(This is a long post, and we thought about skipping it altogether given that it is pretty negative. But in the interest of full disclosure we’ve left it in. Once in awhile there are some bad travel days, and this was one of them.)
Today was frustrating. We’ve learned Cuba is more expensive than we understood from reading a guide book in advance, and many “small” expenses such as taxis, museum/tour entrance fees, drinks and bottled water all have been more costly than we budgeted. As a result, we’ve begun over the last couple days to worry about whether we brought enough cash to cover expenses which were not pre-paid (airfare, hotels and rental car). We’re in “cash only” mode on this trip as our credit and ATM cards are no good due to the lack of formal economic ties . . . a situation we’ve never faced before and had forgotten how dependent we are on the flexibility we have with ATM, credit and debit cards.
Bob, Matt and Cathryn left early to pick up our rental cars at another hotel downtown. After waiting an hour to have an agent help us our second challenge occurred when he informed us the paperwork our Canadian tour agency sent us electronically for the car rental (already paid) was not, in fact, a voucher, and the car rental staff didn’t know how they could rent us the cars. This was potentially a huge problem as we didn’t have enough money to pay for the cars any other way, and our hotels in other parts of the island were already pre-paid but valueless if we couldn’t get there! It also turns out our Canadian tour operator arranged our car through a Cuban tour operator who arranged it further through a Cuban car rental company – 3 parties involved. The “Jefe” (boss) from the car rental and tour operator was called and one Jefe came to talk with Cathryn in her halting Spanish for 20 minutes while the staff person kept making more phone calls. Finally, after more than an hour , they agreed to rent us the cars, though they said the size we’d arranged wasn’t available or was insufficient for our needs (HUH???) and we’d have to pay more for the next size up. We were not in a position to fully understand or argue, so didn’t. Finally we got to what we were afraid might be the fatal flaw to the whole car rental deal. We’d begun to worry we’d under-projected the cost of the cash “deposit” on the rental cars, which can run into the thousands in the U.S. or Europe, but can be put on a credit card slip there which is not charged unless you fail to return the car. It turned out they “only” wanted a $200 deposit for each car and we could cover that. Almost 3 hours after leaving our hotel, we arrived back there with 2 cars, found Mackenzie and Adrienne and loaded up to leave for a 5-hour drive to Trinidad.
Our next frustration came in the form of a female “Good Samaritan” who ended up in one of our cars to guide us the correct way to the Autopista (highway) which was not well signed or easily found in our preliminary efforts. Half an hour later when we made it to the autopista, her “friend” who was following us in their car was nowhere to be found, and she attempted to extort $85 from us to pay her taxi fare back to Habana. In the end, an ugly scene ensued and Bob ordered her out of the car repeatedly, with threats to call the police, which she seemed to find amusing, but she left. We think we saw her friend in their car a mile or two down the road. Clearly a scam.
The really sad part about that story is the degree to which it altered, perhaps irrevocably, our view of the helpfulness and friendliness of some of the Cuban people. We know they’re poor and we’re not. But now, much of the initial friendliness with which we’re met is tempered in our minds by suspicion about when they will turn the exchange into a request for money. In fact, that has happened often in other circumstances which were more easily fended off. Our feelings on the matter are no doubt exacerbated by the fact we spent 3 weeks in Morocco last month where we were constantly hounded by people aggressively trying to sell us products or services we didn’t want, and we grew seriously tired of it before that trip was over. We feel a bit like we’re ATM machines to people in poor countries, not actual humans. That’s putting a negative spin on it, but reflects our frustrations of the moment. We don’t blame them for their view, but we don’t enjoy being the target of it.
Three hours later we stopped in a small town to buy gas and get a late lunch. The gas station attendant gave us directions to a “paladar”, a term used for either a restaurant or hotel room which is offered (often without government authorization) from a resident’s home. We were given a menu which said a hamburger cost $30, and had to work our way through an understanding that these were prices posted in “local denomination” rather than “convertible currency” – totally separate monetary systems used by residents and tourists. This place had undoubtedly never before seen a tourist. The paladar had no liquid offerings we could order as nothing was bottled, so we ordered only 4 hamburgers and one bowl of rice and beans. In the end, the total cost was $6.50!
Finally after 5:00 we arrived in Trinidad, a small town about 200 miles southeast of Habana and a mile from the south coast with cobblestone roads and small, densely packed shared-wall homes. After asking directions a number of times, we found our Casa Particular, a private home which offers up to two rooms for rent to tourists, arrangements Mackenzie made by email before leaving home. Mila and Bury, a middle-aged married couple, met us at the door with warm greetings and showed us to our rooms, which turned out to be large, well-furnished, comfortable and clean. They served us dinner on the rooftop terrace of the home, including an “on-the-house” bottle of wine in celebration of Bob’s birthday, which they discovered when they took the required information from our passports.
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