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Once we arrived at our hotel we were offered possible excursions to different places in Cuba, the most prominent being Havana. There were a couple of different options but we chose the overnight option with a visit to Tropicana on the first night. We started very early in the morning with a bus picking us up from the hotel in Varadero. The journey to Havana took about two hours during which the tour guide talked about some of the places we were passing. He also mentioned that Cuba was once a UK colony until we sold it to Spain in return for some land in the US. The first stop in Havana was the Cuba Capitolio building which we paid 1 convertible Peso to go inside. We were only allowed into the main entrance for this and there didn’t appear to be an option to see anything else. Outside the building we were immediately pounced on by people selling food and a picture of you with the building. The tour guide had warned us lots of people would be ready waiting for us because it was a popular tour stop point. Our next stop was a talking tour through part of old Havana. Yet again we were attacked by a mob of locals trying to draw our pictures in return for money. One guy wanted about 3 pounds off Steve for a picture drawn in about 10 seconds, Steve caved in after some negotiation down to about 1 pound. I am used the extreme nagging / begging which can happen in Baku so I wasn’t phased by any of their tricks. After some time in the town we got on the bus and traveled to our hotel for the night... "habana libre", a very large reinforced concrete monstrosity. There is a picture of it below, well a picture of a model of it they had in the foyer. I also took some pictures of the view from the small balcony as the sun set. Before dinner that night, Steve and I walked around the area near the hotel. We found some very residential parts where as you walk down the road all the doors lead into people living rooms where they are sitting around, often walking black and white TVs. It started getting dark so we headed back to the hotel and had some food there before our trip to Tropicana that night. The next day we were taken into old Havana by bus and given the morning / afternoon to look around and do what we wanted. After about an hour of walking around a young couple approached us and wanted to take us around some placed in Havana, translation… they want money. Neither the less we followed them to some places, first starting with a salsa bar; unfortunately it was very early so not very busy. The drinks in there were pretty pricy, about 4 Convertible Pesos each, so about 2 pounds, or about 2 weeks salary for the local couple. The girls’ job was to get cigars and put them in boxes, a critical job in their economy. They said that they could never normally go to these places as it was impossible to afford them. Our next stop with the couple was lunch, they took us to one place but it was full so we ended up going to a different restaurant near the top of an old building. It was pretty empty inside, easily twice as many staff as customers, but that is part of the culture in Cuba. The service in the restaurant wasn’t very good and the food took a long time to come, and after the meal came a very large bill. The menu prices seem not to include any taxes which were quite substantial. The total bill was about 90dollars for the four of us, which understandably scared the local people... nearly a years salary for them. We paid the bill and instead of leaving a tip I gave the change to the girl. Now that the girl had got some money, the guy seemed very keen to get some as well. He targeted Steve with a sob story about his son needing powdered milk, something only a foreigner could afford. Steve agreed and they went into an indoor market where conveniently he couldn’t find any, he then asked Steve for about 10 pounds because we had to get back to the bus and didn’t have the time to look anywhere else. Steve gave the guy a quarter of what he asked for and we then escaped before they asked for anything else. We then hopped on the bus on our way back to Varadero. |
