Havana to Cartagena, Colombia

Today we got chatting to a lovely English girl name Merrily who was staying at the same Casa as us. She was a very interesting girl, and we chatted with her for quite some time.

After this we headed off out into Havana to a small square we had found just yesterday afternoon, via La Bodeguita Del Medio. Yesterday I had bought a Montecristo Cigar to have a crack at and today was our final time in Cuba, so this was as good a time as any. So standing outside La Bodeguita Del Medio  I decided to go and light it up in the bar.

We wandered around for a little while, and then made our way back to the casa to get our taxi to the airport. Merrily was heading to the Viazul bus station to get her ticket to go to Santa Clara tomorrow, so we shared a taxi with her as it was on the way to the airport.

Our taxi driver had no idea where he was going, which was interesting considering he was a taxi driver. We were not exactly killing it for time, and unfortunately he took us to the wrong terminal. We kind of suspected it wasn't the correct terminal when we were on our way, and I asked him to make sure and he assured us it was right. Along the way we picked up some random guy (collective taxis are a big thing in Cuba) and dropped him at the terminal - he went and found out for us that it was the wrong place, and told us the right terminal.

The driver took us there and dropped us off - we went inside the terminal with our backpacks, and were about to get them cling-wrapped for the flight to Colombia when we noticed that Nikkis backpack wreaked of petrol. It was absolutely doused in it. Soaking. We assumed it must have come from the boot of the dodgy Lada car that took us to the airport. We did all we could with a bottle of water and a packet of tissues to clean it as best we could, got it wrapped, got checked in and got on the plane for Bogota.

We finally arrived at our final destination in Cartagena on a street called Media Luna at around 2am. We are staying at a hostel called the Mystic House Hostal, and it looks not too bad, however the room we are currently in has no window and is quite claustrophobic.

Should be interesting to see what Colombia offers up!

Viñales to Havana

Alas, it was time to bid farewell to Viñales and make our way back to Havana.

We decided to take the "Coast" road (even though it didn't really run along the coast) and we made our way back through some spectacular scenery.

We were hoping to go to Las Terrazas, but as we hadn't really had accommodation sorted in Havana, and this coupled with what I thought was going to be a major hassle with the return of the rental car because of the keying incident that occurred on the 2nd day of the car rental, we thought it best to just keep on trucking through to Havana.

Whilst we had the car, we drove to a couple of Casa Particulars that were listed in The Rough Guide to Cuba on Neptuno Street. The first one we went to was full, but the one that was next door had availability and turned out to be absolutely fantastic. It was called "Casa Miriam y Sinai". Anyone looking for accommodation in Havana, I would heavily recommend staying here. Both Miriam and her daughter are absolutely lovely and run a fantastic establishment that is very traditionally colonial.

We dumped our stuff, and went to return the rental car. After a few nerve racking moments, it turns out they didn't really notice the incident as I was pretty meticulous at marking damage to the car when I took it, and pretty much every panel was marked with damage on the piece of paper, which I think helped. Either way, we were done with it and all was well with the world.

We then went for a final walk down Obispo and got caught in an absolutely torrential downpour. Complete and utter chaos. We just did what the locals did and found some cover and just stood and watched the storm. It must have lasted around half an hour, but it was great to just people watch anyway.

Back to find some internet time at the Parque Central Hotel and to print out our boarding passes for our next destination - Colombia! We're off to Cartagena tomorrow, hopefully to meet up with my old boss, Scott, and to check out the area. I'm sure it will certainly offer us a different experience than Cuba, but both Nikki and I are a little apprehensive about it, just because we are a little unsure of what we are in for. I'm sure it's going to be an experience, one way or the other!

Viñales Day 2

We desperately needed to access the internet as we had a few loose ends to tie up. Even though there is the technical ability to do this in Viñales, it turns out that it's just not that easy.

In Cuba you have to buy an access card to access the internet. They are costly, and we have found along the way that they can be a bit difficult to come across.

We went to the counter to try and buy one yesterday, but they told us they didn't have any. We came back this morning, and apparently they still didn't have any. This was not cool, as we really needed to sort out a few things, and we are sending a weekly email to our families to let them know we are safe. Unfortunately these are the joys of a socialist society.

We ended up pleading with the guy in the internet room, and he eventually relented and gave us a half hour card he had stashed away.

We finally connected to the internet, logged onto gmail, and... nothing. It just wouldn't load. We waited 5 minutes. Then 10. After 15 minutes of trying to get the page to load, we had to give up and conserve the last 15 minutes of internet time so we could try again another time.

After we had finished with this, we decided we were going to go for the 1 hour drive to Playa Jutia, which we had heard was a nice fairly untouristy beach. The roads down to this beach were shocking, even by Cuban standards, and we had to show our passport at the entrance to the Cays. Then we had to pay our $3CUC for parking. But WOW - when you see beaches like this, you can really fairly easily forgive a lot of the problems with the society. Amazing. Relatively deserted. Palm tree parasols to sit under, and a palm-frond bar. Crystal clear water, and sand that was so fine that you could use it on your skin like a mud scrub.

It's near a mangrove area, and I guess the combination of the mangroves and the coral nearby combine to give white mangrove mud almost. Either way, it was heaven on earth.

We had to move out of our accommodation today, but we found another place around the corner that we initially wanted to go to, and they were available and the place is awesome.

Once again Cuba has managed to enrage and enthral, all in the same day. Still one of the most stunning places we've visited though!

Viñales Day 1

As the sun rose over the Viñales valley, we rose from our beds ready for our day of hiking to a Tobacco Plantation.

We had a hearty breakfast and set off with Sandro, our guide for the day, who we were assured spoke English well.

About 3 minutes into the drive there, we worked out that he spoke about as much English as we spoke Spanish - near enough to zip.

A friend of mine, Scott, had told me about a crappy hike he did when he was in Cuba through a Tobacco plantation with a guide who didn't speak English. Pretty sure we ended up on the same hike.

Disregarding this, the scenery was absolutely stunning, and we tried to work out as much as we could about it all and we think we got the gist of the whole thing. Apparently the best months for planting are November / December, it takes 3 months to grow, and then after it is harvested, it takes a further 3 months to dry out in their drying rooms. At one point we were so sick of the uselessness of the guide, we started our own tour and started pointing out made up facts about the region.

We went to the actual farm house, where one of the farmers showed us how they hand make the cigars. His English was excellent, and he explained the whole thing very well.

I finally got to smoke a cigar, and it was absolutely lovely. The farmer was saying how that they have to give 90% of their crop to the government as the quota, and that they're allowed to retain 10% for the purposes of selling to tourists. He said that the process they use for handmaking the cigars in the farm is to remove the stem, as it contains 70% of the nicotine in the tobacco plant. This is to make it a lighter flavour. The ones that they make, they soak the leaves in honey, grapefruit and rum to add to the flavour. The hand-rolled cigars are sealed with honey as an adhesive, and it also had honey around the mouth area of the cigar. It was bloody awesome.

During the hike we also went to a cave, which was actually really impressive, however due to the lack of resources of the country, unfortunately it wasn't as exploited as well as it could have been.

Cuba so far has us feeling torn in two - absolutely loving it, and despising it in equal measure. Despite all this, on the balance of things, Cuba does still rock.

Varadero to Viñales

Woke up not so early, but after getting too much sun yesterday, decided we might as well head off to Viñales. As the maps were very sketchy, it was a case of just heading in the right direction and hoping for the best. The drive from Varadero to Viñales was due to take about 5 or 6 hours, and we didn't decide to do this until after we had woken up quite late. As a consequence of this, we thought it might be a good idea to book some accommodation for Viñales once we got to Havana as we would be able to get a hold of a telephone and could make some calls. We booked a place called Villa Dona Hilda after the usual Cuban kerfuffle and were back on the road.

We pulled out of Havana at around 2pm, and headed down the Autopista towards Pinar Del Rio, which is in the general direction of Viñales  We made pretty quick ground and by about 2:30 were well and truly heading in the right direction. We decided that we'd get off the Autopista and take some other roads towards our ultimate destination for the day. As mentioned before, the maps of Cuba might as well be a map of the Earth from the Sun. We got VERY lost before finding one of our way points - San Andres - and once we got there, we were getting a LOT of strange looks from the locals. We ended up stopping and asking a local for directions in our ridiculous broken Spanish, and worked out that we were going to have to go back out the way we came and go through a place called La Palma, a 30km detour. By the time we had reached La Palma, it was about 5:30pm and we have been told not to be on the roads at night at all in Cuba - after seeing the condition of the roads, we have a rule where we need to be off the roads by about 6pm. Getting to La Palma FINALLY, we were on the right path, and we eventually rolled into Viñales at about 6:30pm - still daylight - JUST. We went and checked out the Casa we had booked and what can I say other than the Rough Guide to Cuba guide book was a little wrong about this place - it was not so great - and after the debacle of our "hotel" in Varadero, we were quite keen to get a place that was actually quite nice. We saw a place on the main road on our way in that looked absolutely lovely, so we went and checked it out - unfortunately it was fully booked for that night, but we were planning to stay in Viñales for 3 nights, and we asked the very kind host if she knew of other Casa's that were as nice as hers. We went for a bit of a walk, and checked out one other, and it was absolutely lovely and even though we're pretty sure we got taken by about $5CUC for the night, it was worth it to finally be writing this blog from a comfortable room.

We had a beautiful dinner of Lobster and Chicken and rice and beans (again... it's a staple for Cuba), and finally went to bed in a comfortable room with no noise.

Trinidad Day 4 (Architecture Museum, Car Rental)

Interesting times were assured today as we were due to pick up the rental car. It was never going to be straightforward in Cuba, and so it proved to be.

Initially our biggest problem was that we were not going to be able to pick up the car without the internet voucher. This was a problem because on the Internet Access Point computers, you don't have the ability to print. We went and saw a chap called Ronnee at one of the fanciest hotels in town, and he said we could email it to him to print. We tried this, however the access points also don't allow you to download documents. We tried screen capturing and emailing the screen caps to Ronnee, but unfortunately this didn't work as his computer didn't have access to the internet to be able to download the attachments on the email. We ended up taking photos of the screen with my phone and hoped we could just show that.

In the afternoon we went for a walk through the Architecture Museum which was pretty much an old colonial house on the main square, that was restored to be how it was from about 300 years ago. This was a fantastic experience as we had the loveliest old lady who was our guide through the museum - she didn't speak a single word of English, but through a lot of hand gestures and reading and trying to understand her we pretty much got the gist of everything that she was telling us about the interesting architecture of the building. Very cooly, the ceramic tiles for the roof are actually formed from laying the raw clay over the maker's thigh, and this gives it a unique half-moon funnel shape so that when they are placed together on top of each other and upside down they are very effective roofing tiles.

Later, when we were due to pick the car up, we walked up to the office, and it was closed - inexplicably. We had a contact number on the reservation form, so we bought a phone card, and after another hour of stuffing around working out how to dial correctly (it's very complicated in Cuba, even when you know how), I managed to get through to a lady who spoke great English and she told me she'd find out what was happening and I had to call her back in 10 mins. I did this, and she said that we were going to have to go to the other office, which was about a 15 minute walk away. No problem. Off we set, get to the office, and there's no one there either. Then after a few minutes, some guy comes screeching up behind us in a slightly beaten up Geely GS 1.5 CK, and asked us to get in. OK.... He assured us he was from the rental car company and that we would now have to go back to the original office. He would drive us there.

We get to the original office and there is a chap inside now, and we go in there, sort out all the paperwork, and leave with the car we have just arrived in.

We went for a drive to the Beach to just have a look, but it turned out that we were running out of light by this point, and we had been told that it was not a good idea to be on the roads in the dark in Cuba. After seeing the quality of the bitumen and the size of the potholes, we can understand why! Some of the roads in the UK are pretty bad, but they've got nothing on Cuba.

We got back to Trinidad, tucked the car away for the night and went for a walk out into town. We went to a bar called "La Canchanchara" named for the famous drink of the area. Strangely their version of what we had the other night at Davimart was no where near as good. 

We had a wander around the town again, and ended up back at San Jose for dinner.

Trinidad Day 3 (Steam Trains, Sugar Cane Farms and Death Metal in Cuba)

In the evening yesterday, we got chatting to a lovely couple of girl German backpackers that were staying in the other room of our Casa and they mentioned that they were going to catch the steam train up to Ignazu Manaca, which was an old Sugar farm, which still had the large tower for looking out over the fields to keep an eye on the slaves.

We thought this sounded like a great idea and decided to do it. We were going to catch the train with them, however they ended up having a massive night out, and were so hungover that they couldn't do it - we decided to carry on without them.

The train was due to leave at 9:30, and we didn't leave our Casa until about 9:15 - we were sure we were going to miss it, however we got the station on time as it was only a short way away from the Casa - and then realised that this was Cuba and everything runs on Cuban time anyway. 

The train eventually left after much kerfuffle at around 10am. It was a beautiful ride out through the countryside, and very relaxing. Once we got to Ignazu, we went and climbed the slave tower, which stands at 44.5 metres high, and has 7 different viewing platforms. It looks out over the sugar cane fields and certainly offers a pretty spectacular view for quite a distance.

After this we had a bit of a wander around the very small settlement, and waited for the train to come back - we didn't really know what the story was, and thought that this was pretty much it for the day. The train came, and then took us down the track in reverse for about another few kilometres, then stopped. We had stopped at a ranch, where we had the ability to ride a horse through the sugar cane fields and what not. Nik and I were both knackered, so we decided not to and just sat around having a cold drink and lazing on the colonial balcony of this old farm house. It was a very relaxing and tranquil afternoon.

We finally jumped back on the train for the journey back into Trinidad. After we got back, we went to the Casa for a sleep, only to be woken up initially by absolutely hammering rain, the first rain we'd seen in Cuba, and then about 15 minutes later the house we were in was struck by lightning! Never have I heard anything so loud and bizarre - a buzz, followed by the loudest crack you've ever heard. It was even weirder as there hadn't really been any lightning before or after this one strike. According to the Casa owner, it blew one of the light fittings clean off the ceiling downstairs, and smoke came out from her phone. 

In the afternoon, we decided to go for a walk to try and get our car rental voucher printed off. We should have realised that in Cuba it wouldn't be that easy. We could get access to the Internet, but it didn't have a printer connected. We could get access to a printer, but that printer's computer couldn't access the Internet. 

We ended up taking photos of the screen, and decided that would have to do for the car rental mob.

We went for a bit more of a wander around Trinidad, and eventually went to a place called Sol y Son for dinner. The food was really quite average, and the service was terrible despite it being reasonably ranked on Trip Advisor.

Making our way home from here quite late in the evening, and in Parque Central, there is loud music playing and we decided to stop and have a listen to work out what was going on.

After waiting around listening to ear-splitting metal for an hour or so, some Death Metal bands came on at about midnight and started playing so loud it was just crazy. We listened for a short while, realised that we're not into Death Metal, and headed home. It was so loud though, that it was certainly going to mean that sleep was going to be an issue. And so it was.

Of all the things I never thought I'd ever do in my life, I can certainly count watching a live death-metal concert in Cuba right up there.

Trinidad Day 2

Today we got up and rented a couple of bikes and rode down to Playa Ancon near Trinidad. It's about 14km away from Trinidad, and we thought it would be nice to go for a ride in the sunshine and get some air and then go for a swim.

Boy, we are glad we did - what a beautiful day.

As per usual, we were told initially that the bikes were going to cost $3CUC per person per day, but when we turned up they tried to charge us $4CUC - I told them I'd just get a bus, as it would be the same cost, and that they should not be charging so much - they reduced it back to the $3CUC, but I got the impression that they weren't happy about it.

The ride down to the beach was fantastic, however we had been warned about the fact that it would take us about 3 times as long to get back, as it is uphill the entire way back.

We stopped for a number of photos along the way, helped out a German couple who were wondering where they could go for a swim (they were staying at La Boca, which doesn't really have any beaches, and we told them that they'd probably need to rent a bike and ride to Playa Ancon which was about 9 km away), and we also got bailed up by bulls on the side of the road. I tried to suggest to Nikki that they were probably used to people going past all the time, but as Nikki was wearing a red shirt, she was quite a bit less keen to make her way past them. Luckily we had another couple come through, and we tagged on the back of them and made our way through as we figured with 4 of us we'd stand more of a chance. They didn't even look at us twice! :-)

Once we got to the beach, we had the joy of having to pay to park the bicycles. $1CUC per bike per day - it's not much money (about £0.60), but it really is a bit annoying to keep having to dig into your pocket every 5 minutes, and as we're on a backpackers budget, it's still money coming out of more important things.

Either way though, none of this should be read as a complaint - not at all - it's just hard getting used to different ways of doing things, and the fact that the locals see us as a walking dollar bill, and seeing the way that the vast majority of them live, you can definitely understand why.

The beach itself was absolutely stunning, and we set ourselves up with a nice spot under a shady tree, got our towels out, and set about doing not much for many hours. It was pure bliss. We eventually got bored and made our way into the water for a dip and to cool off and the water was the most amazing crystal clear colour near the edge, and progressed to a dark azure. With the coconut trees on the beach, the pure white sand and the water as clear as this, it must be one of the nicest beaches we've ever seen.

Absolutely amazing.

We made our way back to Trinidad after this, and after a long sweaty ride back, we got back quite late, had a shower and got ready to go out for dinner.

We walked down to a restaurant we had seen on Tripadvisor that was called Davimart - we weren't sure what to expect, as it was in a bit of a dodgy part of town, and there was a flashing LED "Open" sign out the front - going inside revealed that it looked like it was a complete and utter tourist trap and that it was  bit expensive, and there was an American tour group in there - Nikki and I were both keen to leave, and were about to walk out however they had already placed a welcome cocktail on our table, so as we got up to leave I explained to them that we were backpackers and we couldn't afford the prices - the lovely waitress told us to wait a moment and then came back with the head chef / owner "Davi" who explained that the tour group were there honouring him tonight, and that he would be happy to do dinner for us for $6CUC each, so long as we had pork. We were very thankful and agreed (particularly as this was a great price for a nice restaurant), and what a miraculous find this place turned out to be - it's funny how you can't always trust first impressions - for what appeared to be a tourist trap, the food was absolutely top notch - incredible even - and the service was impeccable. We ended up with a 5 course meal and a local cocktail called a "La Canchanchera" and followed up by a Ron Havana Gran Reserva for $6CUC each. At any rate, this meal should have been only $10CUC each anyway at full price - an absolute bargain. We ended up paying them much more than $6CUC as it was worth it - their food was to die for.

Davi's story was incredible too, and it was great to get the opportunity to chat with the man about his background and dealing with the workings of socialism.

All in all, it was a sensational day.

Havana to Trinidad

Today we caught the bus from Havana to Trinidad. This meant we had to get up around 5:30 so that we could get a taxi to the bus station to get our tickets an hour before the 8am departure, and the bus station was the other side of the city.

The bus station didn't open until 7am, but we made sure we were there by around 6:30 to be sure to get a good spot in the queue so we could ensure we got on the bus.

Luckily we did this, as the bus certainly appeared to be full. It was a crazy morning, but we are now safely tucked up in our Casa Particulare in Trinidad called Casa Arecelys. We had arranged for this to be booked from Havana with our previous hosts, so when we got off the bus, there was someone waiting for us with a sign and a bici-taxi. It is quite nice and has a beautiful terrace for breakfast and for chilling out in.

The drive on the bus down from Havana was beautiful, and awesomely we passed through an area there called Central Australia (which actually has it's own interesting history within Cuba as being crucial to some of the aerial assaults during the Bay of Pigs invasion).

We passed along the coastal area near Australia and it was absolutely stunning - we were on the Caribbean side of the island now, and even though the Atlantic side is a.mazing, the Caribbean side looked fantastic too.

After we arrived in Trinidad, got sorted with the place, we went for a wander through the town to check it out. The location of our Casa was brilliant, being only about a block away from Parque Central, the main square in Trinidad (there are 2 - there is the 'touristy' main square, and then there is the one that is 1 block from us that the locals hang out at....)

We went on to the touristy square, and got some great photos of the sun setting on the square. Trinidad is certainly a beautiful place - it's celebrating it's 500 year birthday as a city in 2014 so it was cool to be there for it. The main part of the town is also a UNESCO world heritage site - the colonial buildings in the town certainly give it a different feel to Havana, but it is beautiful albeit in a different way to Havana - Havana's beauty I think is from it's rustic-ness and the fact that it IS run down - there is a main square in Havana where they have done it up, and it feels very unauthentic. 

Tonight we went to a restaurant called San Jose and it was really quite nice - we've been struggling a bit with decent food in Havana, but we found a great place in this restaurant.

Havana Day 3

Today we went on an open-air bus tour around Havana. This took us a few hours, and then we had a heap of admin stuff to try and sort out again, (mostly just tidying up leaving London) so we spent a few hours on the Internet again doing this. We also had a look into our bus tickets on the Viazul website to see about the best way of getting from Havana to Trinidad and seeing if we could book tickets, but it appeared that the best way was just to go to the bus station early. Apparently we were in high season, and there's a good chance that tickets can be sold out, so we're a bit worried about whether we're going to get on the bus tomorrow.

It was annoying to have to spend time in a hotel doing all this stuff, when we really wanted to be enjoying Havana, but it did have to happen, unfortunately.

Apart from this, we ended up going out for dinner on the Malecon (beach promenade) and it was quite nice. The place was quite modern and the food reasonably tasty, and they definitely deserved to be doing better business than they were doing. I guess that's one of the sort of things that happens in Cuba though.

It's been very interesting learning about the Revolution, Castro's background, Che's interesting ways, and everything about it. We've been doing some reading about it all and it's an absolutely fascinating country. One of the most interesting we've been to by a long shot.

Cuba is a strange place - there are not so many places on earth where you feel awestruck by the beauty and at the same time enraged by the ridiculousness of it all. In some ways we have compared it to Africa, rightly or wrongly. We were chatting to a taxi driver today, and he told us that he used to be the General Manager of a Petro-Chemical company with a masters in Engineering, but he chose to become a taxi driver because he couldn't afford to support his family on the income from his other job. He was definitely earning a lot more driving a taxi than he was as a GM.

The amount of "Jinteros" in the city is astonishing too. Everywhere you go, you are constantly being asked if you want a taxi, a cigar or a lady. So much, that saying "No, gracias" really should just be printed on your shirt or something. It's actually so prevalent that it has a nick-name - the Havana Hassle!

One thing that is really annoying so far about Cuba is that they try and rip you off on pretty much every transaction you make - they will either try and charge you too much, or they will short-change you when they give you change. Almost EVERY time. At first we weren't really paying attention too much, but today when we went to a coffee shop, and they tried to charge $4CUC for a Mojito, when every other drink on the menu was $2CUC, I had enough. But after the fact, I think it's going to be just one of those things where we will have to keep an eye on it all the time.

Either way, it's just another idiosyncrasy of Cuba I suppose. So far, we're absolutely loving the place though!

Havana Day 2

Today we spent another day in Havana. We decided that we would probably rent a car, and drive around Cuba. Renting a car is a very expensive proposition in Cuba. For one day's car rental, it is approximately the equivalent of 4 months salary of a local. $100CUC a day approx. for a car, and they earn about $25CUC per month. I suppose we weren't really ready for the levels of poverty we were about to see.

We tried to rent a car from Havana for the next day, but it turned out that we probably wouldn't be able to get a car, and anyway, we had decided that we were going to go to Trinidad and spend a few days just wandering around that town and going to the beach etc. so there'd probably be not much point having a car there anyway.

After a hell of a palaver trying to get the Internet booking for the car sorted, we finally ended up with a car booked for the 20th in Trinidad.

Today we went through a really cool market and ended up picking up a few things. We also went for a ride in a Coco-taxi, which is a bizarre, coconut-shaped trike/vespa combination painted bright yellow.

We went out for dinner at a little place near Obispo which was not too bad. One thing we were learning very quickly, is that Cuba is not so much renowned for it's food. Very average in general! Apparently there's a saying in Cuba - "The revolution came at the cost of Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner."

Havana Day 1

We slept in a bit after such a late night, and had a large breakfast at Casa Armando. We made our way out into Havana in search of sights, and also in search of Internet. We would come to find that Internet in Cuba is a fairly large problem. Usually only the large hotels have it, and it costs around $8CUC (Cuban Convertible Pesos - pegged to the US Dollar) per hour, and is fairly slow and a bit unreliable.

We spent the day wandering around Havana and attending to some business on the Internet, and had some dinner at a restaurant just off one of the main squares in Havana Veijo (Old Town), and I had an amazing rum after dinner.

Getting a feel for Havana is very difficult - it feels like it should be VERY dangerous, but at the same time it doesn't feel dangerous at all. We're obviously being fairly careful with regards to showing anything flashy around, and even though we have heard that Cuba is quite safe, we're not really taking any chances.

Some shots of wandering around the town:

Playing dominoes outside

Our Coco-taxi ride

The outside space at Casa Armando

Buildings in Centro Habana

Street Vendor

Libson to Cuba

We left Lisbon relatively early, and made our way to the Airport. Even though we've travelled quite often over the past 8 years, pretty much all of it has been quite 'safe' travel, going to mostly just European countries and the US. While it's been fantastic to see all of the amazing places we've been to over the years, heading off to Cuba made us realise how safe we had been taking our travel.

I think we're going to be in for a bit of a culture shock over the next few months as we travel around.

First of all, we realised that our backpacks were relatively insecure, and we had read in the guidebooks (and also heard from a friend with first-hand experience) that the baggage handlers in Cuba will often just help themselves. It was in this vein that we decided we probably should get our bags cling-wrapped, and padlocked as much as possible. It's the first time we've ever really done this, but it was pretty good and only cost about £6 per bag, with a whole bunch of insurance attached to it as well. I'd really recommend it.

Our flight from Lisbon to Madrid was on an Embraer ERJ jet, and neither Nikki or I had been on a jet that was this small (we've been on lots of smaller planes, but not jets). There were only 3 seats across. It was really cool. It was with a company called Air Europa, and we weren't really sure what to expect with them to be honest.

Our flight from Madrid to Havana was delayed by about 3 hours, and considering we were going to be getting in originally to Havana at 9 pm, this was going to make it quite a late arrival. As we were staying at a Casa Particulare in Havana, and we had arranged it through a different Casa Particulare, we didn't even really have contact details for our accommodation.

Arriving to Havana, we had quite a bit to sort out - we assumed customs was going to be a bit of a hassle, and then we had to buy some local currency, as you are not able to get Cuban Convertible Pesos outside of Cuba. We actually managed to get through the airport and all of these things sorted very quickly, and then we ventured outside to work out how to get a taxi. We were feeling a little wary, as we had read in guide books about how taxi drivers may try and rip you off, but we managed to find one very easily and quickly and he was an absolute gentleman. Even with this said, as it had been some time since we had gone outside our comfort zone from a travel perspective for a while, we were both feeling a little on edge. This coupled with the fact that it was almost 2am, and we were driving down a back street in Centro Habana which was basically large potholes holding hands and piles of rubbish in the street, we weren't sure what to expect. We met our host who we had been negotiating with over the internet.

He took us to our other hostel (Casa B&B Armando) which was just down the street and we finally crashed into bed after a long day.