Traveling Cuba
Tips & Tricks
First of all let me say that I enjoyed every bit of it. It was one of the best trips with the best company I could have (details remain locked in my head).
On this journey I used Tripomatic on my iPhone and bought the offline maps called “Americas Multipack”. It’s the best you can do. GPS will work, you can select the sights you want to see and always find your way back to your casa/hotel. Love this app (and I don’t even get payed to say that)!
Cuba’s dialing code is +53.
You’ll most probably need a visa to enter the country. In order to get one you need to get a proof that you’re insured while you travel. If you use your Visa or Mastercard often enough they will provide you with that document. Ask them to translate it to Spanish as well! Take that to the Cuban embassy and you’ll get the visa on the spot (comes with a small charge). This procedure might vary in your country/city.
Financials
In Cuba we tourists have to use the tourist currency called: CUC (Cuban Convertible Peso).
Check it’s current value: http://www.xe.com/currency/cuc-cuban-convertible-peso
You will figure out that it’s exactly the same value as the USD.
I recommend changing cash at the airport or at the bank. You will not find a lot of places where you can change your money, so change a lot of it at the airport.
If you have to go to the bank and wait for a counter, anticipate to invest about 1–2 hours (seriously).
If you are from the USA you have a lot of issues in Cuba: your credit cards won’t work and if you change USD cash to CUC you’ll pay 10% penalty and a 3% exchange fee. More on that here: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g147270-c109329/Cuba:Caribbean:Money.Exchange.html
You can only — easily — withdraw cash with your credit card. ATM/Cash Card most likely won’t work. If you withdraw with your credit card you will have to pay withdrawal fees. In my case it was 3%, some don’t pay any (lucky you).
Accommodation
In Cuba you have people renting part of their flats or houses. They are called “casas particulares”. These people have a license and need not work for the state anymore.
They are very friendly and will help you with all sorts of requests:
- other casas
- restaurants
- going out
- what to see
- breakfast and dinner etc.
I recommend renting your first casa for the city you land in and go from there. Ask your host for the next casa in the next city you want to go to. You will recognise casas by looking out for this logo:
Some casas have an internet connection but forget everything you know about your connection at home, it’s a 56k dial in modem. If you are very very very lucky to be in a casa with one of those, plan 1 hour for booking a domestic flight or 30 minutes to check your bank balance.
Natives are not allowed to have access to the internet. The access they have is from foreigners who now live in Cuba.
Casas cost between 20–30 CUC per night (per room). In high season it’s 30 CUC. Try to negotiate and include a breakfast into this price. It will work!
Recommended Casas, Sights and Beaches
Habana — Casa de Alexis y Mary
https://www.mycasaparticular.com/de/unterkunft/casa-particular-en-la-habana-casa-de-alexis-y-mary
Very friendly hosts, great breakfast and Mary’s son will help you carry your luggage to the 2nd floor.
Check out their terrace on the roof! It’s lovely and great for photos/panos.
Tell them you know “Patrick and Michael” from Vienna, it will make them laugh!
Organise yourself a ride through the city with an old and sexy looking american car. You can find the best ones at the “Capitolio” in the center. We payed 20 CUC for a 1 hour ride for 5 persons. At the end we gave hin 25 CUC. This guys car was the best looking one and he also made us the best offer.
The beach “Tropicoco” is great!!! Organise yourself a taxi and tell him when to pick you up again. Never pay in advance.
Trinidad — Casa Julia
Very nice casa with a big terrace where you will have breakfast and a great view.
Trinidads main square is lovely at night: live band (salsa, son), a lot of cuban people and a great atmosphere. We danced nearly every night!
Also visit the waterfalls, one is approx. 50min away by car. Get a driver/taxi and tell his when to pick you up again. It’s worth it to go with a guide (maybe your salsa teacher). At the waterfall (the one that is nearer) you have a great view and there is a spot where you can jump into the water. You can also get behind the waterfall by either swimming (hard) or by climbing over a few stones. Also totally worth it.
If you want to get a salsa lesson, go to the main square and ask for “Yusel”. He is a great guy with his own dancing school.
The beach is lovely! Must see!
Camagüey — Morva’s Casa
Camagüey was ok but actually it makes no sense to stay more than 1 night and visit the squares.
At night people drive their cars onto a managed parking place by the harbour because they are afraid of gas thieves.
Santiago de Cuba — Casa Don Carlos
The best casa we had. Carlos speaks great english and he can show you a restaurant where you pay national prices, which are half the normal price. You still pay in CUC but less.
Santiago is great for dancing Salsa and Son. You will find a lot of good male dancers, women not so much.
Take classes with Yordanis Ortiz Labrada (and say Michael sent you) :-)
He will also show you the best clubs in town.
Go to one of the parks/squares and take a guide (15 CUC for 2 hours) who will show you around the city. He will also show you (want to show you) places where you can buy rum and Cohibas. They are cheaper than normal but you’ll need to know how to check the quality, specially with cigars.
Visit the “Castillo del Morro” it’s a great place for photos. You’ll see the ocean ‘till the horizon and every day in the evening they fire an old canon into the water.
No good beaches here! You don’t even need to try to find one. Better driver further to Baracoa or to the north, which has the best beaches (I’ve heard).
Traveling
Bus
You can take the bus, which is not expensive. But put some warm cloths on, they cool it down to 18° and you will feel like in the deep freeze. It’s less cold at the back.
The bus ride from Trinidad to Santiago de Cuba costs 33 CUC pp, 51 CUC from Habana to Santiaga de Cuba and 25 CUC from Habana to Trinidad.
The bus company “Viazul” does a good job: http://www.viazul.com/
Taxi
In Cuba “everyone” is a taxi (“taxi? taxi?”). People will want to drive you anywhere, even to the next city. It’s best to ask at your casa for a adequate transport.
Take care, it’s not easy to get a “big car” to fit more than 3 peoples luggage into it. I don’t recommend driving with an old american car from one city to the next, it takes longer and can be a pain when it rains (windows or wipers often don’t work).
If you go to the beach or to the waterfalls (Trinidad) etc. get yourself a driver and tell him you want to go “there and back again”. Negotiate the price and tell him it’s for both directions and organise a pickup time for geting back. ONLY PAY AFTER THEY BRING YOU BACK! Otherwise they just don’t show up and you are stranded.
Renting a Car
Sure it’s fun but it’s very expensive. Also you can get lost because not every forking is marked.
Nearly everyone I know had some kind of glitch with their car: tire pressure, flat tire, out of gas, etc.
It’s not like you have a spare tire in the back of your rental car ;)
I recommend not renting a car and trying the above solutions. If you still want to rent one go ahead and reserve one beforehand to pick it up at the airport — they are often booked out.
Get a taxi in between cities and make trips to the surrounding places via taxi.
Food
Cuba is not known for it’s good food. Actually it’s pretty boring and you can’t (should not) eat at every place you walk by. Get recommendations from your casa.
You’ll end up eating a lot of chicken, shredded meat, yuka and brown rice with beans.
Your casa most likely will offer you breakfast and dinner. The breaktfast ist great, lots of fresh food and their omelettes are a good start into your day. You can’t get breakfast anywhere outside easily anyway.
For dinner it makes sense to eat at the casa on your first night; get your recommendations for the next days.
Habana — “Sancho Panza”
A great place to eat. It’s not in the “old city” anymore but it’s worth it.
Trinidad — La Botija
The best restaurant during the whole trip!
Santiago de Cuba
Ask Carlos, your host, I forgot the names of the restaurants. But there are not so many. You will end up eating a few times in the cheap one I mentioned above. The pizza restaurant on the same square is also great!
Negotiating & Prices
Remember CUC = USD. Natives pay in national Pesos, which makes their prices a lot cheaper. That is the whole idea of having two currencies.
It doesn’t work perfectly but people get by. When you pay someone in CUC they will use it to pay in CUC too. Some restaurants and shops have cheap prices for cuban people but in tourist areas they also pay in CUC and it costs them just as much as it does cost us.
Still cuban people will help themselves. 1 CUC is still money for them!
At the toilettes you must not give more than 10–25 CUC cents.
A big water bottle costs around 1–1,50 CUC.
Food costs about 10–12 CUC per meal. Obviously depends where you eat.
A good Mojito (say at it’s birth place Bodeguita del Medio) will cost you 5 CUC. Take this as a benchmark when ordering cocktails.
ALWAYS ask what stuff costs BEFORE you order it! It sounds silly but get back to me after your trip and tell me how often you forgot to do that ;)
Negotiating afterwards is awkward and much harder.
Always negotiate with everyone about the price. They like it and you almost never end up paying the original price. After a few days it will feel awkward if somebody doesn’t bargain with you, you will not like them at all. But some places are so touristy that this doesn’t work anymore — this is not Cuba!
Domestic Flights
We landed in Habana, went by taxi/bus slowly to Santiago de Cuba and flew back to Habana with “Cubana Airlines”.
Booked it on http://www.cubatravelnetwork.com for 125 CUC per person.
The airplane, an old Russian one, which had so much space inside that you thought you’re sitting in a lobby that’s about to take off.
Fun Facts
People will go “taxi, taxi?” or “cohiba, cohiba” all the time. If you are a single male you’ll not be alone for long (yes that kind of company).
Sometimes they will tell you that “today Buena Vista” (not mentioning “Social Club”) is playing today and it’s free because in the evening they’ll play at some expensive hotel. Not true ;)
Still people are nice and will give way if you make them laugh or say no a few times. Go with them once to experience how it is :-p
When they say “taxi” you say “cohiba” or “buena vista” or “Juan Formell” or “Los Van Van” ;)
“Cohiba, Cohiba”
You can buy them everywhere. Just make sure to get the certificate otherwise you might be in trouble at the airport (nothing happend when we flew back). If you plan to buy them at the airport when you fly back home: BAD IDEA! They are very, very expensive at the airport.
I don’t know much about cigars so I leave it to you to decide what price is adequate but 1 CUC per Cohiba is cheap. You can get them in the restaurant for 3,50 CUC. At the airport they sell you one for 12 CUC (jap).
Some want to offer you a cheaper casa, don’t do it!
Others want to tell you where you can dance the best Salsa or show you the best club in town. This can be fun because they are almost never unpleasent, just want to make some commission with you. Talk to them, have a fun conversation and go with the one that is most compelling to you. This will get you some fun memories.
Commission
Most Cubans make a living by working for the state AND with tourism. Working for the state earns them around 18 CUC per month. “Helping” tourists finding “the best XYZ” earns them around 3 per group. Say they earn 9 CUC a day with tourists = 270 CUC per month extra income. Think about it when you deal with them. It’s not black or white, just remember where the majority of their income comes from.
Some will tell you that they get a commission, others don’t. It’s up to you to decide who to trust, but remember that they will get a share when you eat somewhere or pick the ride they organised for you.
Have Fun
Most people are nice, make some fun with them, dance some salsa on the street while street musicians play, get yourself a salsa lesson (10 CUC per hour per person) and stroll with cubans through the streets.
Take your GoPro with you and mount it on “a stick”. This way you can take the most awesome videos. Make sure it’s waterproof (waterfalls, beach).
How was your trip?
