Havana, CUBA

What can we say about this place?...

It’s crazy, gritty, fun.  Anything goes in Havana.

Even my hair did its’ own thing in this humid, warm, fabulous weather (after I spend some time straightening it in the morning)

It’s true what they say about it: it’s in a glorious state of disrepair:

We arrived really late on Thursday (after midnight) after a long day of flights and airport transfers, so pretty much hit the sack as soon as we checked into our airbnb.  The apartment has exceeded our expectations, and certainly feels like a mansion with high ceilings and separate rooms filled with natural light; compared to the shoe box in NY.

The next morning, we ventured out to get something to eat, a little apprehensively…

The breakfast place was closed (for no apparent reason; or at least unbeknown to us).  There seemed to be nothing we could access – every place appeared foreign and scary.  There were little shops everywhere, but none like we are used to.  Some sell only rice and vinegar, others a few random vegetables.  There was a pharmacy with a few medicines inside:

A bakery with a very small selection of less than appealing cakes and cookies.

It was a real challenge to find some bottled water (as we were warned by the apartment’s owner not to drink tap water).

Eventually, we found a small supermarket, with water,  some less than appealing biscuits and booze (rum).  We were asked to check in our handbag at the front, and given a number (like a coat check hehe).

We found a small café and somehow managed to order a couple of sandwiches and a coffee.  Coffee was really great (and so cheap!  50 cents!).  Sandwiches not so great, but edible.  As a matter of fact, everything is really cheap and just edible!  Cocktails $1.50, beers $2.50, meals $4-10.

Turns out we are staying in (and were wandering through) a pretty residential area, and things got a bit more lively when we found the main road. To get our bearings, we hopped on one of those hop on/hop off double decker buses.  A bit of a waste of time as we couldn’t understand a thing and it seemed to just travel between major hotels to pick up and drop off their guests.  Never mind, it helped us get our bearings. We had better luck after that.  

We needed to arrange our transport to the next town and planned to take the tourist bus, but as we found out in the government run tourist office, the buses were all booked out for the next week or so. They suggested we sign up to a thing called ‘collectivo’, meaning squashing 6-8 people into one of those old classic cars and sharing the ride to Trinidad, 5-6 hours away.  Sort of like a car-pool... This is happening tomorrow morning, we’ll see how this goes…

After that, we wandered the streets of Havana Vieja and bar hopped for mojitos.  So much fun, music, people watching.

 We had dinner and more mojitos; met some Danish tourists and even danced with a cross-dresser in a bar before we bartered our taxi fare home. 

We did more of the same today (hehehe), but with way more confidence.

We are posting this from a park next to our apartment, because only in some designated public places there is access to WiFi for a small fee.  Luckily, a spot happens to be right outside of where we live.  It is a strange sight; so many young people hanging around a park on their phones to (for ever so briefly) connect with the world.

We met some locals who tried to sell us DVDs translated into several languages.  We gently declined saying that we don’t really use DVD’s any more… It is sort of funny but also a little sad that the Cubans are missing the mark with the Western world as they try to tap into more sources of income.

We nearly got cheated our of our money with a classic tactic used over here.  There are two currencies, the local currency and the tourist currency.  The tourist currency is worth 25x the local currency, so for every 1 CUC you get 25 CUP.  Well, we were warned about this trick, but nearly fell for it anyway, by paying with the international pesos (CUCs) and receiving the change in the local money J for some fruit juice.

This is not my first mojito: 

:)