Cuba

Where to start with Cuba- what an incredible place full of life and colour as well as frustrations and confusion for a traveler. We arrived late into Havana airport after a long day of traveling from Leeds to London to Cuba, via Canada. As soon as we hit the highway in our taxi, we were excited to see the old classic American cars that are so synonymous with the country. Our taxi driver searched through the maze of small streets in central Havana before finding our casa particulares, essentially someone's old colonial house that they rent bedrooms in and without doubt the absolute best places to stay in Cuba. This casa was run by a lovely lady called Maritza who mothered us throughout our stay in Havana. We spent our first day walking around the city- seeing the Parque Central, the long Malecon road alongside the coast and went to buy some cigars from a cigar factory...obviously! Havana is an incredible mix of architecture but much of it is in disrepair and under scaffolding as they try to restore many buildings to their former glory. We were staying in the locals' area, away from tourist hotels, so got a good feeling for how normal Cubans live...basically loudly! There is always music blaring out of houses and people sitting on their doorsteps chatting and laughing. Everyone has a ready smile and an 'hola' to offer.

On our second day we took an open top bus tour around the city, which is spread across three main areas. We saw the revolution square with a huge image of Che and Cienfuegos's (another revolutionary) faces and jumped off the bus in old Havana. This area is the nicest to walk around as a Cuban non-profit is working hard to restore the buildings, squares and streets. It was New Year's Eve so we were trying to scope out the best place to see in midnight and 2015. Turns out that Cubans spend NYE with their families in their houses rather than partying on the street, however we found out that there were some things happening for tourists around the old town. As night fell, we had a meal (typically lacklustre as Cuba is not the place to go for good food!) near the central park, smoked a big fat cigar, drank Cuba Libres and wandered to the old town. We drank in the new year listening to a Cuban band and watching a couple of small fireworks that had been let off. Then the real fun began....it is customary for Cubans to throw water off their balconies at new year to expel bad spirits- this has obviously turned into trying to soak tourists walking the streets below. All done in good humour, many people succeeded and we reached our area of town wet through. This is when things turned a little sour....we needed to cross a couple of streets to get back to our casa, however locals had taken to throwing glass bottles from their windows in this area. We had to hide under the awnings with a couple of locals until there was a break in the glass throwing and we dared sprint across the street one by one. Not fun, pretty scary and reminiscent of (although of course nothing close) Sniper Alley in Sarajevo!!

The next day we tried to learn about the revolution in the 50's that saw Fidel Castro take power and hold it, with his brother Raul, to this day. The museum of the revolution was mostly in Spanish and full of propoganda but we managed to piece some together. Cuba had been colonised by Spain and many of its people enslaved but in the early 1900s the tide was turning across the colonised states against the occupiers. America assisted Cuba in gaining its independence from Spain, however in doing so Cuba became a dependent state on the US. Despotic puppet leaders were placed in power and Cuba became the playground of the American mafia with its close proximity to Florida. Che Guevara, who had been imprisoned in Mexico for his anti-government activities in Guatemala, met Fidel and Raul Castro in Mexico City and their shared hatred for the US and Socialist ideas led them to hatching a plan to start a revolution in Cuba. This is certainly over-simplifying things but they sailed to Cuba and over a number of years of guerilla warfare, overthrew Bastista and starting ruling the country. They gradually turned the country into a socialist state of government run companies and this is where Cuba remains today. It is truly as if time stopped in the 50's which is why a lot of tourists like coming to Cuba...there is still very much a feeling of community not yet eroded by the distractions of the internet (which is only available in small designated centres with supervision) however you do feel, especially for the young people, that they are being denied the opportunities that come along with computer literacy and access to the web. Crime is low and the signs of capitalism are non-existent- some small private businesses have only recently been permitted by Raul Castro e.g. small restaurants in someone's front room, a little shop out of an open window. This is nice and quaint for a tourist but means that the Cuban people have to deal with inefficiently run government businesses for all their basic needs- the 'supermarkets' have huge queues of people trying to buy basics which are kept behind counters and handed to customers by attendants. You can't help question whether Cuba has been protected by Castro for its own good and therefore avoids some of the problems of the Western world, or if its people have been unfairly held back...whatever your view it is all on the brink of change with new open talks with the States.

The next day we experienced one of the biggest frustrations of Cuba that makes backpacking quite challenging. The tourist bus company, Viazul, only runs very few buses between cities everyday and tickets are never available on the day. The only other option is to take a collectivo- a classic car shared with whoever else you can find going to the same place. We shared our first journey with two German chaps and arrived in the South coastal town of Cienfuegos. It is a typical, pretty little colonial town and was nice to walk around and people watch in the central plaza. The day after we ventured to nearby El Nicho waterfalls with our new German friends. After a short hike we came upon beautiful blue pools with a small waterfall that was lovely to swim in, before walking further up through the jungle to find a huge waterfall and yet more crystal natural swimming pools a little higher. That night we bought tickets for a concert in the 19th century theatre in the plaza- obviously we couldn't understand a word that was being said or sung but the small fat chap on the stage seemed very popular with the locals. The music was good but slightly ruined by the guy's singing so we were pleased when it was just an hour long! We ventured on along the coast to Trinidad the next day with guess who...the Germans.

Trinidad was a slightly bigger colonial town and was very picturesque. We did a photo walking tour to see the sights and met some nice people at our new casa with our new Cuban mother, Georgina. We ate at the casa every night- more lobster than I have ever eaten in my life for about 6 pounds each! We went on a catamaran the next day to a little island about 1.5 hours from the coast and snorkelled in the clear water. We saw some pretty nice fish and had lobster paella watching hermit crabs and an iguana roam on the beach. The next day we chilled at the beach near the town and that night went to a local salsa night- there were hundreds of people there and a packed dancefloor. I did a tiny bit of dancing but decided it was definitely best left to the experts!

We had been told that the best beach in the Caribbean is up in the North of Cuba on an island called Cayo Coco. We took the long trip up there in a collectivo with an Israeli couple on their honeymoon. All the hotels up there are ludicrously expensive all-inclusives full of Canadian and Spanish tourists. We however were staying in a hotel 2km away from the beach and 10 times less the cost....never has it been truer that you get what you pay for!! The hotel was being refurbished and basically operated as rooms for the construction workers. The restaurant was their canteen and was laughably filthy....we had to laugh it was that bad! We spent one day on the 'best beach' which was beautiful with poster-perfect clear water but, unsurprisingly, was very busy with tourists and sunbeds. The next day we took advantage of the all inclusive hotel nearest us and hid the fact we didn't have wristbands to get food and drinks :-)

The next day we set off for our favourite spot, Santa Clara. Having figured out the bus system by this point, we actually managed to book tickets and only had to wait 4 hours for the next bus! Santa Clara was less touristy and felt a lot more authentically Cuban. We sat in the central square and watched the local people come and go, as well as a mini goat and cart wheeling children around the square again and again. Che is credited with having liberated the area and this town, so there are hundreds of images of his face and a large memorial in his honour. We visited the memorial and saw his pen and watch, amongst many other ordinary belongings of his. By this point we had also figured out that the best food was to be found in the 'peso restaurants' that the locals frequent. These are restaurants that quote the menu in the local currency rather than the dollar-pegged CUC that's only for tourist use. As a result we had some pretty nice food in Santa Clara.

We left Santa Clara and headed back to Havana and back to Maritza so we could do a few things we hadn't managed before and ensure we were there for our ongoing flight. We visited a couple of sights but most importantly managed to go to a baseball game, the number one sport in Cuba. It was between the highest ranked team, Industriales and an away team Matanzas and was absolutely amazing. Yon had to give me a quick lesson in baseball to be able to follow it and I got quite into it. We were adopted by some hard core Cuban fans in front of us who kept snatching photos with passing Cuban celebs (including an olympic high jumper whose name you'll have to ask Yon) and for some reason, several photos with us! It was a perfect way to end our time in Cuba and by the time we got to the airport to get our flight to Colombia, I genuinely felt an ache that I would miss this confusing, frustrating, friendly, unique country.