueva), an underground cave that has been converted into a nightclub. CUC$3 entry, free drink included, suited our student-selves just fine. The club itself scored major points for the kitsch factor, the bar and the dancefloor located at one end with the DJ booth mounted up high on the rock face, the toilets at the other end, and plenty of protruding and low-hanging rock formations to keep an eye out for. In any European country, this club would have broken all health and safety regulations. In Cuba, it seems, if there's an opportunity to drink and party, anything goes.

After being let down by our Cuban 'friends' who offered us a ride [ed: really they offered to provide the car and wanted one of us to drive. By default (Amy has never taken driving lessons, Rach only has a provisional licence and Ian hasn't driven since passing his test 4 years ago) i was appointed official chauffeur] to Topes de Collantes National Park in the Escambray mountain range the next morning, we decided it was time for a day at the beach. i'm not big on beach days generally since sunbathing bores me and i get restless with so little to do (i kind of feel that 22 is too old to be building sandcastles...) but i must admit i was dead-excited to finally swim in the Caribbean Sea. i'd been on that island for an entire week before we got near enough to water worth swimming in and despite Playa Ancón's beach hotels, and the resulting tourist-presence, it was a pretty enjoyable day and the water really was idylically and beautifully blue (think any postcard from the Caribbean).

The waterfall at Topes de Collantes was still intriguing us so the next day we set off along the steep, winding roads with a taxi arranged by Mandy's daughter (who works for a tour operator and knew english). It was immediately apparent that we had lucked out by our Cuban acquintances not having shown up the day before, because me driving their Cuban car on those roads would have been a recipe for disaster.

Topes de Collantes National Park, despite its obvious natural beauty, turned out to be my worst nightmare... our entry ticket warned us not to touch the wildlife and pictured a frog and that was pretty much the instant my brain shut down. phobias aren't rational and thus neither is mine of frogs. the idea of trekking for 1 hour downhill into a valley that i by then had cnvinced myself was crammed full of frogs, and kknowing that the only way out was the 1½ hour uphill trek back, was my idea of hell.








Not even the waterfall at the bottom, nor the lagoon-like lake we swam in, did much to convince me that the whole experience was worth it. oh, and in case anyone was wondering: no, we didn't see one single frog...

we did, however, get to see Cuba's national flower, the Mariposa (or butterfly lily):


Travelling can be quite testing for friendships and it was in Trinidad that we started noticing this. Of course it didn't help that pre-existing tension and drama travels with you even to practically the other side of the planet, and i think that is probably why me and Ian ended up having a bit of an argument that evening. it's tough having no one neutral to go to to vent frustrations and i think that's why we all began feeling the pressure of only being the 4 of us.

But it is nice when the strength of a friendship and the extent to which friends do care about each other despite differences of opinion become clear, and i think this was a situation when it did. so, one girly night out and a few talks later, things were pretty much back on track.

And so, after 4 eventful days, it was time to move on to the center of Che worship; Santa Clara.

Cuba pt. II - valleys, hills, Cristal and mojitos...

location: Viñales, Pinar Del Rio

Our first trip out of Havana of course happened to coincide with a sunday which, momentarily, had us worried there would be no buses or trains. However, the tourism industry is massively important and Cuba's impressively efficient bus system is proof of that.








For CUC$12 each, we secured spaces on a Viazul bus to Viñales in the Pinar Del Rio province, west of Havana. Viazul is the tourist version of the Astro buses but the air-conditioning made up for the lack of interaction with locals.

On schedule, 4 hours after our 9am departure from Havana, we arrived in Viñales and were met by Daimarelys whose parents Mario and Tita run the casa we would be staying at.

Casa particulares are quite possibly the most underrated attraction in Cuba. The rooms are always impeccably clean, towels are provided, air-cons and fans are practically standard, bathrooms private and spotless, and the food they make is definitely worth the added cost.

The casa in Viñales is not listed in the Lonely Planet but was arranged for us by the lady at Hotel Lido in Havana through whom we booked our bus tickets. She said she had a friend who ran a casa in Viñales and arranged the whole thing for us - Cuban helpfulness and cross-country friends/family linkage in its purest form.

After settling into our 2 double room, with sheets from Århus Amt's vaskeri (the 2004 edition), we visited the botanical garden where two old ladies keep a garden of all sorts of plansts, trees, and flowers. Being the nature-girl i am, the 'Cristal' tree was my personal favorite.


The heat got the better of us so by 4 o'clock the idea of going to a hill-top swimming pool seemed very very appealing. the emphasis here should be on 'idea' because trekking 5 km up a hill in 35 degree heat is not a brilliant experience in reality. it took us a while but the thought of a pool awaiting kept spirits up and oh how much sweeter it was to jump into that half-empty, dirty pool afterwards!

What really made an impression in Pinar Del Rio though was the setting. beautiful green mountain-like hills ('mogotes') and valleys stretched on far beyond what the Lonely planet's map of the region had let us to believe. the second day, we spent the morning trekking (i feel a theme developing here...) through forests and fields to a secluded tobacco plantation.


Ian and Amy miraculously managed this in flip-flops with only Ian incurring a few minor injuries when attempting to cross a river on a slippery log.

in the afternoon we got our first proper taste of Cuban hospitality when the taxi driver who took us to see the Cueva del Indio and the Mural de la Prehistoria asked if we wanted to see his house in the valley. Seizing the opportunity (and how could we not from a man wearing a flashing "jesus is my boss" cap), we agreed and got to meet his wife, got a tour of his house and garden. most notable feature: the solar panel in the garden!

(we later discovered that Cubans are required to replace light bulbs with energy efficient ones so we can only assume that this, in our minds, misplaced solar panel is part of this national energy efficiency policy)

Now, ideally, here i would post some incredible candid photos of the house, the family and the solar panel. however, i stupidly decided not to bring my camera with me so instead i'm going to post this photos of me regretting leaving my camera at the casa that day:

On our third and final day in Viñales, we joined the Danish couple that were staying in the neighbouring casa, their host, and a group of locals for quite the memorable experience. The neighbour owned a Ford tractor with a wooden carriage onto which we jumped and took in the bumpy experience of a 40min. drive on some authentic Cuban roads (read: potholes, poor pavement maintenance, and 'right side of the road? left side of the road? who cares as long as we dodge the biggest holes'). The tractor took us to a small waterfall (La Resbalosa - 'The Slippery Place') which isn't featured in any of the guidebooks but is well-known to local residents where we happily braved the brown, muddy water for the chance to cool down and lounge about away from the rather intimidating heat and the sweatiness we had been subjected to in Cuba thus far.

With postcards bought, balcony views photographed (see below), and bags packed, we left Viñales at 9am on our 7th day in Cuba. ½ way through the holiday, but significantly more than ½ way through our budgets...