Fidel, Che y Cuba Libre

Habana (Havana)

The flight from Cancun to Havana takes less than an hour, but it feels like a different planet. Correction: a different time in history, closer to 1970. We both really enjoyed Havana, despite having been warned how bad it is. However, with our expectations sufficiently lowered, the annoyances were manageable. These included people asking for money, trying to get you onto their taxi or spinning you a yarn to feel sorry for them and to give them money. It's hard to say no, as foreign currency really is like gold here for them. In Cuba there are 2 currencies: the CUC is for foreigners and the peso is for locals. The CUC  is worth about 25 pesos, but they aren't easily convertible. Something costing 1 pesos will usually cost about 1 CUC for foreigners, though it is still cheap (a dinner can cost 6 CUCs, for example. If you pay less than 4 CUCs for food you may have to add another one later).

Che, their national hero, can be found on walls, doors and t-shirts across the country.

Havana is a strange city. There are thousands of classic cars interspersed with Russian-made taxies. That said, there isn't much traffic on the roads. There are always hundreds of people on the pavements, either walking, chatting or playing with friends. The streets themselves are surprisingly clean, with very limited amounts of litter. Most of the buildings are in dire need of paint, touch-ups or full blown reconstruction, and there is a shortage on lots of basics - both hotels we went to for breakfast had no toilet paper in the bathrooms. It is also almost impossible to buy anything which isn't a Che t-shirt. Even softdrinks or snacks are hard to come by. And it is always hot.

Some things in Cuba are strange. A life-size topless woman riding a chicken with a fork in hand is one of them.

The accommodation set up in Cuba is very interesting. There are a limited number of hotels, but there are thousands of Casas Particulares, which are private residences where one rents a room in the house of a local family. Being a communist country, even this is regulated to 2 rooms per house, and only if you have a permit. We stayed with a family of 6, spanning 4 generations of women. They had a cute toddler with a penchant for head-butting her 50 year-old doll. Casas particulares also remind us of visiting grandmothers, as they have old furniture, ancient photos and a desire to feed you until bursting. As a way of making extra money these homes offer meals as well, for a few CUCs. The choices are usually chicken, pork, shrimp or lobster, they all come with a soup starter and a dessert, as well as at least 4 starches, and all of them are truly delicious.

For all its dereliction, Habana is still a very pretty city.

Whilst in Havana we visited the Museo de la Revolucion, which detailed the heroic deeds of Fidel, Che, Raul and the gang as they took control of Cuba. Although dripping with propaganda, it is still an impressive story. We also visited many beautiful plazas, book shops (90% of books have Che or Fidel on the cover, and the rest are anti-American), art museums and cigar shops. And the cigars are seriously good, though we were fleeced by Orlando, a smooth-talking man who sold us over-priced, potentially fake, Montecristos. It was hard to argue with him, carrying his plastic bag of food rations.

Vinales

Vinales is about 150km west of Havana, or 3.5 hours by bus. And it is a beautiful place. It is lush, warm and in a beautiful valley littered with limestone cliffs shrouded in trees. When walking around the farms bordering the town it is hard to argue that ol' Fidel has got something right. Instead of battery chicken farms or pig factories, the farms here are what we read about as kids. There are chickens and pigs running around and the primary mode of transport is either horseback or a horse-drawn carriage. Farms also grow a number of different crops each, instead of a single crop. Most farms were growing combinations of mangoes, avocados, bananas, plantains, apples and the ever-present tobacco. We visited a tobacco shed where were shown how to make cigars. 

Marcelle sampling the good stuff. Our casa particular in Vinales was rather pink.

Our guide on one of our walks was Wilfredo, a chatty local. And boy was Wilfredo proud of his cock. Of the bird variety. It was the reigning cockfighting champion, it would seem, and although cockfighting is strictly illegal Wilfredo kept bringing our stilted Spanish conversation back to his prizefighter. I guess this is what passes for entertainment without foreign media or Internet.

On our idyllic walk through the farmlands of Vinales.

It was also in Vinales that Marcelle attempted to, and succeeded in, obtaining her third medal in spectacular wipeouts for the trip. If you can remember correctly Marcelle has had a volcano and a banana-boat wipeout to date, and in Vinales she added bicycle wipeout to that list. We were on a morning ride on a narrow road when Marcelle lost control of her machine and tumbled into the road next to a red car and right in front of a truck. Fortunately, other than bruises, scratches and a buckled wheel, she was okay, but we decided to walk back into town instead of risking wipeout 4.

The countryside just outside Vinales.

On one of the afternoons we decided to walk to a hilltop hotel for sundowners, but our walk was curtailed within 5 minutes by heavy rain which resulted in the 2 of us huddled underneath Marcelle's  umbrella, stranded where we were. Our situation worsened 10 minutes later when a thunderstorm developed, and we were eventually offered respite on a local family's porch. Our conversation was, once again, stilted, but this time the reason was less to do with our poor Spanish and more to do with the fact that they were blind drunk (borracho) on cheap local rum. After pouring some on the floor to please the saints we were soon drinking from the bottle and feeling woozy as well.

Being shown how to roll genuine cigars by a tobacco farmer.

Trinidad de Cuba 

Trinidad lies east of both Havana and Vinales, and takes 6 hours by taxi to get there from Vinales. And what an uncomfortable taxi it was. I think the last time that car saw cushioning was before the revolution. Trinidad sits between some relatively high mountains and the sea, and is Cuba's 3rd oldest settlement, dating back 500 years. It is known for its coffee and sugarcane plantations - whilst there we even tried a fresh lemonade squeezed straight from the sugar cane, which was yummy.

Fidel and his revolution-starting boat the Granma (seriously), this time adorning a rural water tank.

Whilst in Trinidad we visited their beach, went horseback riding again (this time to a lovely pool in the forest) and went for a long, steep walk to a waterfall, via an old coffee plantation and museum. They like their coffee here like they like their women: strong, black and sweet. It kept us up the one night, it was so strong. It was either the coffee or the music blaring from the nearby plaza where they were celebrating a festival.

Overlooking one of the many beautiful vistas in Cuba.

Some of the 60,000 classic cars on Cuban roads.