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!