Santiago de Cuba

After a long and VERY cold bustrip I came to Santiago de Cuba and a guy in a very old Lada came and picked me up at the terminal. That was so lucky, because to be honest we were attacked when we went out of thedoor from the terminal. I rented a room in a really nice house with some young and very nice hosts. It was great to be in a house with kids.
It was an awesome city and the first day I went to see the Moncada that was center in a very historic battle in 1953 between Batista's army and a group of Fidel's rebels. It was after this that Fidel held the very famous speech "History will absolve me". It was amazing!

I found the cooleest bookstore in the middle of the city:

It was also in Santiago I met the mazing swiss/colombian couple Sonja and Javier who I ended  up travelling a lot with, and they are really great people. 

This is what we did together:

1. It pissed rained basically all the time we were together in Santiago, so we went to "rain activities" which included a pirate fort and driving around in their rental car.

2. living with these people:

3. going to Baracoa even though it haden't stopped raining for 2 days, and it wouldn't stop any soon.

4. An old black guy proposed to me in Guantanamo.

5. We had a crazy day with a crazy story involving annoying cuban guys, a story about mafiabosses from Medellín, and meeting Nicole. 

Cuba was getting way more fun with these people.

First in La Habana, then in Santa Clara and finally in Trinidad I saw three different men in three different shirts obviously from Denmark. 

In Trinidad Yvette and I were enjoying a Mojito, and a very cool old guy passed by and started talking to the guy sitting at the table next to us. I spotted that he was wearing a shirt from Denmark and couldn’t really stop laughing, his appearance was just amazing, and I couldn’t help asking him where he had gotten that t-shirt. 

He was a really great old man who gave us a lot of advice about what to do and stuff in Trinidad. He was 80 years old and had a lot of crazy things to tell us, but it was nice to finally meet someone in the street who didn’t just want to rip you off for money

Yvette, Riselda & Matilde in Trinidad

At the terminal in Santa Clara I met an English woman, Yvette, and we talked a lot before we got on the bus. She was going to Trinidad, and we arranged to meet up there when I arrived after being in Cienfuegos a couple of days. But when we got on the bus, I changed my mind about Cienfuegos and wanted to go with her to Trinidad, but we didn’t really see a problem in that since it was the same bus (first going to Cienfuegos and thereafter to Trinidad), and furthermore it was the same price we had paid. But it turned out to be a big problem and I ended up paying double prize. Idiot system! My god a system, and even though people say Cuba is not really a corrupt country there is still corruption a lot of places. But okay, I couldn't do anything about it, and I would save some money, because Yvette and I would share a room and that is cheaper. 

The crazy thing here in Cuba is that you pay for the room, so it is the same price if you are 1 or 4 people.

When we got of the bus people basically attacked us, and sent us in the wrong direction and didn't help us at all to find the house we were looking for. But in the end we found the house. Casa Tamargo, at Mathilde’s, where we lived the week we were in Trinidad in 2004. She opened, but sadly she had no rooms, plus her prices were a bit too high for our small budgets. But she helped us to find somewhere else, at Riselda’s house just across the street, and that turned out to be a great deal. The room was nice and Riselda seemed really nice.

I had a really great time in Trinidad, stayed there for a week and hang around in the streets, went to the beach twice with Yvette. We also went to Mathilde’s house to eat one night, and Mathilde found a guest book and we found the message we had left them in 2004. I had some great conversations with her and her husband, GREAT food, and we met a Canadian couple with whom we went out to drink a mojito. It was quite empty when Yvette left to go back to La Habana to catch her flight home, but I started talking a lot with Riselda. She was crazy, but so nice, generous, chatty, and she laughs a lot. So we had a good time. She understood that I didn’t have too much money so she made me special offers on her fantastic food, and even put down the price on the room for me. I think she at some point started to think of me a little like a part of her family and she had a hard time saying goodbye when I left. She is amazing, and I’m so glad I got to know her. And if anyone is going to Cuba you have to go see for yourself.

amazing lobster !

The lovely Riselda

Santa Clara

The next city on my trip around Cuba was Santa Clara, and it was a relief to get out of La Habana. The city is not that big, and it seems to be very easy to find your way around and the people there seemed to be more “normal” and tranquilo. The family I ended up at was not very nice though. All they talked about was how expensive everything was in Cuba, and how bad everything was. And after just ½ an hour I was really sick of hearing about that. Because maybe life is not easy in Cuba, but it is hard everywhere, and if you compare the lives that people have here in Cuba with other countries in South America it is damn good her, because everyone gets a certain amount of food from the government, and everyone has a house of some sort, that is definitely not the case in the other countries that I have visited on my trip.

But besides the family I had a great time in Santa Clara. I went to see the statue and memorial of Che, and it was beautiful. It is a huge statue of Che, and underneath there is a memorial to some of the other people who died during the revolution and a flame that is in honor of Che. Next to the memorial there is a museum about Che and his life with different objects from Che’s life. All in all a very good experience.

Arriving in Cuba

I took the plane from Bogotá at 7.12 in the morning, so that meant I had to be in the airport something like 5.30, damn early. I said goodbye to Marcela and we cried a lot, hugged and said goodbye. I’m going to miss her a lot, but I really have a feeling that I’ll see her again in Denmark or in Colombia soon. I got through the security check and everything passed without problems. 

We had a stop in Panamá and after that we arrived in Cuba. Really surreal that I only had 1 month left of my trip. Anyways, I got through immigration and there was a small security check right after. The lady told me that I would get my passport back after I had picked out my backpack. Okay I thought, it turned out though that it was because they wanted to make an interview about drugs. What is it with me and those experiences? They asked me a lot of questions and it seemed like they wanted to stress me too or something. It was really uncomfortable and in the end 2 dogs were all over my bags to see if I had drugs with me. In the end I got through and could go. pyyyyh. I think they picked me because I had rasta plus I had been in Colombia – at least that is the best explination I can think of.

Anyways, I arrived at the casa particular where I was gonna live for the next couple of days. It was a really nice older couple, Margarita y Felo, and I settled in. It turned out Felo was fighting side by side with Che during the revolution, that is so cool, and he was just as excited to tell me about it as I was to hear about it. He showed me medals and other stuff, and it was really exciting.

In Habana I have seen the Plaza de la Revolucion, museo de la revolucion and walked around in Habana centro which is really beautiful. I was offered marihuana in the street which has been the story all through my trip here in South America but I didn’t think it would happen here in Cuba.

The guys here are terrible, worse than anywhere else I have been ever. They say more stuff to you in the streets and they sometimes grab your arm or something. Very uncomfortable. But they hope for you to buy them something, food or drink, or if they are lucky the girl will fall in love with them and help them get out of the country. They have a lot of problems with this, and sex tourism in general. Actually I had a day or two in La Habana when I didn’t feel like leaving the house because if you look at someone they immediately think that you are interested in talking to them or buying them stuff. So walking in the street is terrible, and the best solution that I found was simply to stay in the house.

The internet situation is really crappy in Cuba as well. The government tries to make it hard to get, and indeed it is. Only if you have an exceptional case can you have internet at your job, and the cubans are not allowed to use the internet in generel. Turists can finde the slowest internet ever at hotels where they have computers with internet. Here you buy a card with 1 hour of internet access which you can use at once or split up in smaller portions, but you can only use the card where you bought it. It is very unpractical and very expensive. Mostly it cost 30 kr. for an hour. Damnit I’m glad that I don’t live somewhere where it is that difficult with the internet.

 this was the first time I saw a guy in a obvious danish t-shirt, and it wasn't the last time.

The lovely couple Margarita and Felo.