What not to do after spending 6 weeks in Jamaica surrounded by locals and backpackers smoking weed: forget to wash your socks.

I arrived into Santiago de Cuba. Things were good. There was a lot of security and customs officers, asking the same questions, which I had all of the answers for. I got all the way through to baggage claim, was excited to have a beer with my new local friend Timmy, when customs decided to search the single male clean shaven freshly washed hair good looking tourist arriving from the world’s most renown marijuana smoking country. Of course this didn’t bother me, as I don’t smoke. This guy was very thorough though, making me empty out every single item out of both of my bags. He was searching little hiding places I didn’t know I had and finding little pieces of bark and sand and dirt and who knows what from the inside of seams which has been there forever and a day. He was testing little bits that he particularly liked by adding a couple of drops from 3 different bottles. They all turned yellow and no one seemed to mind. Then, when he picked a piece off my smelly socks and it turned red, I got a little worried. He tested quite a few pieces off this one pair of socks and about 4 or 5 turned red. I was becoming a little more worried. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal though, since they didn’t find any real quantities, and it was only one pair of socks, and one piece from a shirt that was next to them. So how big of a deal was it??? After 2 hours of having absolutely everything unpacked and repacked, the result was a $110 fine. I asked if I could call my embassy, he said, ‘sure, there’s a payphone outside’. I didn’t have any money or the phone number so I just ran with it. All of it was done with proper paperwork and a whole heap of stamping and carbon copies and more stamping and signatures, so it was legit. I was feeling pretty average, mainly disappointed with my own naive carefreeness, when I found a taxi driver with an awesome Ford 57 (according to the sticker on the windscreen). He drove me to the bus station via a bar, a tourist restaurant and a local restaurant. It’s not often you get to shout your taxi driver dinner and a beer!

People are strange, when you’re a stranger.
Cuba is a very unique country. I really can’t get my head around how things operate. It’s a communist country, yet that seems to have very little impact on the every day backpacker. Taxi drivers still hassle you everywhere you walk and try to rip you off. Hustlers pounce on you as soon as you get off an inter-city bus, before you can even get your bags. Prices for accommodation and even restaurants have to be negotiated. And of course tourists love horse rides (we met a guy that paid $40, while we paid 4 cents each as part of the public transport system).

Then you’ve got the Casas Particulares. This is the most common form of accommodation for the budget traveller, the only option other than hotels (which are apparently very poor quality anyway) or free camping. The idea is that you are staying with a family, but unfortunately, in our opinion, you get treated more like a hotel guest – of course you have a private bedroom (and often bathroom), but if you choose to pay extra for dinner, you are waited upon like you’re in a restaurant, rather than having a family dinner, and are served up excessive quantities of food, which you feel some obligation to attempt to eat. They generally charge $20 or $25 including breakfast. At first this seems like an excellent income for the family, but they have to pay the government $200 per month, plus 20% tax on any profit. It’s far from easy. Also no wonder they try hard to sell you dinner for 6 or 8 bucks each, which won’t get taxed at all. When it comes to meal time, either lunch or dinner, everybody is certain that all tourists love to eat excessive quantities, especially seafood and even more particularly lobster (although its actually crayfish). Our first experience of the lobster was fantastic. We had been chatting with our Couch Surfing mate David, drinking his cocktails, and mentioned that Dasha had never tried lobster and I very rarely. The next evening when we called in for a cheeky cocktail, he brought out a massive platter – 5 grilled lobster tails on top of a salad (they don’t bother eating the rest of the animal). It was nothing short of brilliant.

It seems that I may be making somewhat of a habit of seeing the coolest thing on the last day. I wanted to buy dominoes, and surprisingly that was very hard. We met a dude willing to sell his personal Bucanero set, which sounded perfect since Bucanero was my beer of choice during my 3 weeks. We went for a stroll in the evening to find his apartment. This entire block was incredible! In a city that is relatively flat, there is some kind of… might have to ask my geologist friends out there, but perhaps a sink hole? So the top of all of the buildings are at the same level as the rest of the suburb, and from the street there is absolutely no way of telling that there is anything special here, but there’s an extra 3 stories below street level, built in this hole, with natural rock faces visible around the perimeter. It was a shame we didn’t get to go there during the day time for a photo session. It was actually quite a surreal and little bit spooky place in the evening. If you want to find it, you’ll have to stay with Ernesto.

Entonces, after a long ride on the bus, we finally got to Cienfuegos. At the bus station, people started jumping on us offering accommodation straight away, they would push and drag you by the hand, even though you are trying to get your luggage off the bus. After questioning what were the prices around this town, I called the number of a recommended casa and made a deal to stay there cheap. I wouldn’t recommend staying at any recommended casas – if you shop around you can find really nice casas, for a good price and with good friendly people. The place we stayed at was ok, but nothing to brag about.

The city itself is really pretty and clean. It has a strong European feel to it. It’s nice and there are plenty of places to eat or have a drink, but except for that there isn’t much to do. Every day we were there we were so tired, we didn’t check out the night life, but LP promises it to be good. We went to the very south of the city, where most of the houses overlook the bay, which isn’t that pretty to be honest. Most of the casas there are a lot more expensive and fancy. We found a yacht club, where we tried to meet some sailors, since we didn’t have flights out of Cuba – why not try to sail away? We didn’t see many people there except for the massive group of Indian students who were celebrating something, possibly medical graduation – pretty spectacular…and we met our kiwi friends, Adam and Sophie, who were our travel companions for the rest of our stay and taught us a great card game – dirty bird. That night we had a few drinks and on the way home decided to call into a local beer hole for a cheeky last beer. That’s where we made friends with one cunning Cuban who was trying to get me to marry him first for $5000, then the price went down to $500. Curly didn’t manage to get rid of me that night!…

After enjoying a special vibe in Cienfuegos, we decided not to waist our time here anymore and move on to Trinidad. We got met at the bus station by casa hustlers and after making a pretty good deal went with them. The city of Trinidad is second popular for tourists after Havana. It is a very photogenic and colourful city. A lot of very beautiful craftsmanship is being sold on the streets. Lots of old fancy cars and even people are posing for you to take a good shot. Similar to Cienfuegos, there isn’t much to do except for eat and drink, but just outside the city there is a famous beach Playa Ancon. We went there for a day. Absolutely incredibly nothing special worth mentioning. Just a beach with relatively white sand and blue water. Zero visibility for snorkelling.

We had a good time with our new friends, just chilling and enjoying mojitos and a live gig of salsa on the main square, but it’s time to move on and we went to Playa Larga for some more beach times.

In Playa Larga we found ourselves a casa and spent a whole day diving in the bay of pigs, which was excellent. Me and Curly went for a cave dive, which is a very different experience from any other dive I have ever done. The underwater cave was quite deep and completely dark. It is a little bit disorientating to go with a torch, but eventually body and eyes adjust. After the cave we went out in the bay, because we had a lot of air left. The bay is very nice there, a lot of coral and fish, which we got to feed bread to, which became an awesome frenzy, with some fish eating right out of our hands.

Next day by the recommendation of Lonely Planet we went to Caleta Buena, where snorkelling promised to be good, but the main thing was a 14CUC entry into an all inclusive resort kind of thing. So it was a little bit of snorkelling (which was average) and a lot of eating and drinking. Especially drinking. On the way there our guagua went on the road smashing thousands of crabs. Poor things have one or two days a year, when they come out from the woods down to the beach to mate (lay eggs?) and a lot of them just hang out on the road for some reason, obviously getting smashed by fast going cars and buses. Crazy amounts of crabs – such a pity!

Anyhow by the time we got back home our boys were in a pretty ‘good’ condition. Then it started to rain, then we started to dance and run around the village in our swim wear, that way we made friends with our neighbours and other locals. Curly was trying to steal a bicitaxi, for that he got punished and the owner made him pedal to the next village to get some more ron. Fun times…

Next day our kiwi friends left for Havana and we caught up with them the day after. Couple more days we stayed with Ernesto and then early morning flight to…Nicaragua!

The pictures are here, here and here.

Next day we woke up after 2 hours nap to catch a morning bus to Vinales. Arriving at the bus station 40 min before the buses scheduled departure, we got stuck in a queue to buy tickets for our touristy expensive bus waiting for locals to buy tickets for their locals bus. By the time we reached the cashier, she spontaneously stood up and went away to solve another passenger’s problem. 20 min until bus…15…10 min…She returns just to let us know that there are no more seats on the bus…Very rudely. What a b…! Never mind, we went out of the station, found two germans and caught a taxi for 2 cuc more and got there at least an hour before our full bus got there, which gave us more time and opportunities to shop around for a casa. Our casa in Vinales cost us 20 cuc per night for a room. The cassa owner would advertise it as a very friendly place with a pool, where you cn relax in hot weather. Sure thing you can, but it doesn’t mean the pool will save you from the heat, since there is no water in it. Eventually the pool would get filled with dodgy soapy non transparent water. Not very inviting. Anyhow, we didn’t have much time for a leisurely sit in a pool, because beautiful Vinales waited to be explored.

On the day of arrival we didn’t do much, because we were pretty tired after a pretty active previous night. So we strolled up and down the main street, checking out local peso pizzas, local people and other casas for comparison. Nothing exciting, except for an enormous amount of rocking chairs that Vinales town posseses and an enormous amount of tourists. The pizzas turned out quite bad and Vinales didn’t offer any cheaper or better casas.

Next day, after a proper 10 hour sleep in we started our hike late. Trying to find a 16km track that has been described in the latest Lonely Planet, we went up to a fancy hotel up the hill with a nice pool and brilliant views over the valley. There we found out that the track used to start there, but not anymore and that of course it is better to go with a guide. Not sure for what reason- just better. Lonely Planet for Cuba in terms of giving good advice for an independent traveler has been really disappointing. We went back into town and started from there on our own. With some help of a rather useless LP map of the area and with the help of friendly locals we managed to find our way through tobacco farms, dry orange dusty roads and paddocks to two caves, both of them mentioned in LP.

First was just a tourist rip of, where we didn’t even bother to go in. Next cave was about 5 km more up the road. By the time we made it there it was some time past five and the cave was closed for visitors. Nevertheless for a small fee workers are quite happy to let you in  to see the whole cave by yourself without 100’s of tourists that come here daily. Lovely. We did miss out on the boat ride, which turns out to be a 2 min ride anyway. We were thinking over pina colada in a nearby bar how to get back home, because it started to get late and then..sie Germans, of course, saved us again. This time a couple of them had a rental car and they were happy to give us a ride into the town.

Evening went by quick with a good chat and rum with our room neighbours. Next day we took off earlier in the morning to explore the remaining part of the national park (judging by LP map) towards Dos Hermanos campismo and Los Aquaticos. It was a nice start to the day. Clear skies, not too hot in the morning, amazing colours and friendly locals, who spoke spanish so quick and with a specific accent that we just smiled and nodded in response.

On the way to campismo we found a pina farm, horses, turkeys and other bits. Campismo looked quite decent and I would probably prefer to stay here right in the national park in a private cabin for half the price. Next time. From Dos Hermanas we continued on to Los Aquaticos.

As already mentioned, LP map is totally useless, so only with help of locals we got to a village that we thought probably is Los Aquaticos. By the legend, Los Aquaticos were people who discovered the healing abilities of the local underground water, that comes up through caves in surrounding mogotes. Since about 10 years no one is left in the village who is still practicing medicinal water drinking, because the last true Aquatico died- maybe the water wasn’t that healing after all?… The guy who we met on the way proposed to take us to the cave and swim in the healing waters instead. We did that and it was the greatest experience in Vinales. The cave is 26m deep and 4km long. After descending 5 or 6  meters down, our guide pulled out some previously prepared bottles filled with kerosine, lit them up and down we went. Nice and spooky. Eventually the track would stop and continue through a corridor filled with water. We jumped in our swim wear and continued on until we reached a wide opening with pool. Apparently in raining season the corridors are filled with twice as much water, which makes it impossible to walk. Also gushing water brings in a lot of logs and pieces of wood, which makes it tricky to walk through the cave. To go all the way through the cave and get out on the other side it is necessary to have scuba diving equipment. We didn’t have it, but were pretty happy with the experience of swimming in total darkness 26 m below the ground, in a still and silent cave.

We went back, tipped our guide, his wife showed us junta (I think that’s how it is called)- a local animal that they hunt with the help of little dogs and started our way back. After 10 or so minutes walking I realised that I had left my watch in the cave at the very bottom. Back we went. Now I think I can be a tour guide, because I know where the cave is and where the kerosine  bottles are. This is the best of all three caves that we have seen in Vinales. It’s name is Cuave de Palamerito.

The rest of the pictures are here.

Finally I am here. After dreaming about this country for about five years if not more, I am here. Lying in my bed. In arguably the best casa particulara in Havana, staring at the phosphorous stars glued to the ceiling, I lie here mesmerised by the atmosphere of this city, by beautiful people walking the streets, by my super lovely and welcoming hosts, by couch surfing (again! ), even by this old peeling window blinds that separate me from the ever beautiful, rough, romantic and incredibly sexy city- Habana…

I arrived on the 8th of March to Varadero, which is about two hours away from Havana. I had to wait two hours for my bus, during which I observed how thirsty for tourist money Cubans run around offering taxi’s, buses and tours and women dressed in a very revealing “sexy” fashion waiting for something… Havana met me with rain, amazing light and a big hug from a couch surfer David. He took me to the casa particulara of his friends, where we had a lovely dinner and a cin cin for the international day of women. Next thing- we went to visit his other friend Enrique, who is 44 and hosting travellers too. He studied in Moscow for 5 years, so we spoke in Russian. So so weird…and fun! I mentioned that Enrique is 44 because I can never believe Cubans, when they tell me how old they are. Lucky people with good genes. They all look wonderful and about 10 years younger than they actually are. Generally people are very very attractive here. I guess dancing whenever there is a free minute and smiling a lot helps. Couldn’t take my eyes off them. Had the urge to run around and take pictures of everyone. We picked up three french travellers and went for a sangria and cheeky wine on Malecon. Malecon is a road along the coast. Kind of a classic Havana place, where when the tide is high the waves are smashing on the side and splashing salty water all over the road, cars and unlucky people. When it’s quiet and dry there are always people hanging out, just like we were. Drinking, chatting, playing guitars and other instruments and of course dancing. Also a popular place for couples during day or night.

Next day started with me suddenly becoming very rich. In Cuba there is two currencies. One is sort of for foreigners (convertibles CUC) and the other is for locals (moneda national pesos). The exchange rate is about this: 1US=0.93CUC; 1CUC= 24 pesos. In Cuba you can get stuff amazingly cheap, like 10 pesos pizza, which is very simple and fatty, but delicious…or 2 peso glass of juice, 10 peso ride in a communal taxi etc. Also there is a lot of expensive stuff obviously only targeted at foreigners or rich cubans. Like Casa de Musica, where they play salsa every night, but simple cuban people can’t afford themselves to pay for the entrance let alone drinks in places like that.

After receiving 50CUC worth of pesos (in 10’s!!!) I went back home to leave a pack of money under the pillow, on my way to visit David at his place. It happened that this day his neighbour was celebrating his departure to Miami…. Chivas Regal at noon, continuing with rum, excellent home cooked food, cohibas and salsa in the kitchen in between. Later on me and a Canadian couple went for a stroll along Malecon into Havana Centro, where we enjoyed a cold beer in a local bar for 18 pesos and met a really nice old guy siting on his stair smoking a cigar. He invited us in and showed us photos of Havana 100 years ago or similar. Really interesting and lovely of him. His bicycle was of a similar vintage (of course a Russian one). I was surprised to see Obama’s picture on his wall. He said he likes him, because he is the first black president.Very lovely old man who just needs someone to talk to. Then we went to check out Callejon de Hammel, which is just a street in Havana Centro, where all the younger artists express themselves in form of graffiti or installations, using anything that they can find in this old city full of old objects.

Coming back home to Vedado we picked up David and went to see a drumming festival in Teatreo Mayo. One has to really love drumming to enjoy a concert like that. Eight very famous and talented drummers of Havana were playing solo for about 10 min each. Yes, they were incredible, but for me it’s a little too much of drumming, especially taking in mind that Cubans love their speaker volume very high – where are my earplugs?…To please me they finished the concert with a classic Aragon. For me it was incredible to see them, for most of the youngsters it wasn’t anything special, so they just stood up and left. No ethics!

As always, trying to go to bed a bit earlier never works, because I talk with Ernesto until the wee hours on the balcony.

Next day wasn’t less amazing- we went to check out David’s sister’s place and stayed there for pretty much all day. We were cleaning, drinking rum, of course dancing and hanging out with their kids. Afterwards we walked back home, which took us about 1,5 hours, but it was great to see a different part of Havana with it’s ancient buildings, so beautiful and so sadly slowly disappearing under the heavy hands of time…

Failing to wake up early due to never-ending conversations and debates with David and Ernesto, I managed to gather myself and go together with Ernesto for an exploration in Havana Centro. The plan was to take pictures, but my battery went flat and we were just walking and trying out peso pizzas, which was alright. Have seen China town, which is kind of bizarre to see in Havana, Capitolio building, Central park, tourists (finally I know where they are!) and a bit of the University. In the evening I was invited to come to David’s Dad’s birthday party. It was a blast, as it always is with David. His family is amazing! There was lots of talking, discussing (I surprised myself with ability my to discuss stuff in Spanish), really good food and of course dancing dancing dancing. His Mum was the first to jump up and show us how to do some boogie and on it went- salsa, son, rueda and even a bit of reggaeton. Wonderful night, wonderful people. I felt happy! It’s never an early night for me here in Havana…

Saturday we went to the cemetery. No, nothing sad about it, the contrary- it is so beautiful. Apparently the third most important in the world. The first two are in France and Spain. It is huge and most of it is white marble graves with amazing sculptures and church like graves. A lot of stories and legends to be told by a local very articulate guide. Recommend to get there early because there is a lot to see and hear. This night we agreed not to go crazy and have an early one. We even sacrificed going to a local rock concert, which promised to be good. Nevertheless, the early night never happened. Endless conversations on all sorts of themes wouldn’t let us go to rest.

I had an easy Sunday. Since everything closed I just strolled to Revolution plaza. A wide road leads to a high tower. One can just imagine what parades they’re having here on 1st of May. We missed a salsa concert this night as well, but had another long discussion with David and Ernesto over the beers…a very long discussion. I got home at around 3.30.

Next day I drag myself out of the bed to get to the bus station, where I met Curly. He flew in to Santiago and took an overnight bus to Havana. This day we went exploring Havana Centro. Which was nice, but quite touristy. So to get rid of a touristy vibe we ended our evening over a rum with coke and game of domino with Ernesto and his friend. Who said that Europeans/Australians don’t know how to play domino? Even though it was tricky because we played with 9 dominos instead of traditional 6’s,  playing as a pair, we still came out winners!

With a late start to the day we managed to cover the whole of super touristy Havana Vieja, which isn’t that big. The walk through architectural beauties of old part of Havana was broken in two little bits with stops for mojitos, beers and hot chocolate. As the travellers bible recommended we went for a cheap feast to Los Nardos, where they served us a huge portion of chicken and fish for a reasonable price. It was very pleasant walking through Havana at sunset hours. Golden light and people coming back from work or school filled up the streets. We didn’t manage to check out museums so we came back the day after. Museo de Revolucion is quite interesting though overflowed with info about post revolution. I recommend reading about the revolution beforehand as well or watching a movie about Che. Museo de Artes belles is worth checking out as well, filled with paintings by Cuban artists.

It took us almost two days to try to find a bank where we could withdraw money. So not much to say about those days. We had a nice afternoon drinking beer in a local bar and tried a flying peso pizza, which was deliciosa!

The last night in Havana was spent with David and his extended family in Teatro Nacional, where we danced a lot of salsa and saw a local gig by a quite cheesy band. The night was awesome. We had lots of fun and even Curly was dancing. It was sad saying goodbye to someone like David. Without him, his help and his big big heart I would never have had such an awesome experience in Havana. He is a special special person in this hectic crazy incredible country.

The rest of the pictures, which I like immensely are here.