CUBA (3). Havana. Capital of tourists
Capital of tourists
Busy streets, thousands of tourists… everything in Havana was more colourful, better decorated, joyful and… faker. There are more entertainment and services in Havana compared to our previously visited Matanzas and Cienfuegos city. In a city with a population above 2 million, there are some local areas for sure, but the centre is all about tourists. There are a lot of hotels, restaurants, theatres, shows, vintage car rents, more shops (for tourists): in general, it is much more active. Havana is exceptionally touristic and compared to previously visited cities it is like night and day.
Be careful in Havana
If in local towns like Matanzas, Cienfuegos people were very kind to us, sincere and friendly, in Havana our experience with locals was very unpleasant. It is not only that they treated us as cash machines, but told so many lies, pretended to be friendly and created fake stories.
We fell into some of such traps. First one was about milk missing for a baby. We went to a shop pointed by the father. He said that foreigners could buy unlimited milk, and he cannot. In the shop, it turned out that he had only 5 dollars, and one pack of milk cost 10 dollars/pack. He insisted on four packs (40 dollars). It was clear that the poor baby was just a tool to milk stupid tourists.
Another trap we got into was about a guy who chatted with us for maybe 10 minutes in a bar. He sounded friendly, but after some time, he started to sell cigars. When in the end we refused, he left, and we decided to go out of the bar, the receipt for our non-alcoholic Mojitos lemonade was higher to what you would pay for a bottle of rum (in Europe!).
There were so many other fake “friends” approaching us on the way, that in the end, when we saw a simple beggar asking for a penny on the street, we had a moment of joy to finally meet at least one sincere and straightforward person in Havana.
Adriano didn’t like Havana at all. I still very much enjoyed its architecture and cleaner, more civilised streets. My key advice, even if not very kind – entirely ignore locals in the centre, don’t pay, don’t help, don’t give anything. In brief, “helping” with a few dollars is not really helping. It destroys the mentality of locals. I am sorry for new generation kids growing up in this environment and perceiving such attitude of cheating on tourists as a norm.
Beautiful Havana’s architecture
Comfort
Centre of Havana is full of various hotels. Such places are definitely not for locals. You would only see tourists there.
Various luxury hotels have rooftop restaurants. Late at night, it was nice to get up there. 4-star hotels in Havana cost 80-100 EUR for a double room. It is likely more than the annual income of many locals, but tourists in touristic areas are charged very touristic prices, therefore depending on where you go and what you do, a vacation in Cuba can be either very cheap or as expensive as a European trip.
Transport
It is easy to find yellow local taxis in front of hotels but any local having a car would offer you a taxi service as well (be careful though). There are buses for public transport and even some self-made “camels” – 2 or 3 old Russian buses connected all together.
Photo from Martynas Sirusas adfoto.lt
Coconut juice is very popular and available at every corner, but only in touristic places. Locals mostly drink tap water. It is of good quality. Overall, we did not get any disease or digestive problems in Cuba.
Italian businesses in Cuba?
Taking an old American car for a ride is a popular entertainment for tourists. We found out that some Italians are managing this business in Havana. Just out of curiosity, I wonder how it is possible that foreigners opened a private company in a dictatorship communist country. I mean, communist Cuba is not like communist China where every family can open a private business. In Cuba, before we entered Havana, everything was public. The government had a hand on every single thing, even on sandwiches with cheese and ham, sold in various places. When I asked for a sandwich with only cheese, they said that in this way it is centrally approved and produced, so no changes were possible. It was THAT level of communism and centralised control on everything. In Havana, things looked different – many hotels, restaurants, salsa shows, car rental companies, street sellers: they all looked like privately run businesses.
Ready for the parade
Here is the most Soviet area in Havana with a monument for the Cuban hero José Martí. Was it created for ceremonies? Parades with tanks rolling down the avenue? In a middle of the day, this broad avenue was empty.
Internet in Cuba
Unless you stay in the Western type of hotel, the internet is available only in one public park. You have to buy a ticket, which costs around 10$ for 5 hours of internet. Then you go to that particular park, walk around and try to find the best signal.
My personal advice is to forget about internet in Cuba. Enjoy offline holidays. It takes a long time to get a connection, and in the end, it is so bad that it is not worth the effort.
More importantly, feel the vibe of hundreds of people and desperate families willing to talk to their relatives. A lot of locals are coming here for the internet. The signal is not sufficient for so many people, so you can see the joy of people who managed to connect. When was the last time you celebrated being online?
To save your nerves, you are better off telling your families that you are likely to be offline all the time before going to Cuba. Adriano was desperate to download and reply one work email, so after a couple of unsuccessful efforts, he woke up at 5 am to get to that park before anybody else, and in such case, it worked well.
Heartbreaking emigrant stories
Sit down and observe people. There are hundreds of interesting stories and sparkling emotions around. You would quickly notice that it is not usual for people in Cuba to see the faces of distant relatives.
1,8 million Cubans live in the USA. They say that half of them emigrated during last 20 years (Cuba’s population is 11,5 million inhabitants). We talked for hours with one elder Cuban immersed in his bottle of rum. He was crying while he was telling us about his granddaughter. The little girl was born in Miami years after his daughter escaped the country. He has never seen her because he cannot get a visa to go to visit them in Miami and his daughter cannot come to Cuba.
It was heartbreaking to see an old man crying in front of some strangers and drowning his pain in alcohol. He did not ask anything from us, and there was nothing we could do to help him. Considering the vast numbers of emigrants, all of Cuba must be in tears.
Photo from Martynas Sirusas adfoto.lt
Old people
There are a lot of old people in Cuba. Considering the poverty, I would not have imagined 80 years life expectancy in Cuba, which is even longer than the USA for example or wealthier Caribbean islands like Grenada, the Grenadines, Barbados, etc. Maybe it has to do with genes, but maybe it is also true that health services are high quality.
Photo from Martynas Sirusas adfoto.lt
The last generation from the Cuban revolution
The last historical generation that has witnessed Cuban revolution (1953-1959) is still alive. Cubans live long but not forever. I am sorry that I did not speak Spanish better and could not talk more with those old people in parks. I am curious how it really felt to live in Cuba for the last century.
In my country, Lithuania, communism was forced upon us, nobody asked for it, but Cubans fought for it and celebrated it. They believed that communism would bring them freedom, wealth, equality, and all the good things. Their starting point and further experience are very different from Eastern Europe. But they also witnessed how everything collapsed and lived under the leadership of dictators. The regime they fought for brought nothing more than poverty and fear.
Lithuania was poor during the Soviet Union, but we did not have Western tourists coming to witness this. The situation is entirely different for Cuba. It is visited by thousands of tourists every single day, and locals see the huge gap under their eyes. Despite all that, media continues communist propaganda. It must be so confusing. I bet that my iconic old man walking in the middle of the street, singing his Cuban songs has no idea what went so terribly wrong.
Get a cocktail with Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway seems to have had the time of his life in Cuba. You will find bars, restaurants, hotels, souvenirs, anything with his name. I am not sure about the books. We passed by some book-shops in Havana. They had only political, communism and Cuban revolution related books. Adriano reads Spanish, and he wanted to buy some Cuban writer fiction book for himself, but all we could find was political propaganda.
Probably every tourist in Havana passes by Floridita bar sooner or later. It was Hemingway’s favourite bar where he drank Mojito with his friends. They still have one seat reserved for him.
I don’t know why Cuba Libre is called this way, in Cuba you don’t see this cocktail (neither much of freedom). Mojito is the most popular cocktail. You can also find a Mojito lemonade version.
Outside the centre
Havana’s surroundings felt surprisingly more secure and calm, nobody cheated or begged for money there. Sure it was dirtier and not as shiny as touristic areas.
Local Havana markets. Cost of food
Fruit and vegetable markets outside touristic zones do not have a wide variety, but very fresh products. Tomatoes tasted like tomatoes and not like a piece of plastic; avocados were the best I had in my life and papayas were fantastic. Apparently, there is nothing imported, only local products in these markets.
Unfortunately, Cubans did not seem to have any particular cuisine or much creativity to do something with those products. As in all other Caribbean region islands, I was surprised that fish and seafood is not widespread.
For a fancy dinner, it is better to look for a touristic restaurant. For delicious fruits and vegetables, the best option is to walk outside the centre, change some “tourist money” to local money, and this way you will get it almost for free in local markets. Just to give you an idea, with local cash outside centre we paid 0.01$ for a glass of fresh juice and around 1$ for two bags full of various fruits and vegetables. Although there is not much variety, I still would say that Havana markets are luxurious compared to what we found in previously visited poor towns.
Havana coasts
Last but not least: Havana coasts. Ideal for romantic walks, fishing, beautiful sunsets or simply to mingle with teenagers preparing for the parties as well as romantic couples wandering around. It is a favourite not only for tourists but also for many locals.
Cuban airlines
There is a flight Havana – Martinique once a week by Cuban airlines. It is legendary chaos from our experience.
During our trip, many people congratulated us on being so brave to depart from Cuba using Cuban airlines. During the “special” day, we realised that this company was the most unreliable airline company ever. Our flight had an 8-hour delay. We were lucky because it could have been one or two days. However, the worst part was not even the delay itself but the inexistent communication. All information boards at the airport were silent about our flight. Cuban airlines were not responding to call, whatever telephone number we called. Not a single airport employee knew something, and everybody avoided getting involved in this case.
Imagine desperate passengers started a rebellion inside the airport. At some point, a couple of airport workers tried to organise a fake boarding and called an airport bus. They did the checking, we got into the bus, waited in a bus, and after half an hour got out and returned to the airport.
Later, they wanted to do it a second time. Maybe just to buy some time and calm down an angry group of people making a lot of noise in the quite well organised and neat Havana airport. The bus driver shamelessly showed a middle finger and left.
We lost one vacation day but what an adventure to participate in a rebellion at the airport! Sometimes those disaster stories during travels become legendary memories.
In the end, the old Soviet plane was ok. Old, but nicely maintained, just like those vintage cars. We safely reached Martinique.
Summary
To sum it up, Havana seems most active, wealthy, a happy and fun place, but deep inside it is also hurt and destroyed. I suggest going to Cuba immediately, while massive tourism does not spoil it. Havana is already very commercial, very touristic. It is a rather fun entertainment place compared to the original Cuban experience. Havana’s architecture, all the squares, the old town are beautiful for at least one full day to walk around, but we very much recommend to visit towns such as Cienfuegos and Matanzas if you want to experience the real local life.
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