Cuba Experience
by
Kimene16
by
Kimene16
This essay has been written, re-written and re-composed more than dozen times, its sole purpose to share my experience. It is not my intentions to make this an official guide to Cuba. I hope you will enjoy this and take it as intended.
As an American, when we hear or think about Cuba, older generation remembers Bay of Pigs, Missile Crises, Nuke Drills in schools (kids hiding under school desks), safe houses “bunkers”, and COLD WAR, Embargo, US Sanctions, Airplane Hijacking to Cuba and President Fidel Castro’s dump of criminals to U.S., and not too far distance memory of young Cuban boy named Elien Gonzalez.
How much do we really know about Cuba other than their CIGARS? About Cuban people (not little Havana in Miami), her culture and life style? Most of us know little or nothing about Cuba or Cubans’ or their attitude towards to U.S. and towards Americans period.
Thanks to President Obama, now there are family visits and cultural educational visits are available to firsthand experience of Cuban life style. I was lucky enough to visit this mysterious Island. As a Cigar lover, all I wanted was getting my hands on those forbidden fruits of Cuba.
My first taught about Cuba was, heavy military and police presence on streets, to my surprise I only saw traffic police on the side of highway and some soldiers (17-18 year old kids in green uniform), fumigating houses, businesses and streets to fight against upcoming mosquito season.
I was told by travel agent my credit cards most likely won’t be accepted in most places, and I should take cash with me. You can only take $10,000 out of the USA (IRS). My travel agent provided visa, and mandatory health insurance policy and exit fee for total cost of $100.
American Airlines charges $20.00 per luggage checked-in, max weight of 20Kg (44 lbs.) per luggage. Make sure you arrive least 3 hours before departure, because Cubans pack many bags (you’d know why on your 2nd day in Cuba) and checking process could be gruesome.
When arrived at Cuba after 45 minutes short flight from Miami, immigration process is very smooth, only one person are allowed to be with immigration officer, unless you have a minor (under 13 years of age) traveling with you.
Our pre-arranged driver/translator/tour guide picked me up from airport to take us to our “Casa Particular” Private Room rented from private citizen, typical B&B, one bedroom apartment would describe it better. I took my own Mr. Coffee and my couple pounds of Dunkin Donut Coffee, we also took few extra pounds of Cuban Coffee (from Walmart) for the host. Host family already had bottled water and National Club Soda in the fridge for me. We also took toilet papers and moist wipes and travel size hygienic products.
Cuba has two currencies, CUC$ (Cuban Convertible) and CUP$ (Cuban Peso). CUC$ is as named indicates convertible (to USD, CND or EU etc) CUC$ exchange rates at Banks or Official Currency Exchange Offices are $100 for 85 CUC$ (they levy %10 Cuban Taxes to USD) Cuban Peso is used internally and exchange rate is about $1.00 to 25 CUB$. CUB$ has pictures of historical generals and revolutionary guards, CUC$ has pictures of nature.
DO NOT drink the TAB water. Bottle waters are available almost everywhere, we paid 0.40 CUC$ at gas station for 500 ml bottle (16 oz.) and 1.5 CUC$ at airport for same size bottle of water, restaurants upon request will give you LARGE (1.5 liter) bottle of water for $1.5 CUC$. You can haggle the prices at BAZAARS but WHY? Handmade Fridge magnets are 1 CUC$ to 2 CUC$, least expansive memorabilia magnet at Walmart is $4.95. People are really nice, and they are not camera shy at all.
Never seen a camera and more American friendly people. If you want to take a picture of a person point and smile, or greet them with simple “Hola” they would smile back and let you take their pictures. When we were videotaping passing cars on the street, couple soldiers gave us a famous “Revolutionary Fist” salute with a big smile and fist turned into “V” sign.
Bathrooms, like some Latin countries like Mexico & Honduras or far eastern countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh or Malaysia, don’t expect to see SEAT or SEAT COVER. You either squat or wipe and put toilet paper to seat on commode. Do not put toilet papers in commode, place it in the basket. If it does not flush through, use bucket of water in bathroom to thoroughly flush it. Public restrooms are available for a fee (1 CUB$ less than about a nickel). Attendants will put a silver CUC$ on table to trying to get more. Again bring your own bathroom tissue. Some government run restaurants, hotels and especially at airport bathrooms’ DO have toilet sit covers and toilet papers.
Touristic resorts are just for tourists only. On the road to resort, there was a traffic check point, you have to register the vehicle and passengers in the car, locals were allowed as a guests of the foreign passport carrier. Registration fee was $2 CUC$ for foreign passport holders, and 1 CUP$ for locals. BUT, we were traveling with state certified travel guide, there were no fees, except 2 CUP$ for toll (less than a dime).
Canadians and German retirees occupy most of the resorts, they were not happy that President Obama was visiting with Cuba… Can you guess why? Until now, Canadian and German retirees were paying less than $25/day all-inclusive resorts, drinks, with 3 buffet meals, pools, saunas, parks etc. All these for $750-$1000 month per couple.
How does Cubans own their houses, I thought it was very interesting. Every business (Siemens Germany for example) opens a plant in Cuba, let’s assume they are to hire 300 people, they have to build apartment complex to house their employees, and employees have option to buy these units. They pay INTEREST FREE minimal not less than 5% and not to exceed 7% of their pay check for 10 years. After 10 years employee owns that unit free and clear. Cubans can’t own more than 2 real-estates. They are free to sell them. Houses can be as expensive as $15,000 OCEAN FRONT. As low as $5,000 farm houses. Foreigners can’t buy real-estate property, unless married to Cuban Citizen. If foreigner divorces Cuban citizen, real-estate goes to Cuban Citizen. Guess what some Canadians are doing? You got it. They change wives every three to five years, and only coast them $15,000 most.
Let’s get to the good part of the Cuban trip CIGARS. Locals call them ‘tobacco’, if you called them ‘puro’, expect to pay more for it. Tobacco farms are owned by private party and/or government owned land, private grower can sell its products to citizens or to government (which paid less)
Cigar Manufacturer gave tours to tourists, it cost 4 CUC$, tickets can only be purchased from town’s Tourist Registry Official with your passport , only foreign passport holders were allowed into plant (no Cuban National, not even official tour guides were allowed), no cameras, no purses, no phones. This particular factory we visited employed about 200 people, it was small compare to most others.
Tour took about 45 minutes. Rollers receives their batch of leafs in plastic container with serial number and they finish that batch until it is rolled and Quality Control (QC) is done by senior member of the team, if QC fails for any reason (size, weight, shape, color, pressure), QC failed cigar broken into two and thrown into waste basket (that’s what we saw). No floor rollers knows what brand of cigars they are rolling, inventory manager keeps serial numbers and freshly rolled cigars after their humidor aging, they are shipped to wherever, including plant manager does not know what is next step for their cigars. Cigar factory tour guide informed us, rollers were allowed to buy one batch (16-20 pieces) of their owned rolled cigars at employee discount, she didn’t give us a price, but consider this, and rollers make less than $40 a month. I am guessing here that, employees may pay 1 CUC$ or less for an unlabeled box of cigars. There were two row of young kids not more than 20 total kids* ages 18-20 maybe younger, rolling cigars, tour guide informed us that those youngsters were family members of current or former employees following their parents’ footsteps learning the trade. It took 2 years of apprenticeship to get onto regular floor, some cigar rollers spoke English, and we were free to have Q&A and/or conversation. Rolled cigars after QC were picked by floor foreman and taken to manufacturer humidor (sometimes they had to dehumidify it gets very hot and humid) for specific amount of time.
*Anyone old enough to be Medicare eligible, earned RIGHT to call anyone under 30 y/o kid.
Unfortunately there were no free cigars after the tour. But, there was an Official Sales Outlet small bar/café across the street, where we had an opportunity to purchase and smoke our lungs out at La Veguita “Tienda Especializada Ron-Tabaco – Café’
It has been almost 6 weeks since I left Cuba. Most cigars I brought are NICELY aging in humidors, Cuban Rum bottles are almost half-gone, I have been dreaming (literally) and talking about Cuba almost non-stop. It had so much impression on me, I can’t just shake-it off. It is one of the poorest country in the world, but people are happy, average people didn’t have iPhone, tablets, internet access, ATM cards, cars, most people DO NOT KNOW McDonalds, Starbucks, Shell, BP, Best Buy, Amazon, or GOOGLE, but these people were happy with minimal they had. At the end-of-the-day, they didn’t have mortgage, credit card payments, student loan payments, or college tuition for kids, they have health care.
Cuban kids have not been introduced to McDonald nor Chuck E Cheese, these kids don’t have a PENCIL SHARPNER (they use kitchen knife to sharpen their pencils without cutting or hurting themselves), you are not going to find any mechanical pencils if your life dependent on it.
Local hospitals and doctors don’t have flash light and or tongue depressor don’t even think about disposable gloves. But they manage with what they have. They seemed happy or they just got used not having it, or do they even know about it?
Majority of homes don’t have WINDOWS, yes, GLASS windows, instead they aluminum shutters, no running hot water, you have to warm a bucket of water to take a shower.
I am already planning for next my trip. This time my better half will not accompany me. I already know, what I need to pack. This time around it will be about City of Havana and visiting tobacco farms. 3rd trip will be about Cigar Plants. Don’t get me wrong, I smoked 5-6 cigars a day while in Cuba, real CC and some local wrappers’ products were equal quality than their counter parts sold at “La Casa del Habana” (LCDH). Two of the LCDH stores I visited had a local retired cigar roller there rolling and selling fresh rolled cigars at fraction of counterpart prices, for an example Montecristo #2 Dated June 2014 were sold at $12 each at LCDH, you can buy NAKED torpedo 6x50 rolled right in LCDH store for less than $2 U.S.
Be advised don’t buy CCs off-the-street, literally a person walked up to us while in LCDH and offered to sell me a box of Montecristo #2 for a $50, I was curious enough to followed him to his house so called his shop on the same block, any cigar Aficionado would recognize a fake Montecristo #2, it did not have date on the box nor signature on the inside wrapper, I was still curious about fake CC in Cuba, he offered a stick out of the box to try, it was not a bad stick, but I was not going to spend $50 on a fake box of CC in Cuba, I kindly refused and thanked him for hospitality and for cigar, I offered to pay for the stick, but he wouldn’t take it. You can buy many different cigars at bars and hotels where tourists stays at few dollars a stick. Most single CC sticks I purchased (5 CUC$ or less) at retail stores were not bad sticks, they are equivalent to JRs $10 a stick.
As you already know, best and safe place the buy cigars are LCDH stores, unfortunately, they don’t accept credit cards are issued by US banks, also, don’t try to pay with US Dollars, remember, they levy 10% Cuban National Taxes Purchased made with US Dollars. Most LCDH stores has a bar and lounge, you can purchase a single stick to try out before buying a box or try different brand of cigars. You can smoke all CC you want to smoke.
Every bar and lounge I visited offered their own brand cigar sticks, you won’t go wrong with it, because it is their pride, compliment the local shop’s cigar with ‘Cuba Libre,“ unofficial national drink, it’s a cocktail with Cuban rum, lime with TUCOLA “Cuban version of Coke” less than a $2.00
If you are in a resort and laying on the white sand beach and watching perfect sunset you can complement that moment with Pina Colada made with fresh pineapple and coconut for a $1.00
If Department of Treasury gives permission, I would like to take mechanical pencil sharpeners for elementary school classrooms, also put together a gift package for kids. Essential school items in a zipper bag, pencil sharpener, eraser, #2 pencils, 8-12 Crayons and every kids’ favorite Fun Size M&Ms.
Word of advice, do NOT snail mail anything from Cuba to U.S.A. You will never get it, it has been over 8 weeks since we snail mailed plain post cards to friends and grandkids, no has received them yet. When we checked with US Post Master, USPS Post Master informed us, there is no OFFICIAL MAIL EXCHANGE between Cuba and U.S. (in November of 2015, Cuban Ambassador and U.S. Delegation Signed ‘Postal Exchange’ agreement), U.S. Congress has yet to ratify.
I hope to make plans to go back early in 2017, and bring some needed school supplies to young children such as pencils, pencil sharpeners and crayons.
Adios for now.
Kimene16
Thank You Eric for your help with these pics, without you it wouldn't (I couldn't) get done. Thank you for your support and patients.
Here it is PEOPLE. Pics from CUBA. We all can THANK Eric for his time and technical knowledge. He DID it.
(http://www.botl.org/media/albums/cuba-trip-pics.1604).
Due to large quantity and quality of Pics are uploaded by Eric
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