One of the most frustrating things about Cuba is paying for things. Cuba works on an idiotic, arbitrary and unfair two currency system, meaning that some things cost CUC (Pesos Convertibles) and Pesos (Moneda Nacional) (1 CUC = 25 Moneda Nacional, 1 CUC ~ $1, and 1 Moneda Nacional = $0.04). In order to change money, we must first convert our money to Canadian Dollars or Euros (Dollars are illegal in Cuba and so carry a 20% penalty with every transaction), then trade the Canadian dollars into CUC at banks or hotels. However, because CUC is “tourist” money and Moneda Nacional is “local” money, we have to go to a different place to change our money from CUC to Moneda Nacional.
Worst of all, both currencies are referred to as pesos, so anyone who doesn’t know better may end up paying 5 CUC for something that costs 5 Moneda Nacional – 25 times what you should pay. Some more unscrupulous Cubans tend to take advantage of the confusion surrounding this ridiculous policy – the other day, a restaurant tried to charge us the “tourist” price of 6 CUC (150 moneda nacional) for fried chicken which cost 20 moneda nacional for Cubans – the staff was rather embarrassed when we confronted them about it and quickly gave us the real price. I’ve had several people come up to me in Habana Vieja and try to sell me a 3 peso Moneda Nacional coin that has the iconic picture of Che Guevara on it for 3 CUC – essentially, paying 75 Moneda Nacional for a coin worth 3.
The dual currency system makes ordinary tasks like going to the grocery store a hassle because, for example, buying rum costs Moneda Nacional but buying juice to go with it costs CUC. Of course, the good side is that certain foods are dirt cheap. During our morning breaks, we all walk to the university cafeteria and buy ice cream and juice for 1 moneda nacional and guava cookies and coconut sweets for 2 moneda nacional – 4 cents and 8 cents respectively. It has given all of us an aversion to buying anything in CUC – why would you ever pay 4 or 5 CUC for a plate of rice, beans and pork when you could pay 20 moneda – 80 cents – for the same thing? The whole system only adds to the many contradictions that make Cuba what it is today.
After three weeks of being in Havana, most of the group was ready to go out and explore the Cuban countryside. Some of the group went to Viñales, located east of Havana, while Emily, Rachael, Katie, Maeve, Ani and I decided to go to Matanzas, a small city located about two hours from Havana, on Saturday morning.
We left for Matanzas on a Viazul (read: tourist bus which cost $7, $6 more than the rate that nationals pay) because we didn’t have our temporary residency cards that allows us to pay the national rates. Matanzas is a small city founded by immigrants from the Canary Islands who picked the location because of the large natural harbor. It’s a very Cuban city – very few tourists ever venture there, even though it’s on the way to Varadero, Cuba’s largest tourist destination.We decided to stay in Casas Particulares, which are private homes that have government licenses to rent out rooms to foreigners – an innovation that came about during the 1990s during the Special Period. Rachael and I stayed in a nice old colonial house owned by an older lady who was extremely accommodating, while Katie, Maeve, Emily and Ani stayed in a different Casa down the road. The room was simple but nice, with two beds, a closet and a radio, with a bathroom down the hall – we couldn’t really complain, since we were only paying $10 each.
Our casa particular
After we had left our stuff, we walked to Plaza de la Libertad, Matanza’s main square, and waited 30 minutes in line to enter a “hamburgue” – hamburger – restaurant. After we finally got in, it took another 45 minutes to bring out the burgers, which I think were made of pork or some combination of other mystery meats. In Cuba, you tend to not ask questions, especially since the burgers only cost 12 cents. Apparently the place was a favorite among locals because many Cubans ordered 10 to 15 hamburgers and put them in bags to take home – we only saw one person actually eating the burgers in the restaurant.
mmm... tasty
After lunch, we caught the guagua (Cuban slang for bus) to go to the beach. We asked the bus driver where to let us off and he told us to wait with him – when we got to the last stop, he told us to get off and drove off. We didn’t really know what to do, so we just sat at the bus stop and waited for another bus to come by. Then, out of nowhere, the bus driver came running past us yelling “Vengan, vengan” and ran after a bus that had just driven past us, so we took off running after him and jumped onto the bus. It took us to the airport, where we got off and walked for 45 minutes to get to the beach.
There wasn’t much of a beach – in fact, there wasn’t any. The entire shore was made of dried coral that extended into the water and turned into a coral reef. Rachael, Emily and I decided to go snorkeling. We found a guide who had snorkeling gear and agreed to take us out for $5 each. The ocean was kind of rough so the guide told us to stay right behind him as we got in, but soon enough we were out past the reef. What we could see was amazing – the water was crystal clear and we could easily see 20-30 meters deep. The guide kept a bottle of fish food with him as he swam, so that was kind of cheesy, but it ensured that there was a school of fish surrounding us.
After we got out, we walked about 10 minutes to the “beach” – an area of coral where sand had been brought in to attract tourists. The actual opening to the ocean was only about 10 feet wide, so it definitely wasn’t the most attractive beach we’d been to, but it was nice to lay out on the sand for a while.
At the beach
We caught the bus back to Matanzas and got ready for dinner at our Casas Particulares, then went out and had a decent dinner at a slightly-touristy restaurant down the street. After that, we went to a bar down by the old square, where we were accosted by a Cuban man named Tony who had an unhealthy interest for Emily. We tried walking away from the place and he followed us in his car, and then found us again when we ran away. It all ended up working out though – we lost Tony and went to sleep.
At the bar in downtown Matanzas
The next morning we got up early to go to Cueva de Bellamar, a huge limestone cave in the outskirts of Matanzas. Katie, the resident geology major, had a field day working it looking at the rock formations, and it there were some crazy rock and crystal formations in there. There was also another creepy Cuban who started calling Maeve his princess and asking if she had a boyfriend, so that was fun.
In the cave
After the caves, we took the bus to a viewpoint above the city. We had lunch – fried chicken with rice – and the restaurant staff tried to charge us $6 more than it was worth, but it worked out. We walked around and then headed back to the Casas and picked up our bags so we could head to the Hershey Station.
View of Matanzas from the restaurant
The Hershey Electric Railway was built in 1921 by the Hershey Corporation to connect the chocolate giant’s sugar plantations with Havana, where the sugar was loaded onto ships destined for the US. In 1959, the train was nationalized and renamed, but its old moniker stuck and today remains in service. The train stops at just about every house and village on its route from Matanzas to Havana, so it takes a good two hours longer than the bus to get back to capital (if the train doesn’t break down).
On the train
The train also hasn’t changed since 1921 so the cars have a historic (if uncomfortable) charm to them.The ride was very bumpy – I thought we were going to derail a couple of times – but the Cubans on board didn’t seem to think much of it so I kept quiet. We got into Havana only about half an hour late, so it was a fairly successful ride. Once we got back in, we took a ferry across the harbor into Habana Vieja, then walked and caught a cab back to the Residence.
The pictures in this post in no way correspond to the content of the post itself. Just thought you'd like to see some images from Havana.
I couldn’t possibly tell you everything that has happened in the last three weeks, so I’m just going to summarize what our day-to-day life is like here in Havana. Yesterday marked the third week of our arrival in Cuba and it seems like time is flying by. We’ve really started to settle into a routine. I wake up around 8 am and head down for breakfast, which the residence makes every morning. We usually have eggs “a la plancha” – kind of pan-fried eggs – with ham and bread. The kitchen makes what it can with what it has, so some mornings we have hot dogs or just ham, but usually breakfast is decent. After breakfast, we walk to class which takes about 15 minutes.
Class-wise, we have History of Cuba on Mondays and Thursdays, Spanish on Tuesday afternoons and International Relations on Wednesdays and Fridays. The 14 UNC students have class with 9 American University students who are also in Cuba till May.
View of the Capitolio from one of the neighboring hotels. The Capitolio was modelled after the US Capitol Building. Today it is the seat of Cuban Parliament.
So far, International Relations has been the most interesting class – the professor, a former Cuban diplomat who served as Cuban ambassador to the E.U. as well as several other countries, is really interesting. Although he worked for the government, he is open to our questions and criticisms of the Cuban system while maintaining his own strong views and opinions. The first day of class he said boldly, “I am a socialist and a Marxist,” a statement that is kind of shocking for most American ears. We usually start class with questions which have varied from why the Cuban media portrays U.S. assistance to Haiti as a military occupation to questions about Cuban immigration. His views are very interesting and sometimes border on offensive to the U.S., but at the same time it’s very easy to see why he has such disdain for the U.S. government.
View of the Hotel Nacional, the Malecon and the rest of the city from the FOCSA building in Vedado, Havana.
Our History of Cuba class tends to be kind of dry and has been marred by some drama between the UNC Study Abroad Office and the students on the program – basically, the Study Abroad Office imposed an arbitrary 20 page paper on us on top of the weekly 2 page paper that we have to write. A 20-page paper is very steep even by UNC’s standards, never mind the fact that we have extremely limited and slow internet access, no access to English books and not even any printer paper to print on. Most of all, our history professors themselves have told us that they are unwilling to read 460 pages worth of essays and who say that, if they had their way, they would assign us the more customary 10-page limit.
After class, we usually go to lunch. We’ve finally started to find some good lunch options (good cheap food is scarce in Havana). Rooftop Pizza is the most entertaining of our lunch spots – an enterprising man set up a pizza oven on his roof and nailed the menu to his door on the first floor – people simply yell up what they want (options: cheese, ham, pineapple, onion, chicharron), and he lowers it a few minutes later in a basket. The best thing is the price: 10 pesos for one personal pizza, or about 40 cents.
Most of the group at an Industriales baseball game.
Other lunch options include hot dogs (40 cents), which Cubans seem to be oddly fond of; ham sandwiches (20 cents); ice cream (4 cents per scoop); fried rice with pork or hot dog (80 cents); croquetas (4 cents per piece) which are small fried balls of chicken or pork; or cajitas – my favorite – which usually consists of some type of meat (chicken or pork chops), rice and vegetables served in a cardboard box for the equivalent of $1. Of course, there are nicer options – the hotels have nice restaurants and there are some restaurants that serve high-quality food, but they cost from $5-20, which is absolutely unaffordable to us considering the price of the alternatives.
After lunch, the group goes different ways. It’s nice getting out of class by 12 because it lets us enjoy the rest of the day. We’ve gone to Habana Vieja, the tourist area which is a 20 minute bus ride away, dance classes, swimming at the Hotel Nacional (when they don’t catch us sneaking in), movies (we went to see Inglorious Bastards, which was surprising considering its American origin), and more. Jonathan and I have also started working with the University of Havana’s Model United Nations, which will hold a national conference at the end of February. Ironically, I was assigned to represent Iran in a conference about Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so that should be fun.
Street scene in Habana Vieja
We have dinner at 7 at the Residence, which usually has some sort of meat – “ropa vieja”, or shredded beef, tuna chunks, fried fish or eggplant, along with rice and vegetables. The dinners are usually good, although the lack of variety can be underwhelming.
After dinner, everyone starts working on readings for the next day. Occasionally some of us will go out with some of the friends we met here and go to the Malecón or a student café called Café G, which is just around the corner and where mojitos only cost 40 cents. We also have movie nights where we all gather on the balcony and watch Mad Men, The Office or some other movies we have.
Another old American relic from the 1950s
On the weekends, we usually try to check out different restaurants or areas that we haven’t been to. Havana’s food scene is not as extensive as that of Istanbul, but it does have some hidden jewels. A lot of the best restaurants are paladares – the Cuban name for restaurants that are hosted in private houses – a capitalistic reform made during the economic depression known as the “Special Period” in the 1990s. So that’s it – daily life for us in Cuba. More on our recent trip to Matanzas later.
Swimming at the Hotel Nacional (before we got kicked out)
My name is David. I am a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying in Havana between January and May 2010 as part of an organized study abroad program hosted by the University of Havana. I arrived in Havana two and half weeks ago. Unfortunately, because the internet here is slow and limited, I haven't had the time to put up the pictures and blog posts that I've written. What follows is what I wrote two weeks ago, upon arriving in Havana. If you have any questions or just want to say hi, you can always write to me at dgilmore@email.unc.edu.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Cuba is a place of contradictions. It is a place that is not completely stuck in the past, but not totally in the present either. People wait in lines to receive their rations of bread and eggs while in other areas of town stores sell the latest in fashion trends. Old Chevrolets, Fords and Buicks from the 50s share the roads with brand new BMWs and Range Rovers. Billboards and posters exclaim, “Patria o Muerte! Venceremos!” while the Cubans walking by wear New York Yankees caps, Polo shirts and Nike shoes on their way to see an American film. Young people walking along the malecon (ocean boardwalk) sing songs by the Black Eyed Peas, Maroon 5 and Lenny Kravitz while (publicly) espousing communist doctrine. Doctors make 12 dollars a month while the most exclusive of Havana’s clubs charge $10 for a cover. University students study heavy subjects like biology and journalism for five years for free but end up making less money than garbage-collectors. I don’t plan on coming to any conclusions about Havana or Cuba yet – I’ve only been here for four days and it would be ridiculous to think I know anything about how this country works. But my first four days here seem to be indicative of the fact that Cuba is far more complex than I had imagined.
A Cuban woman sitting in Habana vieja
Our arrival
We arrived to Havana on Sunday after a one-day layover in Nassau. Our flight went well; on the way, I talked to a Bahamian man who was visiting his son on the island. He said he had been to Cuba and loved it before, but warned me: “Have no expectations,” he said. “Cuba is totally different.” His words reflected what others had told me prior to coming. “Don’t expect anything,” people counseled. “You’ll love it, but it’s different.”
The Cuba I saw when I stopped off the plane was not so different from other countries I had visited in Latin America. Immigration and customs went easily and enough, and soon we were meeting with Rodney (the program director) and Marta (the resident director that will stay with us until May). Still, what I saw on the bus ride from the airport to our residence was not different. Some buildings had fallen into disrepair and in general things seemed a little grittier (the product of years of heavy pollution from cars), and there were the famous almendrones – old American museum pieces that Cubans call cars – but the scene was not that distinct from that of, say, Costa Rica. The one noticeable difference was the lack of advertisements and billboards – instead, large billboards plastered with the faces of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and Raul Castro and quotes like “Patria es humanidad”, “Hasta la victoria siempre” and others criticizing the U.S. embargo and calling for the release of the “Cuban Five”. We rode by the Plaza de la Revolucion, a huge square that has a massive monument to Jose Marti, Cuba’s founding father, as well as several buildings decorated with the faces of Che, Castro and other revolutionary figures.
The bus ride to our residence took about half an hour. We got off in front of a large light blue colored house called Residencia Costillar de Rocinante. The place, which is not a hotel but not a dorm either, is used by visiting universities and journalists to stay at while in Havana. Located in Vedado, a residential section of Havana that is home to the famous Hotel Nacional as well as the University of Havana, Vedado is a neatly organized area that is newer than Habana Vieja but that retains some historic charm, most of which is manifested in the old mansions that line its streets. Vedado is located adjacent to central Havana, the home of the Capitol building and commercial area of the city, and about twenty minutes (by bus) away from Habana Vieja, the oldest and most touristy part of the city. The residence itself is nice if simple. My room, which I share with the other two guys on the program, is on the third floor and has a window that has a good view. Though somewhat small for three people, we have our own bathroom, mini-fridge and TV which gets BBC, the Weather Channel and Showtime.
The last few days we have spent going back and forth to the University, which is about a fifteen minute walk from our place. The walk is nice and we go on one of the street’s main boulevards, Calle 23. At the University we’re going to take five courses divided into two quarters. During the first, we’ll take History of Cuba and International Relations; in the second, we take Introduction to Cuba and Cultura Cubana. Throughout the semester we’ll also take a Spanish class. In between quarters we’ll go on a trip to Santiago de Cuba, on the opposite side of the island.
