The visit to Cuba was planned for two reasons:
Firstly, as a 2nd honeymoon as we had a rather short one. We decided on Cuba for the 25 of June to coincide with our first anniversary.
Secondly, Cuba have some very nice birds, like the Bee Hummingbird, the smallest bird on earth and a long time dream of mine to see it.
We left San José on June 24, 10:35 and the ± 2 hour flight plus the time difference had us in Cuba at 15:00 local time. The flight was smooth and short but customs not! Why they chose me nobody knows, but I had to explain all the cameras, each lens...why so long?...why so many? ...why the binoculars?....It was a real socialist welcome, but friendly and once we were out of the airport, we felt normal again.
A Taxi took us to the "Casa particular" of Señor Regino Castañeda where we stayed for the whole period while in La Habana. "Casa particular" is the local name for what we know as B&B, literally a room in someone's house, usually including all meals. When planning the trip we were searching for B&B's in Cuba....nothing.... The reason is simple, there is no Internet in Cuba (except for a select few and some International Hotels). Cuba is a totally controlled Socialist state, like the old Russia and till more recently, China. The way we found the accommodation was through making email contact with the best known birding guide in Cuba - "El Chino" through the normal Birdingpal.com I use. (email is fairly common, but only through the Government controlled server). Chino offered to set us up in two of these establishments, one in La Habana and the other in Zapata, the birding area where he lives. Was it not for his help, we would have ended up in secluded "International" hotels. The experience of living in a local house is just awesome, and without doubt the only way to experience the real Cuba. Of course it would have been very different and difficult without Shirlene, as she is native latina and with her knowledge of dialects and also the history of the whole latino world, we were close to being locals.
As the house of Regino is located in the centre of La Habana Vieja, we started exploring the streets immediately and was just amazed, it was like walking back in time. Everything is old…most is very old, like being in a museum city, Cuba is really like the rest of the world was 50
or 60 years ago. The people are very friendly and in many cases "over friendly" and everybody wants to talk, starting with - where are you from? where do you want to go?
We walked the old city on Friday 24 in the afternoon, and again on Saturday the whole morning, taking in as much as possible. We saw what life in Cuba is like, what the city looks like, feels like, smells like, and sounds like.
Saturday was spent visiting the Museo de la Revolución, a crazy "guided" tour by a friendly local to show us a music venue and a very nice art market in Paseo de Martí, a tree-covered walkway stretching the length of La Haban Vieja, and much more.
We also booked one of the best tables for the very famous "Cabaret Tropicana" with dinner included on Saturday evening for our anniversary celebration, and Regino offered to be our taxi with his "american car", a 1950 Chev!
I will add here that this was the only disappointment during the whole trip! Tropicana was a disaster! Firstly the price was outrageous, the total for the night came to $220, and you share the table with another couple! The cabaret was mediocre with some good acts, the service was bad, but the food was good. Each couple received a complimentary half bottle of Rum (Ron in Spanish) and I asked to change it to whisky, so we received a half bottle of Chivas! that helped a little! But we still enjoyed the night.
Sunday was more exploring, with Regino taking us on a tour to see more of the city as well as Finca Vigía where Hemmingway lived for 20 years. The farm is a state maintained museum kept as Hemingway left it, even his clothes are there.
Early evening Chino and his wife Ada (his 10th!) arrived at the house to take us though to La Ciénaga de Zapata, in the Matanzas province of Cuba. (Look at the map in the Cuba album). This is where Chino lives, and where we went birding for the three days. Driving the ± 2 hours to Zapata was very interesting. Chatting with Chino, it turned out that we are the same age and he used to be a regular soldier in the Cuban army…AND….he was in Angola with the war the same time I was! WOW! small world! This and the fact that Shirlene is nearly a local, of course added to the four of us quickly becoming very good friends.
Chino dropped us at the house where we would stay - Casa de Mayito owned by Mayito. Mayito and his wife is really super people with fantastic food!
The next morning (Monday 27) at 7:30 Chino and our driver Motica fetched us in a 1954 Plymouth for the first birding trip. The most important bird to find was Zunzuncito, the Bee Hummingbird. The morning walk was an eye-opener to us, I have never in my life been in a place with as many mosquitoes as Zapata! it is like walking into a bee hive! For sure the next morning we wore long sleeves and covered as much as possible, even in the temperature of late 30's! We saw a number of lovely new birds like the Cuban Tody, but not Zunzuncito, that was reserved for Tuesday at a different location where (note) I spotted (very proud) the female at close range. I tried but could not get a photo. This little bird is so small the Canon focusing spot seems to be bigger than it, so I was learning fast.
The next and last morning (Tuesday) we were taken to yet another location by Angel, Chino's brother and also an excellent guide. Here we saw the male and this time I managed to get the photos in the album "Birds of Cuba". The birding was very good overall and even though it was not breeding season, so there were no migrants, I managed to get 34 lifers.
Late morning Chino took us through to Varadero, the most popular beach resort area in Cuba. We stayed in a rather large resort hotel "Villa Tortuga" on an all inclusive package we booked on internet. I was really surprised by the fact that it was "all inclusive" even alcohol! you can do, eat and drink whatever you want, and the total price for both was Euro 57.92. We added that just to spend some time at the beach, but strangely, we were both bored, it was just another hotel, white sand beach, palm trees….nothing to do! But we did enjoy it, and again, the food was superb!
Mid-day Thursday 30, Chino fetched us and returned us to Regino's house in La Habana. On the way he explained that he was in La Habana for a few days and arranged to take us out for some more birding the following day, to an area west of La Habana.
Chino fetched us early on Friday and we saw a different part of Cuba, very rural and pretty. The birding was not very good as it was super hot, but we saw Snail Kite and the Cuban Grassquit.
Saturday morning we did some more exploration, visiting the Plaza de la Revolución and some other landmarks in the modern city part of La Habana. We also visited the pubs where Hemmingway used to hang out, La Floridita, where he had his Daiquirí and El Bodeguita del Medio where he had his mojitos, both these drinks are rum based cocktails, and very refreshing.
Sunday morning we did a final walk in La Habana Vieja, had café, and some beers at our favorite pub (in the heat of Cuba you find a favorite pub very quickly). At around 3:00 in the afternoon a taxi took us to the airport for the slightly late, uneventful return to Costa Rica.
HARD FACTS
Before the trip we did as much research as we could and one thing kept coming up…the food…"It is bad! very bad!...Well, we have no idea where the writers of those bits of info went, but we are sure it was not to Cuba! We found the food to be absolutely wonderful. The food provided by the two houses we stayed at was superb to say the least. The fancy hotel in Varadero and the few restaurants we visited was also very good, so I will maintain my policy…never believe travel "info" from other people, go see for yourself.
June/July is not the best time to visit, it is low season for tourism, and also the hottest months. The heat and humidity (85%) was near unbearable at times, with some 35-40˚C daytime and deep 20's at night, but the rooms had air-conditioning so we were sleeping well.
We did a fairly accurate calculation and have walked ± 50km in the 9 days.
Cuba is a fantastic place to visit. To see the sad daily life of the local people is not nice, but most tourists will not experience that. Life in the socialist state is a horror, most people don't work at all, as there is no work, they simply survive on the state handout each month with their little coupon book stamped like during WWII. There are no supermarkets, no shops as we know them to buy a snack, something that we accept as normal, and even if there were, very few people actually have money to buy something. However there is hope, things are changing fast. During the time we were there it was announced that individuals can now buy property (who knows with
what). I can see that Cuba will be very different in just a few years from now, it will likely destroy the magic, but the local people will have a life for the first time since 1959.
Click on the albums below to view the pictures
Or click below to watch the video
