Viva la Cuba

Viva la Cuba

“You cannot solve Cuba’s problems in 20 days” – wise words from our travel agent when we arrived at his Casa Particulares in Havana, about to embark on a short road trip across the tropical island.

We found ourselves repeating these words to each other often on our trip; the many times we encountered shocking poverty, the countless times when the power was disconnected and life would come to a slow sort of standstill, the heartbreaking stories told by our city guides about the daily struggle, “La Lucha” they call it, that life in Cuba has become.
COVID and the Trump administration have pushed Cuba back decades into a seemingly endless cycle of poverty. 

But this is not a blog about Cuba’s problems. This is a blog about our admiration for the people of Cuba; their resilience and inventiveness to deal with daily struggles that we cannot begin to imagine, their never-waning passion for life, their melodic expressions, their pride, their friendliness and their heartwarming welcome to those who are privileged to visit their country.

It wasn’t the most common trip we designed together with our agent, Jorge. Going around the island and travelling all the way to the East, to Santiago de Cuba, is not something every tourist aspires to. And doing this by rental car is quite unheard of these days. Our agent did gently advise against it, but we don’t mind a bit of adventure, and we love the freedom that having our own transport allows us. So off we went!

From the bustling streets of Havana, we drove to the peaceful countryside of Viñales, where we enjoyed a lovely hike to a tobacco plantation. We then continued to the colourful streets of Trinidad, before heading eastward to the July carnival in Santiago de Cuba. From there we drove deep into the Sierra Maestra for a breathtaking hike through the dense jungle to Fidel Castro’s refuge Casa (Comandancia de la Plata), and then went westward again to Varadero for a few lovely days on the beach. We ended our trip back in good old vibrant Havana. 

Wherever we went, we were met with friendliness and most importantly, helpfulness. The hosts at the Casa Particulares (homestays) all went out of their way to make our stay comfortable; whether it involved waking up the neighbours to use their car park, cooking lovely breakfast and dinner meals for their guests, changing hands full of pesos for just two banknotes of euro’s, or advise on where to go and what to do.

Being on the road in Cuba does require a bit of an adventurous mindset. With roads being in a terrible state at times, you need to be prepared to stop abruptly or swirl around knee-deep potholes, while keeping an eye out for upcoming traffic which can be anything from a motorised vehicle such as an old-timer, bus, truck or bike, to non-motorised vehicles such as the good old ricksha’s and horse-pulled carriages.

But most of all, you need to keep an eye on your fuel level. Fuel is sparse and hard to get. This means that you’d better fill up every chance you get. On one of our first trips, we stopped at 5 gasolineras along the road between Havana and Cienfuegos – all without luck. As the levels of our tank were getting significantly low, our stress levels were getting increasingly high. With only 3 km’s radius to go on our reserve tank, we were more than relieved when we finally reached a gasolinera where the answer to our fuel question was a simple “si”… High five!

The streets in Cuba are busy during the day with people running errands and “getting things done”. With the shelves in the shops mostly empty, daily necessities hard to get by, and government-paid salaries as low as USD 10 a month, it triggers an informal trade circuit of goods and services. And this is taking time and effort.
When we asked how people manage all this on top of their daily jobs, our guide answered: “There is this silent agreement: We pretend to work, and the government pretends to pay us”.

Yet there is always time for some music and salsa! Not much is needed for a good old quintet of Cuban musicians, and even the daily and nightly power outages will not stop Cubans from dancing their problems away.

It has been a while since we made a trip like this, travelling to the more rustic areas of another world, with our backpacks in the trunk of the car, being free to go wherever we want.

And it still has the same effect as it used to have: our frequencies sync and we feel ‘connected at the hip” again. The busy work and life back home slowly fade to the background, with the present times asking our full attention. We enjoy being in it together.

It makes us marvel at the beauty of our lives.

And reminds us… To keep following the Adventure!