Foreign Travel Insurance Center

Yesterday morning I had arranged to meet one of the women from the from the university, a very nice lady in her late 50s, who agreed to show me around the Vedado area and take me through some local markets.

Vedado is a beautiful residential neighbourhood with many mansions and villas dating back maybe 80 to 100 years or so. Before the revolution it was the neighbourhood where all the doctors, lawyers and business people lived, most of whom emigrated around the time of the Revolution. (Business people and professionals were expropriated as part of the Communist reorganization after the Revolution, as a result hundreds of thousands emigrated to the US, where there are substantial counter-revolutionary and Anti-Castro sentiments. The emigration of thousands of professionals in the early 60s apparently caused a real braindrain in the country).

We walked through the neighbourhood and visited local markets where they sell fruits, vegetables and meat. We saw local vegetables like yucca, malanga, boniato as well as fruits such as frutabomba (papaya), pineapple, mamey, mangos and others. Most of the meat that they sell in the markets is pork, and there is no refrigeration at all in the markets, although the meat is inspected by the government. It is forbidden to sell beef because beef officially is only to be used for milk production. Equally forbidden in local markets is seafood like lobsters since it is destined for big hotels and exports only, but we were approached by a couple of people who were selling both lobster and beef “debajo de la mesa” - under the table. This is one of the things in Cuba, many things are forbidden, but there is usually a way of working around it.

I was also taken to a special market hall where locals buy food at certain allocated times on their ration card. Food is still scarce in Cuba and every person receives a “libreta”which allocates a certain quota of basic foods such as butter, eggs, cooking oil, flower etc at very low prices. I was told that the monthly ration is 8 eggs per person and that if you want an extra carton of 30 eggs, they cost about $2 (CUC) (about Can$2.50), which is equivalent to about 1/10 of a person’s monthly salary. No wonder everybody tries to set up a little side business to obtain extra money, since survival in itself takes a lot of energy.

We also saw a local neighbourhood repair place, where they repair shoes with sowing machines that look like they are 100 years old. This is definitely a society where things are reused, mended, fixed and recycled time and time again, and it’s actually very refreshing to see a different way of living that contrasts so strongly with our modern way of living where we buy stuff we don’t need, just to throw it out later. Of course, the recycling here is due to necessity, but it does feel like there is a great appreciation for life here, not just consumer goods, despite all the difficulties.

This 2-hour walk was a great way of getting to know a little bit about the authentic Cuban lifestyle and some of the practical ways that Cubans try to make do in their daily lives.

Susanne Pacher is the publisher of a website called Travel and Transitions(http://www.travelandtransitions.com). Travel and Transitions deals with unconventional travel and is chock full of advice, tips, real life travel experiences, interviews with travellers and travel experts, insights and reflections, cross-cultural issues, contests and many other features. You will also find stories about life and the transitions that we face as we go through our own personal life-long journeys.

Submit your own travel stories in our first travel story contest(http://www.travelandtransitions.com/contests.htm) and have a chance to win an amazing adventure cruise on the Amazon River.

“Life is a Journey

Share This

So Saturday I had already planned to go to Vinales, a beautiful area in the province of Pinar del Rio, 190 km west of Havana. I took the Viazul bus from the Havana station, which is a modern bus network more or less for tourists and the one way fare is US$12 (way too much for the locals, most of whom end up taking local taxis or the cheaper and less reliable, more decrepit Astro bus system).

A young Cuban man sat down beside me in the bus terminal and tried to offer me accommodation in his private home in Pinar del Rio (one version of the shadow economy which is centered around tourists).

After I told him I already had accommodation, he started to talk to me about life in Cuba and how hard it is and that is extremely difficult to survive economically. He told me he only makes US$24 a month, working for the national(ized) telecommunications company. He also said that recently financial transfers from Cuban emigrants, particularly from Miami, have been cut back to US$100, which works out to CUC 92 (Cuban Convertible Pesos, which used to be 1:1 with the US Dollar) and that soon US$100 would work out to even 8% less. He basically just spilled over with unhappiness about the economic situation.

The trip to Vinales was about 3.25 hours long and along the way it started to rain. Vinales is known for its beautiful limestone formations, the “Mogotes”, box-like mountains that grow straight out of a flat valley floor with often vertical walls and hundreds of limestone caves.

Probably 30 or 40 people were waiting at the bus stop in Vinales, all owners of private bed and breakfasts (or “casas particulares”) ready to pick up tourists staying with them. My hostess, Sandra, a beautiful young woman of 28 years, was there too with a sign saying

Share This