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Hola from Cuba and welcome to the first of our blogs.
It´s taken a while to get this one out due to extremely limited internet service around the island - even in the capital, Havana, there´s no wifi and only a handful of places are open to the public to use (and these let only 3 or 4 people in at a time while the rest queue in the street). So, we´re going to try and send this one which will cover our first week and then catch up when conditions allow. We expect that photos will take too long to download at the moment so will get round to these later as well.
Our first experience of Cuba comes from Havana where we landed after a 10 hour flight from Paris. By the time we´d queued for immigration, a chaotic security scanning of our hand baggage and a longer than expected wait for our main bags, 2.5 hours had passed and we were still at the airport! We reached where we were staying and went straight out to get a drink but ended up in a scuffy bar with drunks falling over around us and an unwelcome street band serenading us. We paid and left - the next day we realised we´d been charged twice as much as we would have been at more salubrious locations and that we had been short changed.
We´re happy to say that this relatively short period was the only disappointing experience we´ve had so far which we hope will become evident as we continue with our story but, in summary, the Cuban people are extremely friendly, the climate is great if not a bit too warm at times (30 degrees during the day and not often below 25 degrees at night), the food has been far better than we expected and both getting around and finding places to stay have been easy.
We spent our first four days in Havana, the capital of Cuba. The first thing you notice are the old American cars from the 1940/50s, Chevrolets, Buicks, Dodges and Cadillacs, many now hand painted and dented but somehow maintained enough to keep going. There are more of these on the streets than any other type of car but they´re closely followed by Ladas and Moskovitches, a legacy from the 1960-80s when Cuba was supported by the Soviet Union.
Havana architecture, a mixture of attractive Spanish colonial and ugly Soviet boxes, is also very striking but it is a shame to see that most of the older buildings are in a poor state of repair, more often than not with windows, walls and balconies damaged or missing.
There is music everywhere, coming from open house windows and live performances on the street. It´s also there sometimes when you don´t really want it - for example last night we were trying to have a quiet drink and write this blog and a four piece band turned up, grinning. There was nobody else in the cafe at the time so you feel obliged to watch, listen, applaud (and tip!)
We stayed in our first Casa Particular in Havana. These Casas are like our B&Bs but they´ve only been available in Cuba for the last few years (previously you had to stay in Government run hotels). They offer basic but clean rooms, mostly en suite at between 16-20 pounds a night plus a couple of pounds for breakfast - these were delicious and consisted of fresh pineapple, watermelon, guava, papaya and banana, eggs, warm sweet bread, coffee, hot chocolate, guava juice and banana milkshake which was delicious on muesli.
On the subject of food we´d read that this was basic but again we´ve been very pleasantly surprised as it´s not bad at all and certainly better than some of the other countries we´ve travelled in with chicken, pork, shredded jerk beef, prawns and even lobster readily available with Cuban staples like rice and beans.
There are no supermarkets as we know them and very few normal shops where ´luxury goods´ eg shampoo are sold in dusty glass cabinets and people just stand and stare at them without buying. A trade embargo preventing exports from the US to Cuba has been in place since 1963 following the Cuban Missile Crisis and, in retaliation, US brands are banned in Cuba so there are no McDonalds or Starbucks.
Cuba has had a tough time of things and went through a ´Special Period´ during the 1990s when the Soviet Union broke up and aid disappeared. There were power cuts for up to 8 hours each day, food rationing, fuel shortages and a return to using animals to transport and farming. Things are improving now and tourism has overtaken sugar cane production as the country´s main source of income.
That´s about it for now - we are well and hope that you are and we´ll try to send the next instalment as soon as we can.
Love from Tony and Linda xx
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Comments
Mark Ola..."you say you want a revolution", "you're going to go far"...... and all that Glad all is ok. It sounds like a great place Bet there are no TK Maxx's for Linda? Stay safe & keeop in touch Dec 11, 2013
Robert Doogan Great first update and a good history lesson to boot! Sounds an intriguing place. Have fun, no news at this end yet! Dec 11, 2013
Celia Forsberg Celia Forsberg. Glad to know about Cuba and that you are fine. All well at No 3 lots of post! White van man called and I asked who he was! Your fish man. I just said you were out! Sunny here but coldish. Good luck. Dec 11, 2013
Jill Good to hear you are both OK and up to your usual adventures Dec 11, 2013
Keith Nice to hear you're staying in those upmarket places again ! Think there might be a technical glitch with the map - looks like you just arrived from India via the UAE ! Perhaps there's an initialisation process after each of these world tours. Dec 11, 2013
Anne & Chris Great first blog, and, as always, very informative. I can visualise the grinning band...... and you 'smiling' back thinking 'I wish you'd just sod off and leave us alone!!'. Take care, and enjoy the rest of your travels...... Dec 12, 2013
Mum & Dad xx Lovely to hear from you and all your experiences, so interesting to read (glad all the bars are not full of drunks!) We are quite envious of the warm sunny weather, as we look out onto the damp grey day here. Dec 16, 2013
Mary & Barry Hi both, great to hear all your news since your arrival, Barry is very jealous of all the old cars you have seen, problem is if we ever get to visit Havana he will want to buy them all!!! Weather has not been good since we arrived in Los Gigantes, last week we had horrific storms, and torrential rain, but it seems to have settled down now. Enjoy your adventures and look forward to reading the next installment. Love Mary & Barry xx Dec 17, 2013
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