We had rented a car in La Habana already before we landed, as there apparently are very few rental cars on the island and it isn’t easy to get one. This was confirmed by the online agencies since only one managed to get us a car. It wasn’t too bad but it certainly wasn’t cheap, we paid about 350usd for the car including gas, insurance and free miles for the three days that we would have it. It would have been cheaper to get it on site, but it would also have been risking not getting a car at all, an option we couldn’t go for with our tight schedule.

Online and in guidebooks, people warned about how difficult it would be to drive in Cuba, no road signs, bad roads, bad drivers, they complained – but we saw none of that. While getting out of La Habana was a bit tricky, getting to Trinidad was a piece of cake once we had gotten out on the road. The road sides were full of colourful political propaganda with shout-outs to Chavez, Mandela, and of course Fidel, animals and fruit sellers made driving through villages interesting, and the empty landscapes were vast and beautiful. Driving felt great, and we could stop whenever we wanted, take photos and just be free – considering the fact that the 4 hour drive we did to Trinidad would take at least 6 hours (and 50usd pp) by bus to go, and 11 hours to come back, we definitely saved time, so the price for renting the car was well worth the extra 200usd.

Before taking off, we took a last little stroll around La Habana and found the Taller Experimental de Gráfica de La Habana just by Plaza Catedral, “Founded in 1962 by mural artist Orlando Suarez with the support of Che Guevara, who was the minister of industry at the time, this studio/workshop is still thriving today.” (source) A nice injection of modern Cuban graphic art, different from the things we saw for sale on the street. This was the real deal.

As if La Habana couldn’t get even more interesting, we decided to take a walk around the malecón at night. The seashore drive where lovers, friends and just about any kind of night-loving Habanero meet to hang out after hours. Be it for drinking Havana Gold rum and singing, be it for kissing and holding hands, be it for meditating and thinking, be it for fishing, the people spend hours by the waterfront, and it’s a beautiful and calming midnight walk – great for meeting people that seem completely unbothered by your presence. I didn’t feel like an annoying tourist with a big camera at the malecón, I was just part of the vibe.

After our walk by the malecón, we took a stroll on the little cobblestone streets close to where we were staying in Old Havana. By one of the entrances to a big old building, we met Wilbert who was sitting outside on the street, cooling off in the night breeze. Wilbert had Che Guevara tattooed on his arm and invited us to come in and have a look at his building from the inside, where he explained that more than 200 people live. We walked through the maze of corridors, stairs and cables and peeked through open front doors where people were watching TV and having dinner in tiny 15sqm windowless apartments. They were tightly squeezed together like little Tetris boxes and all free of rent according to Wilbert (yet each apparently with their own electricity meter and water bills.) People looked up from the TV when we passed and smiled politely, “good evening” they said as we passed, I felt a bit awkward on this “tour” of people’s intimate lives, but it was very interesting to get an insight and Wilbert seemed very pleased to show us around on his own initiative. Most importantly, this really wasn’t like one of those scams where people show you staged realities for money, Wilbert just seemed to sense our genuine curiosity and was happy to introduce us to how he and his fellow Habaneros live like. On the way out, Wilbert wanted to also show us his own apartment where he had a living room, a TV and sound system, a nice little kitchen and his own shower. “I sleep on the floor because it’s too hot upstairs, but this is a good place for me, I like it” Wilbert explained, and seemed to really like his place as he showed us the different things that he had in there, a small altar with pictures of saints and glasses of holy water, his DVD player, his aquarium. “I live here alone, so it’s actually quite big for me, but it’s really good – this is one of the nicer apartments.” Wilbert told us that he works at the cigar factory where he earns 10cuc (10usd) and 300cup (12usd) monthly. This is enough for him to get by, even though he said things can get a bit tough sometimes. We said bye, shook hands, thanked Wilbert for his kindness and hospitality, and walked back to our hotel.

As soon as La Habana found us strolling around without plans and open to what she had to offer, the city pulled us straight into her warm nightly embrace and showed us her innermost core. The people of the night were calmer, more open and warmer than those of the day. The buzz was slower, the light was a dull yellow and the cats owned the streets. Most of all, La Habana felt very safe and comforting at night, a place where you just want to slowly walk in whichever direction intuition pulls you, and become a natural part of the city.

On our first morning in La Habana we woke up with a lot of eagerness to get out and start exploring the surroundings – we wanted to see more, meet more people, and walk all of it. This was when Cuba was going to show us, for the first time, the eclecticism of it’s essence – the colours, the architecture, the old American cars that look brand new, the people with golden teeth and aggressively vibrant fashion statements, the mojitos, the tourist traps, and all the posers who walk around town trying to trick you into taking their picture just so that they then can tell you that you now have to pay them.

It was exciting, interesting and packed with contrasts. People queuing for rice and overpriced soap, empty shelves in the grocery stores, the long lines to different offices and people begging for the most random things such as pens and toilet paper. My mother would sometimes say “this is just like Poland when I was young” and the communism vibe could certainly be felt and seen all over the place – the US blockade was on big posters portrayed as the ultimate evil that was the reason for all of the people’s suffering, it was referred to as “the longest genocide in the history of mankind” – no mention of the complete lack of private commerce as per Castro’s ideology, even though people insisted to tell us how they really felt about communism as soon as they got the opportunity to catch us where nobody else was listening. It was quite bizarre yet, interesting. Imagine streets in the middle of the tourist centre and economic centre, packed with people, but almost no boutiques or shops in sight other than those selling art or souvenirs, or government run food stores. To further explain it – we noticed three shoe shops during our entire stay in Cuba, and entered only one shop with clothes (where everything was VERY expensive) – an interesting contrast to the ultra consumerism one is used to seeing.

After a couple of hours of walking, (my phone says did 25km that day!) we ended up on the pretty Plaza Vieja where we sat down next to a very nice Uruguayan couple in the old brewery and had a couple of drinks and some food by the band that was playing “Guantanamera and the hits”. We continued walking and made our way to La Bodeguita del Medio, the ultra-famous little bar where Hemingway supposedly used to have his mojitos, and where a mojito therefore costs 5CUC (5USD) rather than the usual 3, and where tourists and dressed up Cubans gather to get the perfect selfie. We sat down for a while as a band was playing “Guantanamera” (haha, okay, I’m going to stop now – you’re getting it, right?) and looked at people. When it got a bit calmer I went out for a while to talk to Luz, one of the girls that was standing next to the bar and taking photos with the tourists, dressed up as a ridiculed version of one of the traditional African groups. “I don’t want to take your photo for money,” I explained, “I just want to hear why you’re doing this.” Luz told me that she had dropped out of school, because she would make maximum 300CUC if she had finished her education, while she was making 600CUC right here, on the street. “The outfit is just a joke,” she explained, “tourists like it.” She explained how you must get a license from the government to do the job of “having your photo taken” and that she has to give away a significant part of her income, “if I don’t have the license they will put me in jail.” she said, and then insisted I take her photo anyway, and posed. “Maybe somebody will find your photo on the internet and put it in a magazine – and I will become famous. Come on, snap it!”

“You’re from Poland!” another dressed up man with a big white beard and oversized fake cigar came by. “Look, I was featured on the front cover of the National Geographic Polska, I’m a millionaire now! Take a picture – it’s free!”

I was more interested in photographing the real people, though. Alan with the cool flowershirt and big sunglasses. Urbano, who runs his bicycle taxi and is 48 years old even though he looks much younger. Luis Ibañez, the gentleman reading his paper in the bar, and the cool girl above, with her red contacts and little puppy – a teenager hungering for attention just like anywhere in the world, only maybe a little bit more “all in” in her style.

 

My mother and I traveled to Cuba two weeks ago. I had the country on my list of must-go’s for a couple of years and was desperate to go see it now before I leave the continent and before it changes too much with the newly established US relations. The amount of stories to tell is huge, and people in Cuba were both happy to be photographed and very eager to talk, so it was absolute bliss to walk around with the camera and just take in all the colours, contrasts, details and beautiful personalities.

I’ll give you a couple of photos at a time so that it doesn’t become too overwhelming, and I’ll try sharing some tips and information for those who want to make their way to Cuba as well. All of the Cuba related posts will be found in the Cuba 2015 category. :) And all of this falls under Travels with Mom, as usual, a category that I hope to continue expanding for years to come – my mom is a great travel partner and photography assistant. :)

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We arrived in La Habana after a short flight from Cancun and very long bus ride from Belize City. The ADO bus from Belize City leaves at 7.30pm and is freezing cold (sweatpants, thick winter socks and blankets kind of cold) and you don’t really get to sleep as the border crossing takes forever and the bus stops several times (you even have to get out at one point in Mexico to pay the “rest of your busticket” in an ADO office in the middle of the night..). The bus arrives in Cancun airport at around 7am, a time when there’s not much to do other than freshen up and have breakfast. Flights to La Habana leave at 1pm if you fly with the convenient and cheap Interjet (we paid 450USD for two round trip tickets) and when we were there you could get your Cuban tourist visa card at the airport if you were flying with them. We didn’t know that and had our visa cards from Sweden which turned out a bit more expensive, but it was the safe way to go as you get turned back at the check-in counter without the tourist card.

Upon arriving, we exchanged money in the airport at one of the official CADECA windows, USD have a 10% penalty so bring Euros or even Mexican pesos or Yen. The money deal is a bit complicated in Cuba – you have the CUC (peso convertible) and CUP (moneda nacional), the CUC is about equivalent to the USD, while the CUP is at about 24 for one CUC. In hotels, restaurants, taxis and most things that are geared towards tourists, you pay with CUC. A bottle of water is 1CUC, a meal is about 10, a mojito is 3. The CUP is only used in local shops and as some Cubans say “to but things of lower quality” – so cheaper things. We only got CUP for the equivalent of 5USD and actually only used them once when we got my mother ice cream in a small village for 1 CUP, and when I got churros on the street for 5CUP. Things are sometimes “cheaper” in CUP, but if you’re not going for long it’s easier to just stick to the peso convertible (CUC) and keep an eye on the change you get so that it’s CUC and not CUP, the currencies look very much alike. In terms of credit cards, most places and ATMs only accept VISA cards, and no places accept any American Bank issued cards. In general, cash is king.

We took a cab from the airport (30min, 25CUC) and made our way to our hotel in Old Havana, and hung out for a while (completely exhausted from that overnight bus) before heading out for a walk in the old town and then a show by the Buena Vista Social Club. The real deal. The show was 30CUC with mojitos included, and with dinner included it was 50CUC but the food was an absolute joke. The entire thing was a tourist trap, obviously, but the artists, (Omara Peláez, 83, was there) their voices and the songs were authentic, so we really enjoyed the evening as an intro to our week on the Island of colours, music and what we didn’t know would be “Guantanamera” on repeat from every street musician and radio in sight.

Street dogs are marked with ID cards, the card states the dogs name, address and that it has been sterilized.

?Nora Flora Heredia Escul, puffing on a Cuban cigar.

There will be more!