So I just returned from 15 days in Cuba.
diez dias en la habana y cinco dias en Varadero.
(10 days in Havana and 5 days in Varadero)
Had an amazing time.
I was traveling with 4 other guy friends, all the girlfriends/wives were left at home.
First off, I took alot of videos and none are uploaded. So the pics are here, but alot of details are missing because i took more videos than photos during my trip.
We arrived about 5am to our Resort in Varadero.
We stayed for 2 nights All-inclusive at Iberostar Varadero. Rated #1 Resort in Varadero.
Now I have been to Peurto Vallarta, and Cancun Mexico several times, and I know what traditional All-inclusives offer and what to expect.
Surprisingly, Iberostar Met and exceeded my expectations for Food and quality of service, not only for Cuba but for all Caribbean hotspots.
So to start, the beaches were.. wow.
The resort
We jumped in a Old 50's Chevy convertible, and went to Varadero downtown. before we left canada, we stopped by a dollar store, and spent about 200 cdn on children's toys. Then we told the taxi driver to drive around the poor areas and when he saw children to tell them to come to the car and get free toys.
Then 2 days have flew by, drinking by the pool, playing volleyball and laying on the beach with the warm caribbean sea.
We were off to Havana.
Took a taxi Van to get us there, cost about $140 CUC. ( nearly 95-98% conversion rate to CDN )
Van looked like this one:
We had a driver for most of our time in Havana, Miguel. This Hyundai van also took us to The Bay of Pigs a few days later.
So on our drive we drove through Matanzas. El Bastardo said it very well, it feels like real cuba, with little rebuilt over the years.
Then on the other side of Matanzas was this huge bridge.
Bridge of Bacunayagua. It was 1000ft drop. Beautiful jungleish views with dozens of turkey vultures circling above.
When we arrived to Havana, we drove through the city, on the Malecon. We stayed in a Private Oceanfront Villa in Miramar. Miramar is like Kitsilano is to Vancouver. More rich houses and wealthy neighbourhood.
This is the best online listing I could find about it:
Casa particular con piscina de Isis en Miramar, Cuba
This place was $700 CUC a night. we were here for 6 nights.
Here are my pics of it.
As you can see, i bought a Brick motorola phone from China. And it was flawless. I only charged it 3 times in 15 days.
This Villa came with 24 hour private security, daily maid service, a fulltime Chef/bartender and laundry service.
We had a menu that we could choose to have the chef cook for us for any or all our meals onsite, but a friend on our trip has sever food allergies so even with proper translations and strict guidelines he did not want to risk getting sick in a foreign country so we decided to cook most ourselves when needed to.
this is 9 bottles of rum/tequila/vodka... for 50 CUC
A few days into our trip we were told that Cuba has the best bonefishing in the world. I have never been before, some of my friends are avid fishermen. So the majority has spoken and we booked a fishing trip to Bahia de cochinos. ( The bay of Pigs ) That is about 2 hours south, and needing to stay in a casa particular near La playa Larga to get up early enough for the 7am fishing trip.
Back in April 17th 1961, the bay of pigs is where the US CIA tried to invade cuba. Tried.... lol.
Bay of Pigs Invasion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So we drove for 2 hours, leaving our $700/night villa to stay for $25/room here in la playa larga
$3 mojitos
$10 lobster fish and shrimp dinner
My buddy and a croc
So anyways, we wake up early. Get picked up by the driver for our expedition go and pay for the fishing trip to the government... then we drive 25kms... on a dirt road.... that had alot of bumps and pot holes.... with 11 people in one truck.
I probably saw about 1000 flamingos.
So we finally get there. And these were the boats we paid for...
Flat bottom, non-motorized boats.
I never fly fished in my life, and this experience was not to my liking.
I was pushed around for 8 hours in this shallow ocean.
As far as the eye could see, the water wasnt deeper than my knees.
Over 1 million acres of fishing area.
here it is on google maps. and look at the road we took to get there:S
https://www.google.ca/maps?q=Playa+L...zas,+Cuba&z=17
Then it started to rain... more like Pour. You remember that scene in the Notebook on the lake and the rain... yup. just like that.
So all in all, this day of fishing costs each one of my friends about 450 CUC.
Not thrilled about it.
So we return back to Havana that night... and it is our last night in the Villa.
The next day we check out, we are now staying at the Penthouse in the Atlantic Condo's. Here is the listing for it:
https://www.mycasaparticular.com/en/...lle.php?id=130 The room was $1000 CDN a night. 24 hour maids in suite. We had a staff of 8 people taking care of us.
for all the cigar aficionados we had a $3000 humidor in our penthouse
Alot of famous people and celebrites stay in this same suite all year round. It is like fort knox. The front door was actually like a safe.
Now we went to marina hemingway to checkout some boats to charter a private fishing trip. we negotiated 5 hours for only $600.
A 42ft something rather. came with 5 deep sea fishing reels with heavy line. Also came equiped with electronic downriggers on the reels themselves! Never seen that up in Canada.
This time of year, The Marlin are long gone, so all we had to hope for was Tuna and Wahoo.
using needle fish as bait
So we were out on the water for almost 5 hours without catching anything worthwhile... as we were heading back to the shore, BAM BAM BAM... three rods were peeling line.
First we thought we caught 1, and the other two lines got tangled... nope.
So we gave the skipper 1 Wahoo, and told him to filet the other two for us.
We brought the fish back to our penthouse, and made the chef cook up over 25lbs of wahoo, and invited all the staff to have a feast.
next day, we went to Old Havana.
took our driver there, and he jumped in the adventure aswell. we rented 3 coco taxis and ripped around old havana in style.
time to check out and head back to varadero. iberostar varadero again for 3 nights, and then a flight back to reality.
thats about it, I know I missed alot but without more pictures to show its hard to describe things.
here are some strange cuba rules we are not used to.These rules apply mostly to cuban's thou. not tourists.
It is illegal to buy fruit or vegetables from anyone other than the government markets. If you are in a car and driving to a friends house with fruit in your car and you get pulled over. If you cannot produce a receipt that you paid for them at the supermarket..... 4 years in jail.
same goes for lobster, apples, oranges, or cigars not bought at the factory.
A female cuban, cannot be seen talking to or hanging out with any tourists / foreigners. If they are seen with tourists, then can be arrests for suspected prostitution. If you do meet a Cuban girl, and truly hit it off, both you and her must go to the police station and announce boyfriend and girlfriend status. But if she is seen with a tourist after that point, and not you, Arrested and put to jail for prostitution.
Any drug related offenses are extremely severe. 2-5 years for possession, 25 years for trafficking. In solitary. No visitors.
One thing that really stood-out in my 15 days in Cuba, there was ZERO anger, hostility, roadrage, confrontations, arguments, not even any sarcasm or rude stares. They get along with each other and with everyone else. The government has everyone scared straight to step out of line. The littlest thing will send you to jail for years. And the second thing that stood-out was, every young person was extremely fit, very healthy looking, well dressed... the communist system atleast has food/healthcare/schooling taken care of. So people are not starving, they eat the essentials. And by the looks of it, its expensive to get fat and eat wrong. No one can afford it.
Its getting real late, so if anyone has any questions about cuba please feel free to fire them off on here or PM. Everything is still fresh in my mind.
Oh and if any of you plan to travel here... the biggest tip of all.
BRING ENOUGH CASH WITH YOU. Dont rely on your bank cards/visas.
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