Cuba! By Gabrielle Guimarães

When I decided to travel to Cuba, I didn't know much about it other than that it was a socialist country. The trip was such a pleasant surprise that I decided to share a little of the experience with you!

Planning the trip

I've always been the type who doesn't like planning things. I like arriving somewhere without any plans and seeing what happens. All I knew was that I wanted to spend a few days on the beach in Varadero, and otherwise I wanted to go with the flow. I didn't plan much, booked a stay in a family home in Varadero through Airbnb, and caught my flight. Tip #1: don't do this in Cuba, going without a plan (you'll soon understand why). Tip #2: family homes are the most affordable and enjoyable way to stay on the island.

Arriving in Havana

As soon as you arrive, you realize it feels as though you're in the 70s. When you exchange money at the airport, a police officer stands beside the exchange counter, and the person working there isn't allowed to tell you whether there are better exchange rates outside the airport. One interesting detail is that there are two currencies there, the Cuban peso and the convertible peso (the one tourists use). Tip #3: bring all your money in euros, because exchanging dollars there comes with a 12% fee just for being dollars.

After taking a shared taxi from the airport to Havana, I needed to find somewhere to sleep for one night, since I wasn't going to Varadero until the following day. I needed internet access, and once again it felt like I'd gone back in time. To get online, you need to buy a card and enter the code on it to log in to a very poor connection. The cards give you the option of 1h of access and weren't very expensive. The surprise came when I tried to open the Airbnb website to book somewhere: the site can't be accessed from Cuba! That's why I said earlier that you need to plan everything and book everything from Brazil. I had a bit of a nightmare there.

Eating and drinking

I wanted this to be a low-cost trip, so expensive tourist restaurants were out. I only ate at small neighborhood restaurants. The kind set up in people's living rooms. A great price for a huge plate of everyday food (rice, beans, meat, and salad). It's really interesting when you realize that many homes have restaurants and bars right in their living rooms. This is because a few years ago the government allowed Cubans to run this kind of business (by paying for a license, of course) to earn extra income, just as it allowed them to rent out rooms in their homes for foreigners to stay in. Tip #4: when you stay or eat in family homes, not only is everything delicious and typically Cuban, but you're also helping the local people! Now, if you want to cook at home, you need a fair amount of patience, because I wanted to do that, but the products you find in the shops are very scarce. You go one day and buy cheese, come back the next day, and the cheese is gone with no indication of when it will be restocked. Eggs? I looked everywhere I possibly could for eggs to make breakfast, and there simply weren't any. At one point I saw some eggs in a little shop and asked the seller for them, and he told me he couldn't sell them to me, that the eggs were only for Cubans who had the government card to collect them.

Back to the tourist side of things, it's also worth visiting Havana's very touristy bars, such as La Floridita (where the Daiquiri was invented) and La Bodeguita del Medio (considered to have the best mojito). Both were frequented by the celebrated Ernest Hemmingway, and they're always packed, with good, traditional Cuban music.

Varadero

I went to Varadero in a shared taxi, which costs the same as the buses and is cheaper. Usually, to find one, you just go to the bus station and they'll be at the entrance offering the ride.

When I arrived, there was a 22km-long beach with crystal-clear Caribbean waters. Perfection. Half the beach is taken up by gigantic all-inclusive resorts, but I stayed in the modest Cuban part. There isn't much to do there during the day besides going to the beach. At night there's a Beatles bar (that's right!) that's packed with foreigners and plays lots of rock, or a very traditional bar with salsa music and Cuban dancing.

I wanted to rest, so I ended up staying there for 6 days, and it was the best thing I did!

Trinidad

After Varadero, I decided to go to Trinidad without really knowing what I'd find there. I only knew there were trails and waterfalls, which is why I went. When I arrived, I saw the most beautiful city I visited in Cuba. The city is gorgeous and literally an open-air museum, with lots of things to do both during the day and at night! I rented a bicycle from the very family I was staying with and cycled 16km to Playa Ancon. It was great, but the old, patched-up bicycle made me work twice as hard to reach the beach. On the other days, I went to the waterfalls in the parks around Trinidad. I recommend Vegas Grandes, one of the most beautiful I've ever visited. To get to the waterfalls, I recommend looking for a shared taxi to take you to the nearest trail starting points! They wait for you to return and cost less than agency tours!

The nightlife is really lively at Casa de la Musica, with traditional Cuban music in a huge square with bars all around. A very bohemian place. I found bars with very affordable drinks! But the coolest part of a night out in Trinidad was going to a nightclub inside a cave! That's right, inside a giant cave! Entry wasn't expensive and included a drink!

Havana

When I returned to Havana, I stayed in a very modest neighborhood of the capital, but not too far from the center. I walked around there a lot, as well as through the beautiful tourist area, with its museums of the revolution and everything very well preserved. The old taxis taking people back and forth, the Capitolio, the squares, it all makes Havana so charming! I went to a nightclub called La Fabrica de Arte Cubana, which operates as an art gallery during the day and a nightclub at night. A place visited by few tourists and lots of young alternative Cubans. Believe it: there are hipsters in Cuba! But away from all the tourist bustle, I could see that a large part of the population really is poor. Buses reused from other countries (I even saw a bus with “barcelona” written on it), very old cars, chaotic traffic, dirty streets, everything very noisy. But it was a really good experience, because at the same time you realize that there is no destitution in the country. Cubans may live modestly, but everyone has the minimum needed to live: food on the table for free (of not-so-good quality), healthcare (of excellent quality), education (of excellent quality). I got to talk to all kinds of people in Cuba, from people who idolize Fidel and the revolution to young people who feel oppressed and want to escape the country. It's hard to form an opinion about the situation there. The best thing is to go yourself and draw your own conclusions, how about it?

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