CUBA!

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The flight was ok, a bit late but we had our inflight meal and drinks and a few hours later landed in Cuba!! We arrived at about 10.30pm in Havana. Customs was strict, with a photo taken of every person, and only one person allowed at the desk at a time with a locked door that they buzz open for you once you have been processed, they also check that you have travel insurance and a tourist card which they stamp (we didnt have a stamp in our passports which was disappointing). They didnt ask us anything about where we were staying or if we had anything booked. We went to our carousel and had to wait (with most of the other passengers) for a good half hour or maybe more for all the luggage to be put on the carousel! the same 10 bags went around and around for ages!! Finally our bags came, we went through the nothing to declare line, got the labels on our bags checked with our passport names and off we were in Havana! We went straight to the casa de cambio (change house) in the airport to change the euros we bought in San Jose into Cuban tourist convertibles. We went outside and got in a big yellow taxi for 20CUC (convertibles) which took us the half hour ride or so into the city of Havana, we arrived at our Casa Particular thay we had booked 2 days before via email at around 11.30pm and they took us to our room (in a different building, they were full but their neighbour had a room which we took for 25CUC a night). Our hostess was lovely and the room was great, aircon, private bathroom with a hot shower. Her son also lived with her and by coincidence he had been to australia! We went to bed after doing all the documents they needed done with our passports.
Next morning we went for breakfast at the original casa particular, it was great! There was an omelette with a type of pancake underneath served with tomatoes and cucumberto put on it. Fresh juice, toast with butter and honey available on the table. There were sweet pastries and fruit platters as well as tea and coffee. We ate our fill and I went and had a nap, i was still really tired. Dario went out to buy water and just get our bearings. He arrived back at about 11.30am and we went for a walk around town. La Parada was one block away, a big road where the 2 directions of traffic are separated by a large walkway with trees and seats etc and decorations. We walked up the road to parque central and eventually found (by asking numerous people) a casa de cambio where we bought 20CUC worth of the non-tourist currency ´moneda nacional´. We then did a kind of self guided walk that the lonely planet recommends to a few big lovely squares, past a cathedral or 2 and other attractions. One building we went into was camera oscura It had a high roof where you could go and see the view of the city but the special thing about it was the peroscopic tour that they do for 2CUC per person. There is a dark room with a kind of white big dish in it that the guide moves up and down to focus the image. The image is a real time reflection from the peroscope on top of the tower that is moved by the guide with ropes and a pole that spins to see the whole city a bit closer and the guide tells the history of a lot of the building we look at. It was a pretty amazing thing! you could see all the people walking in the square and the washing flapping in the wind, it was a bit surreal as yourmind doesnt expect the image to be moving.
After the tower we walked down a road and decided to eat lunch, it wasnt very spectacular, but it cost only about 6CUC for a full meal and drink each. We continues our walk for the next few hours and at about 5 returned to our casa. The buildings in Havana are lovely, a little unkept but all colonial with high ceilings, high doors and windows and facades. Many of them are a few hundred years old. The theatres (from the outside anyway) are all pretty spectaular as well. A lot of the streets are cobble stone. The other thing that we loved about Havana but also cuba in general are the cars! There are a few newer cars around the place but they all have tourist number plates on them (red with a T at the beginning) which means they are hire cars. But the majority of the cars are from the 1950´s with a few from up to the 70´s and 80´s. The trucks are msotly big old russian trucks and a lot of owners of vehicles are their own mechanic. At about 7pm we went to the other casa for dinner, I had chicken and since Dario had said he´ll have whatever, they made him lobster! But both dinners were really nice and we shared the table with 3 other couples, one from france, one from canada and we think one from new zealnd. Along with the meat on our plates there were huge plates of rice, beans, salad, bread and fruit in the middle of the table. We had organised with the hostess that morning to go and buy us bus tickets to Viñales the next morning so we recieved our tickets and organised an early b´fast for the next morning since the bus left at about 8.30am. We went for a late walk after dinner in search of icecream and found some! just like cornettos but still a nice dessert.
Next morning we had our early b´fast, and they´d organised a cab for us (a 50´s cab!) and off we went to the terminal. The cabby did a bit of a scenic route for us so we could see plaza de revolucion which was too far for us to walk too the day before and gave Dario a magnet with Che on it. We arrived at the terminal with plenty of time. Our bags got tagged and when it was time the bagman cook our luggage and us (along with about 6 other people waiting in the terminal) to the place where the bus should have been but it was 10 mins late so we just stood waiting. Its a bit of a separate system if you´re a tourist in Cuba, you pay more for everything and the services are slightly better. The bus lines that tourists take are totally separate to those that the locals take and the prices are so high that most local cubans have no hope of affording a ticket on the Viazul or Transtur buses. We wanted to do the cuban thing but it plays on your concience because there are rarely enough seats on the local Astro buses for the locals who need them so they end up waiting hours for one with enough seats so if we add to the queue it doesnt seem fair. Our Viazul bus turned up and off we went to Viñales. It took the bus about 4 hours to arrive in Viñales. While in our casa in Havana they had organised through their network that we had a casa booked. When we got off the bus it was crazy! there were people everywhere yelling ´friend, amigo, casa?´ so we were glad we didnt have to deal with it because there was a lovely older lady with a sign saying Yesica y Dario waiting for us. We grabbed our bags and off we walked following her to her casa particular a few blocks away.
The house was lovely, Our room was 20CUC with aircon and a private bathroom with hotwater! It was right opposite the local sports field that was in fact a baseball field, but there was a running track (carved by the years of people running) around the edge and lots of people play football in the outfield. THere were stands as well but the roof was gone, apparently the hurricane a few years before had ripped it off and there was no funding to replace it. We settled in and went for a little walk. We had organised to eat dinner at the casa later. We didnt do much, but when 2 teams started doing a training session on the baseball diamond I went to watch and Dario got our his little football we bought in costa rica and played with some kids. The 2 teams I watched were of different age groups but the younger boys did really well. It was a mini game. There was 1 helmet that everyone used to bat, one bat, and one glove per fielding position so everytime they changed innings they would give the gloves to the other team. Dario managed to find out that the big boys were playing football a bit later and got onto a team. I wasnt really allowed, but they played so aggressively Im glad I didnt bother pushing to play. Instead I played with 3 yound boys and the small football, we played for an hour in 2 teams just basically throwing to one another and trying to keep it off the other team. I realised just how unfit i was!
Eventually the sun set and we said goodnight to everyone and headed in for showers (lots of dust on the field so we were filthy!) and were ready just in time for dinner. The dinner was delicious! But there was way too much food so we ate what we could. Dario asked the lady if the leftovers get eaten and she said they did, which made us feel better coz we had left quite a lot. We went to bed a bit exhausted. Next morning we had brekky at 9, fried eggs, vegies, fruit platters, juice, toast and honey and tea and coffee. We had orghanised a cheap walking tour of the valley with some of the guys Dario had played football with but because it was an off the books tour (on thebooks they are about 70CUC!! because the guide has to pay a large amount to the government for taking a tour) for 10CUC each, it was too risky as there were inspectors wandering around. So we chatted to the guy for an hour before oragnising to meet at 2. We went for a wander in town and had to get money out. We went to the internet cafe to move money around our accounts, it took a while, we had to buy an internet card, then wait for one of the 2 computers that worked, then the internet was so slow it was very irritating! it took 30 mins to do something that normally takes 5! Finally we were done there and wandered into the bank where my Visa was the only card they would accept. I signed a few things, they checked my passport and I got my money.
We had lunch before our tour, we bought 2 pizzas, a very common item and one of the only things that we can buy with moneda nacional. It costs 10 pesos per pizza (1CUC is about 25 pesos, so the tourists pay a lot more than locals for everything). The lemonades we bought from the supermarket were 0.50CUC each, so they were more expensive than the pizzas! We met our guide at 2 and off we went. We talked a lot about Cuba and other places. We walked to a few fincas (farms) of coffee, tomatoes, he showed us pineapple farms and tobacco. We eventually walked to the hills behind the town. The whole area is a karst landscape with lots of limestone rock features. We walked up one hill to a cave mouth which apparently was widened and goes all the way through to the other side to serve as a hurricane refuge for the locals. We walked to the back and the boys continued to a point on the other side, but I was feeling a bit rundown and didnt go any further. The views were really nice from up there though. Most walls of the cave were covered with peoples names and comments on the area.
We wandered back to the town the same way we went. It was a great 3 hour round trip and we learned quite a lot about the attitudes of people there. Of course Dario wanted to play football again and off he went with our guide to play. I chilled out in the casa and went and collected him in time for dinner. We had the same as the night before (we had a choice but everywhere chicken is the cheapest option so thats what we ordered). That night we wanedered down the street to another house where we were told a salsa teacher lived, he was there and we organised a class for 9pm for 5CUC each. We packed our bags for the following morning (we had already booked a transtur bus to Trinidad for the morning) a returned at 9. Both of us are beginners, but he managed to mould us a bit and by the end we could do (with an obivous need for more practice) the basic couple of salsa moves, changes of direction, and 3 types of turns which was exciting! I ended up with blisters on the balls of my feet from the turns though as I did it barefoot on a concrete floor. We had a lot of fun!

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Photos

The Granma
This is the boat that Che and Fidel arrived into Cuba in 1957 to start the major part of the revolution.