CUBA MAP, FAQ's ABOUT CUBA & TRAVELOG
Listed below are a number of frequently asked questions with answers
Geographic, population, political/economic make-up and
language
Cuba is a tropical country located in the Tropic of Cancer. It is the largest
Island in the Greater Antilles with a population of 11 million people. The
language is Spanish though English is now taught in schools. The country
follows a socialist/communist political structure. The economy is now headed by
tourism followed by sugar, nickel, cigars and citrus fruits. Click here for
Cuba Map
Local and foreign currency, credit cards and travelers checks
The currency is the peso but tourists are expected to pay for everything in
Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC$). The US dollar was taken out of circulation
recently (see USD Regulations on Home Page for details). Credit/debit cards and
travelers checks not drawn on US banks are accepted for larger transactions
such as hotels, car-hire and some restaurants. Credit/Debit cards can be used
to CUC$ from banks, commission usually 3%. Traveler’s checks can be changed in
banks but may incur a 3.5% commission.
Climate
Climate is tropical cooled by trade winds. The dry season is between November
and April. Rainy season is from April/May to July but usually consists of
shortish sharp downfalls. Cuba’s mean average temperature is 25.2c. July and
August are very hot, 32c plus and highest humidity. Hurricane season is from
June to November with likeliest probability in October.
Vaccinations and medical care
Vaccinations - check with your GP. Medical care is probably the best in Latin
America and is free for Cuban’s. Tourists should have medical insurance. Most
major cities and resort destinations have 24-hour international clinics for
tourists.
Accommodation - hotels and villas
Accommodation varies from 5* hotels with some interesting colonial conversions
in old Havana. The beach resorts mostly consist of all-inclusive (all meals and
drinks) hotels. Outside the cities there are villas or fincas in provincial
towns and mountain resorts.
Time difference
Time difference is 5 hours behind from Greenwich Mean Time.
Flight travel time
Flights take approximately 9 hours actual flying time from Europe; airlines
include Cubana, Air France, Iberia, Alitalia, Air Europa, Martin Air, Monarch
and Condor. 1 hour from Florida, USA. 5 hours from Canada.
American restrictions
At the present time, US citizens are not allowed to travel to Cuba unless they
have a valid US Treasury visa. The Bush regime has tightened up the laws
following many Americans arriving in Cuba via a third country during the
Clinton regime.
Safety
Cuba is one of the safest countries in the world in which to travel. Common
sense applies to valuables in hotel rooms (there are safes available to rent in
the room). Old and Central Havana are subject to occasional petty thieving and
jewelry/bag snatching.
Customs requirements
Customs is relatively easy with no forms to fill. Suitcases are X-rayed so
electrical goods and food items may induce a search and possible confiscation
until departure.
Visas
You can obtain by person from the Cuban Consulate or your travel operator.
Names on passport must be the same as the names that appear on flight tickets
and Tourist Visa Card. Your passport must be valid for six months.
Water & Electric
Water should not be drunk, even in hotel rooms, unless it has been boiled.
However, most visitors drink purchased mineral water, which is widely
available. Cuba operates on 110-volt AC nation-wide; though 220-volt is found
in places, take an adapter with you.
Salsa scene
Salsa is the national music and dance of Cuba. Most clubs play a mix of Salsa
and international music, some with excellent live Salsa bands. Salsa lessons
are available in Havana, Santiago de Cuba and some big hotels and resorts.
Arts and culture
There is a fairly active arts and cultural scene in Cuba. Havana has several
theatres, cinemas, art galleries with two new superb galleries; one devoted to
Cuban art. There are many interesting museums. The National Ballet is world
famous. The International Jazz Festival is held in December, as well as other
festivals throughout the year.
Food and drink
Cooking is Creole and international. The Creole is a mixture of Spanish and
African components. Cooking is still a bit bland though some of the Paladares
(family run restaurants) have developed a bit more imagination, prices range
from US$ 8-15. Commonest meat is pork; rice and beans are ubiquitous. Beef,
lobster and prawns are only legally available in state restaurants at generally
rip-off prices. Despite being an island, Cubans are not great fish eaters;
nevertheless fish is available and specially lobsters. Cocktails are good with
most being rum based. The national cocktail is a Mojito followed by Cuba Libre,
Daiquiri. A refreshing drink is 'Limonada natural' which is fresh lemon juice
with water. Light beers are available. Wines are available but fairly expensive
and not always very good. A Cuban/Italian wine exists. If you are self-catering
there are a number of markets where you can buy fresh food, although limited in
choice. You will find more variety in ‘dollar shops’ or supermarkets.
Vegetarians and vegans are not well catered for, but you will manage. There is
an excellent veggie restaurant, the Bambu Restaurant, which overlooks the
Japanese garden in the botanical garden in Havana. More veggie places are
developing.
Women travelers
Women traveling on their own are generally safe but will be subject to lots of
verbal cries from men and curiosity from everyone.
Gay travelers
Cuba has gradually become more open about gays after a time of repression just
after the Revolution started.
Beaches Resorts & Swimming Pools
Cuba has some beautiful beaches, many of which are largely unspoilt. There are
a number of beach resorts east of Havana such as the Playas del Este within 20
minutes drive. Varadero is the best known and most developed, mainly for
all-inclusive package holidays. Trinidad has a good beach situated on the
Caribbean Sea. There are many excellent beaches in the east of Cuba. Escape
islands with good beaches include Cayo largo and Cayo Coco. The sand in these
places never gets hot owing to the formation from calcareous corals. Swimming
is usually very good and safe. Scuba diving and snorkeling is excellent. Some
hotels allow non-residents the use of swimming pools and may charge a small fee
for this.
Transportation and car hire
Transport is Cuba's biggest let down. Internal flights are available between
major towns. There is only one reliable luxury coach service, Viazul, which
travels between major towns; a return fare from Havana to Trinidad costs USD
50. The rail system is fairly extensive but subject to delays and breakdowns.
Hiring a car is the best way to see the island but is expensive, starting at
about USD 60 per day. Petrol is widely available at 90 cents per litre. Roads
are actually quite good but beware of potholes. Taxis are widely available and
are probably the best means of transport within Havana. Taxi fares within
Havana range from USD 3 to USD 5, fares from airport around USD 15 to USD 20.
Nightlife
Nightlife is widely available from classic cabarets such as the world famous
Tropicana to small intimate clubs interspersed by the commoner club which
usually has a small show followed by dancing at midnight. Nightlife generally
starts late. For Salsa and live bands try the Casa de la Musica. You will also
find many musicians in hotels and in restaurants.
Cycling
Cycling through Cuba is popular with some travelers who bring their own bikes
or hire them locally. At the time of writing, Iberia Airline will take bikes on
their flights.
Horse riding
One of the best horse riding excursions is a day trip through the surrounding
mountains of Trinidad and a much needed chill-out at a waterfall.
Scuba diving and snorkeling
Excellent. The most famous areas are Isle of Youth, Maria la Gorda (Pinar del
Rio state), Guajimico (near Trinidad). Largely unexplored and clear waters.
Hemingway trail
You can see the hotel room where he stayed at the Ambos Mundos Hotel, old
Havana, now and a museum. Visit the Finca la Vigia near Havana - his old house
now a museum.
Ecology
Cuba has much to offer for the Eco tourist with some beautiful places like the
region La Terrazzo, Topes de Collantes, Baracoa and Jardines de la Reina.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance is highly recommended.
Telephone, Email & Internet
All local and international calls can be made from your hotel room or a
telephone centre in the hotel. Outgoing international calls can be made with a
prepaid charge card from designated telephone centers. You can hire mobile
phones or use your own mobile phone, both of which require using a Cuba
network. There is also some Internet centers for sending and receiving emails.
Cuba – a perspective (Reproduced from Moon Handbook Cuba. Author
Chris Baker)
In October 1959, Fidel Castro spoke to the American Society of Travel Agents
(ASTA) convention, held that year in the old Blanquita Theater (now the Karl
Marx) in Havana. "We have sea," said Castro. 'We have bays, we have beautiful
beaches, we have medicinal waters in our hotels, we have mountains, we have
game and we have fish in the sea and the rivers, and we have sun. Our people
are noble, hospitable, and most important, they hate no one. They love
visitors, so much in fact that that our visitors feel completely at home."
Normal relations with the United States still existed back then, and the US
ambassador, Philip Bonsai, also lauded Cuban tourism at the ASTA convention:
"Cuba is one of the most admirable countries in the world from the point of
view of North American tourism and from many other points of view."
Four decades have passed. Nothing has changed but the politics.
Cuba won its independence from Spain at the turn of the century only to be
occupied militarily, politically, and economically by the United States. It was
an uncertain independence: never fully under the United States' thumb, but
never fully out from under it, either, until the Revolution wrote another
chapter in Cuban history. Castro & Co. made a beautiful revolution but,
alas, spun off into Soviet orbit and got trapped in the Cold War. Four decades
later, Cuba and the US remain separated by 90 miles of shimmering ocean churned
into a watery no-man's land by political enmity. Today, the Straits of Florida
is the widest, deepest moat in the world.
Travelers visiting Cuba today do so at a fascinating historical moment, as Cuba
is unwinding from its Marxist cocoon. A new Cuba is emerging. It is extending
its hand to the rest of the world and inviting us to visit. Four decades after
Cuba closed its doors to outsiders, tourism is booming again.
Sadly, the US government isn't listening, although an increasing number of US
citizens are circumventing the travel restrictions by entering Cuba through
Canada, Mexico, or Caribbean nations (... or on any of dozens of organized
tours that permit virtually any US citizen to travel to Cuba legally!). It's
remarkably easy to do. Cubans play their part by abstaining from stamping
passports, so Uncle Sam need never know. Most yanquis harbor the misimpression
that it's illegal for US citizens to visit Cuba. It's not; it's merely illegal
to spend dollars there. In any event, no US tourist has ever been prosecuted
merely for visiting Cuba.
Cuba is made for tropical tourism: the diamond-dust beaches and bathtub-warm
seas the colors of peacock feathers... the bottle-green mountains and jade
valleys full of dramatic formations... the ancient cities, especially Havana
and Trinidad, with their flower-bedecked balconies, rococo churches, and
elegant plazas... and, above all, the sultriness and spontaneity of a country
called "the most emotionally involving in the Western hemisphere."
The country is blessed with possibility. Divers are already delirious over
Cuba's wealth of deep-sea treasures. Sport fishing is also relatively advanced,
with several dedicated resorts and far more fish than fishhooks. Laguna del
Tesoro, part of the swampy Zapata Peninsula National Park, is one of several
premier bird-watching areas. There are crocodiles, too, lurking leery-eyed in
well-preserved Everglades. Horseback riding options abound. Spa and health
tourism is booming. Cuba is being eyed as a prime destination for bicycle and
motorcycle touring. And hikers can head for the Sierra del Rosario or tread
trails trod by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra.
Cuba's greatest, most enigmatic appeal is that traveling through it you sense
you are living inside an unfolding drama. Cuba is still intoxicating, still
laced with the sharp edges that made Federico Garcia Lorca, the Spanish poet,
write to his parents, "If I get lost, look for me in Cuba," and that made
Ernest Hemingway want to "stay here for ever."
Set foot one time in Havana and you can only flee or succumb to its enigmatic
allure. It is impossible to resist the city's mysteries and contradictions.
Walking Havana's streets you sense you are living inside a romantic thriller.
You don't want to sleep for fear of missing a vital experience. Before the
Revolution, Havana had a reputation as a place of intrigue and tawdry romance.
The whiff of conspiracy, the intimation of liaison, is still in the air.
Your first reaction is of being caught in an eerie colonial-cum-1950s time warp.
Fading signs evoke the decadent decades when Cuba was a virtual colony of the
United States. High-finned, chrome-spangled dowagers from the heyday of Detroit
are everywhere, conjuring images of dark-eyed temptresses and men in Panama
hats and white linen suits. Havana, now Communist but still carnal, is peopled
in fact as in fiction by characters from the novels of Ernest Hemingway and
Graham Greene. All the glamour of an abandoned stage set is here, patinated by
age. For foreign visitors it is heady stuff.
Thirty-odd years of US propaganda and negative media reports have led many
visitors to expect the worst--a fossilized shell of a country with a population
cowed and sullen; their lips glued shut by fear. Yet those who simply point out
Cuba's negatives--the inept bureaucracy, the shortages, the muffled press--do
not see the smiling children, or notice the educated youths eager to dissect
Voltaire or challenge you to a game of chess. Cuba rightly brags about its
educational network and its health system, which provides free care for
everyone and has reduced infant mortality and raised the life expectancy to a
par with developed nations. And after several decades of not being caught up in
the monied economy, there is a distinct lack of hype, an environment in which
success is not measured by the level of consumption (although this is
changing). Cubans can still take ample pleasure in rocking on a veranda
watching laughing children chase a hoop down a dusty street. Even the young
retain fond memories of days before the Soviet Union collapsed, when Cubans had
become accustomed to a quality of life that has only recently been pulled from
under their feet.
Nonetheless, today there is general agreement that things have gone terribly
wrong and the future is full of uncertainty. The current crisis is severely
testing the Cubans' faith in human cooperation, a situation exacerbated by the
tourism boom, which has hallmarks of a Faustian bargain...
To the international visitor, the frustrations of life for the average Cuban
need be no more than a slight inconvenience. Tourists are free to go wherever
they wish, and there are few visible hallmarks of a totalitarian system.
And yet the "real" Cuba isn't easy to fathom. The casual visitor is easily
beguiled. Tourists riding in comfortable Toyota minivans may wind up with
little more than a canned experience of the country. An open-minded visitor is
torn two ways: Cuba is both disheartening and uplifting. You'll most probably
fall in love with the country, while being thankful that you don't have to live
in it.
After all, you don't have to respect a government to fall in love with a country
or its people.
Cubans relish a passion for pleasure despite (or because of) their hardships.
Salsa and irresistible rumbas pulse through the streets, and throngs of people
congregate at nightclubs and cabarets, including the Tropicana, the open-air
extravaganza--girls! girls! girls!--now in its sixth decade of stiletto-heeled
paganism. Cubans you have met only moments previously may invite you into their
homes, where rum and beer are passed around and you are lured to dance by
narcotic rhythms. How often have I been carried away, laughing, flirting,
dancing as it were with the enemy? It is hard to believe that the US
government's Trading With The Enemy Act is directed at these compellingly
warm-hearted people.
Everywhere Cubans embrace and welcome you into their arms. Everything touches
your heart. You come away feeling like one of my friends, who on her first
visit to Cuba began dancing uncontrollably in a casa de la trova. The Cubans
formed a line and, "like a diplomat," took her hand, kissed her cheek. As I set
out to write this book, she implored me: "Chris, bring your genuine feeling
into your pages. Breathe the innocence and beauty of Cuba without castrating
Castro and his revolution."
Ernest Hemingway, who loved Cuba and lived there for the better part of 20
years, once warned novice writer Arnold Samuelson against "a tendency to
condemn before you completely understand. You aren't God, and you never judge a
man," Hemingway said. "You present him as he is and you let the reader judge."
Enjoy!
Ernest Hemingway...
Ernest Hemingway first set out from Key West to wrestle marlin in the wide
streaming currents off the Cuban coast in April 1932. Years later, he was to
sail to and fro on the Key West-Havana route dozens of times. The blue waters
of the Gulf Stream, chock-full of billfish, brought him closer and closer until
eventually, "succumbing to the other charms of Cuba, different from and more
difficult to explain than the big fish in September," he settled on this
irresistibly charismatic island.
Hemingway loved Cuba and lived there for the better part of 20 years. It was
more alluring, more fulfilling, than Venice, Sun Valley, or the green hills of
Africa. Once, when Hemingway, was away from Cuba, he was asked what he worried
about in his sleep. "My house in Cuba," he replied, referring to Finca Vigia,
in the suburb of San Francisco de Paula, 15 kilometers southeast of Havana.
At first it was the fighting--and the women--that brought Hemingway back to
Cuba. When his wife was absent, Hemingway did his best to keep up his bad-boy
reputation for booze and broads.
The Cult of Hemingway
Havana's city fathers have leased Papa's spirit to lend ambience to and put a
polish on his favorite haunts. Havana's marina is named for the prize-winning
novelist. Hemingway's room in the Hotel Ambos Mundos, and Finca Vigia, are
preserved as museums. And plans are even underway for a "Friends of Hemingway"
club for tourists.
Yet the cult of Hemingway is very real. Cubans worship him with intensity not
far short of that accorded Che Guevara and nationalist hero Jose Marti. The
novelist's works are required reading in Cuban schools. His books are
best-sellers. "We admire Hemingway because he understood the Cuban people. He
supported us," a friend told me. The Cuban understanding of Hemingway's "Cuba
novels" is that they support a core tenet of Communist ideology--that humans
are only fulfilled acting in a 'socialist' context for a moral purpose, not
individualistically.
"All the works of Hemingway are a defense of human rights," claims Fidel, who
knows Papa's novels "in depth" and once claimed that For Whom The Bell Tolls,
Hemingway's fictional account of the Spanish Civil War, had inspired his
guerrilla tactics. Fidel has said that the reason he admires Hemingway so much
is that he envies him the adventures he had. In July 1961, after Hemingway's
death, his widow, Mary Welsh, returned to Finca Vigia to collect some items she
wanted. Fidel came to visit. Recalls Welsh: Fidel "headed for Ernest's chair
and was seating himself when I murmured that it was my husband's favorite. The
Prime Minister raised himself up, slightly abashed."
The two headstrong fellows met only once, during the Tenth Annual Ernest
Hemingway Billfish Tournament in May 1960. As sponsor and judge of the
competition, Hemingway invited Cuba's youthful new leader as his guest of
honor. Fidel was to present the winner's trophy; instead, he hooked the biggest
marlin and won the prize for himself. Hemingway surrendered the trophy to a
beaming Fidel. They would never meet again. One year later, the great writer
committed suicide in Idaho.
Papa and the Revolution
There has been a great deal of speculation about Hemingway’s position toward the
Cuban Revolution. Cuba, of course, attempts to portray him as sympathetic.
Hemingway's Cuban novels are full of images of pre-Revolutionary terror and
destitution. "There is an absolutely murderous tyranny that extends over every
little village in the country," he wrote in Islands in the Stream. "I believe
completely in the historical necessity of the Cuban revolution," he wrote a
friend in 1960. Papa was away from Cuba all of 1959, but he returned in 1960,
recorded New York Times correspondent Herbert Matthews, "to show his sympathy
and support for the Castro Revolution." Papa even used his legendary 38-foot
sport fishing boat, the Pilar, to run arms for the rebel army claims Gregorio
Fuentes, the weather-beaten sailor-guardian of the Pilar for 23 years. In his
will, the great author dedicated his home and possessions--including his Nobel
Prize--to the Cuban state, but the Pilar he left to Fuentes.
Hemingway's widow, Mary, told the journalist Luis Baez that "Hemingway was
always in favor of the Revolution," and another writer, Lisandro Otero, records
Hemingway as saying, "Had I been a few years younger, I would have climbed the
Sierra Maestra with Fidel Castro." The truth of these comments, alas, can't be
validated. But Hemingway's enigmatic farewell comment as he departed the island
in 1960 is illuminating. "Vamos a ganar. Nosotros los cubanos vamos a ganar.
[We are going to win. We Cubans are going to win.] I'm not a Yankee, you know."
What would he have made of the outcome?
Cuba Travelog
Isolated from the Western world for over thirty years, Cuba burst back onto the
international tourist scene a decade ago and hasn't looked back since. Shaped
by one of the twentieth century's longest-surviving revolutions, until recently
Cuba's image had been inextricably bound up with its politics, rather than its
long satiny beaches, offshore cays and jungle-covered peaks. Now, the country
is changing and Cuba today is characterized as much as anything by a frenetic
sense of transition as it shifts from socialist stronghold to one of the
Caribbean's major tourist destinations, running on capitalist dollars
Yet at the same time, it can seem to visitors that nothing has changed here for
decades, even centuries: the classic American cars, moustachioed cigar-smoking
farmers, horse-drawn carriages and colonial Spanish architecture all apparently
unaffected by the breakneck pace of modernization. Newly erected department
stores and shopping malls, state-of-the-art hotels and resorts are the
hallmarks of this new, emerging Cuba. This improbable combination of
transformation and stasis is symbolic of a country riddled with contradictions
and ironies. In a place where taxi drivers earn more than doctors, and where
capitalist reforms are seen as the answer to preserving socialist ideals,
understanding Cuba is a compelling but never-ending task.
Despite favoritism toward tourists and the crippling US trade embargo, there is
surprisingly little resentment directed at foreign visitors. In most of the
country it's easy to come into contact with the locals: the common practice of
renting out rooms and opening restaurants in homes allows visitors stronger
impressions of Cuba and its people even in a short visit. It's a good thing,
too, since Cubans are renowned for their love of a good time. Their energy and
spirit are best expressed through music and dance, both vital facets of the
island's culture. As originators of the most influential Latin music styles,
such as bolero, rumba and son, which spawned the most famous of them all –
salsa – people in Cuba, seem always ready to party.
There are occasional reminders that Cuba is a highly bureaucratic one-party
state. Going to the police, finding your hotel room double-booked or simply
needing to make an urgent phone call can prove to be frustratingly complicated,
making a certain determination and a laid-back attitude essential requirements
for a pleasant trip here, particularly for exploring less visited parts of the
country. Things are becoming easier all the time, though, with the introduction
of a wider variety of more efficient services; unfortunately these improvements
also mark an irreversible move away from what makes Cuba unique.
