First day in Havana

Cuba has always been a common destination for Spanish tourists, but I had never been there. Living in the US, and due to the countries economic and political relations, traveling to the island feels like a completely different endeavor. Things were quite easy for Americans (or, in my case, US permanent residents) when we went there at the end of 2019, as opposed to the previous time Dean had visited in 2013. I flew directly from New York to Havana in a fairly affordable flight, but we still had to pick a category of authorized travel. Tourist activities weren't officially allowed as a category, but we used the "support for the Cuban people" one, which allows you to visit the country avoiding certain state-run businesses, and supporting private Cuban businesses and individuals instead. That means staying in the so-called "casas particulares" instead of regular hotels, for example. We also needed a Cuban Tourist Card, but we just got it at the airport before our flight. It cost $75 with United.

When we landed in Havana, the airport was a huge mess. United had made me check my luggage, and my suitcase took forever to come out. When it did, it appeared in a different line than the one that was announced.

It also took us forever to get money, because the computers at the currency exchange office weren't working. There are several interesting facts about money in Cuba, or at least they were when we went there.

They have two different currencies. The most common one for tourists is the CUC, peso convertible cubano, usually pronounced ce-u-cé. It has the same value as US dollars, but you'll have to pay a commission to exchange it. Then you have the CUP, peso cubano, usually referred to as "peso." 1 CUC is 24 CUP. You won't see many of those and they're mostly only used by Cubans, but you may want to use them to buy something small. For example, we went to the Havana Film Festival and the price tickets were in CUP. You have to be careful not to mistake the two, but in the two weeks we spent there nobody tried to scam us or anything like that.

On top of that, you'll find that a lot of people will accept euros or even US dollars. I'm not sure if it's because it feels like a more stable currency, because people are trying to leave the island, or because of some other reason, but this was quite useful.

Cards are not that widely used and American credit cards were not accepted so we had to rely on changing money. You can do that at the bank or the CADECA offices.

Anyway, back to the airport.

We finally managed to change money and took a taxi to our casa particular in Habana Vieja. We asked for the price in advance and it cost 30CUC.

Our casa particular, which we found thorough Airbnb, was very convenient, centrally located, clean and quiet, and it looked like an art gallery. Our host, who we didn't really get to see after the first day, recommended a restaurant nearby called Antojos which turned out to have very tasty Cuban food. The fish croquetas and the ropa vieja were delicious. We paid 45 CUC for our meal, including mojitos and desert. The restaurant was very hip and cute, which I really didn't expect. Later I would learn that this is quite common in Havana, which has managed to open places that look like coming out of an international magazine despite the fact that private businesses are relatively new and communication is somewhat limited.

After dinner, we went around Habana Vieja for a walk. It was very, very crowded and a couple started talking to us and tried to take us to a restaurant. This is apparently a fairly common scam, where very friendly people try to take you to places where they'll end up getting some commission or a free drink or meal from you. This is always tricky because Cubans are indeed very friendly and chatting with locals will be one of the most interesting experiences to have, but you gotta be careful with people talking you into going to places.

We ended the night with more mojitos at a Russian-themed bar called Tabarish, where a group of women was playing live music.

Airbnb in Habana Vieja
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/37715482?source_im…

Antojos
https://www.tripadvisor.es/Restaurant_Review-g1…

Tabarish
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g…

Web of the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control with the requirements to visit Cuba
https://cu.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/l…Read more