Viva la Revolucion - Cuba!

Although Cuba was never originally on our travel plans, we landed a cheap vacation package that was too good to turn down.
We were able to fly to Cuba from Canada, but it’s not possible from the US, and if you have a Cuban visa stamped in your passport, you’re not able to enter the US.
To combat this, the Cuban government has come up with a simple solution; your passport isn’t stamped, you’re just issued a slip of paper stamped with your date of entry which you hand back at the end of your trip. So it’s as if you never went there.

Our hotel peaked back when Boy George was belting out Karma Chameleon, but it had a luxurious pool, and was a good base for trips into the old quarter of Havana. Here’s the view from our room.

It was fascinating travelling in a communist country. There are just four TV stations and one newspaper. There is almost no internet, and even the internet we could access through the hotel was restricted to certain sites.

Cubans are very proud of their country and staunch advocates of Fidel. They are friendly and we never felt unsafe, though Cuba has its fair share of shysters, just like any country frequented by tourists. We were diddled just once, when a ‘friendly’ local took us to a bar and our round of drinks ended up costing a small Cuban fortune.

As well as regulated salaries, there appears to be a job for everyone, even aluminium can crushers, as these cheery gentlemen show.

Other 'jobs' that we observed included an ATM attendant who tells you when you’re next in line, pedestrian traffic directors who sit in fold out chairs in public squares directing people and ladies who sit outside toilets in restaurants handing out squares of tissue as you enter.

Havana is a completely bewitching city, with decaying old Spanish homes and regal ex-embassy buildings all hemmed in by a sweeping marina.

And all that iconic imagery – ’55 Chevy’s cruising alongside horsedrawn carriages, Che Guevara billboards, salsa bars with slow spinning ceiling fans and streets adorned with Viva la Revolucion graffiti.

It’s bizarre to think that Florida is only 180kms across the strait. Allegedly in 1989 the American Government spent $32 milion on an anti-Cuban TV station and giant transmission dishes that directed toward Cuban shores, but Cuban technicians have been able to repel its signals.

The narrow streets and squares of Havana are hectic and alive with people, music, cars and street vendors.

Books on Fidel, Che, Karl Marx and other theorists and revolutionaries are sold everywhere. Here is a shady square in the middle of Havana where dozens of booksellers peddled their wares.

Cheap rum makes for plentiful mojitos, which were a standard on every menu. I loved watching the ritual of the barman muddle together a handful of mint leaves with sugar in the bottom of a glass, followed by a liberal ‘free pour’ of white rum and lemon juice. It was like the Cuban version of Japan’s green tea ceremony.

Here's Shaun enjoying the fruits of their labour...

PHOTO OF SHAUN DRINKING MOJITO AND BARMAN MAKING MOJITO
We visited a rum factory, where the sugarcane is fermented and bottled.

There was a small stampede when the free rum samples were being given out to the tour group - I love the look of glee on Shaun's face.

Cigars are sold individually on every street corner. Shaun became very fond of his daily ritual of a cigar after dinner.

There is quite a neat homestay system in Cuba called ‘casa particulars’ that is regulated by the government. All homes that participate must register with the program and charge a set price to host people in their home. The report to the government the details of the guests, and we presume pay a cut of the fee.

Leaving the city we spent some time in the west part of the country, in a town called Vinales surrounded by hills, tobacco farms and banana plantations.

And a kitsch rock art attraction from the 1930’s…

The photos don’t quite convey the size of this rock wall and it’s adorning art, and I’m not sure if anything can explain this rather garish representation of the evolution of man… all the way from mollusc to dinosaur to man.

In Vinales we stayed with a lovely old Cuban couple, Olga and Carmelo.

Here is a picture of the honeymoon suite, which featured every shade of pink you could imagine.

Out for a walk one evening, we met a sweet lady who used effective sign language to entice us to a nearby tobacco farm. With Shaun’s cigar consumption increasing incrementally with the days we stayed in Cuba, the obvious thing to do was to buy some cigars direct. Here is Shaun post-purchase with the women who grew the tobacco and rolled the cigars.

Here is a Cuban tobacco farmer lighting up a cigar that he'd just rolled. Behind him are sheaths of tobacco leaves drying. Check out that knife he's holding, too...

Although I’ve raved about food through most of our journey, Cuba is not known for its cuisine. Its street food is primarily comprised of cheese and between/atop/inside white bread product. The other staple involves deep fried anything – potatoes, rice balls, plantain, cheese and churros.

This rather unusual dish was plantains (which are like savoury, floury bananas), stuffed with bacon, deep fried and topped with melted cheese.

This 'street pizza' cost us 25c a slice and was delicious, as you can see from the look on Shaun’s face as he inhales it.

Cubans also have a penchant for saccharine sweet, brightly frosted celebration cakes - usually the shade of blue of the wall in this photo. ‘Dulcerias’, like this one pictured, sell the cakes from holes in the wall everywhere.

Ernest Hemingway spent many years in Cuba, and it was the place that inspired Old Man and the Sea. His apartment in Havana has been kept exactly as it was when he lived there.
The walls are mounted with stuffed animals, prizes from his hunts.

Hemingway's clothes remain hanging in his closet, though they don't look all that well-suited to the climate.

His car...

Hemingway had a habit of recording his weight on the bathroom wall in pencil every day - maybe he was concerned about the effect of all that white bread and cheese!

A day trip out to one of the islands, called Cayo Levisa, took us to a beach with the whitest, most powdery sand I’ve seen and beautiful clear water.

Here is Shaun under our cabana on the beach reading Fidel Castro’s famous speech ‘History will absolve me’.