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I am sitting here at one of the most famous hotels in all of Havana, after I just withdrew Can$250 (200 CUC, Pesos Convertibles) from my Mastercard. No big deal, you say….. Until you realize that the average Cuban makes between US8 and US30, not an hour, not a day, but for a whole month!

My professor for instance told me that she makes about US$18 or so a month, so the amount I withdrew is more than a year

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After picking up the bicycle on Thursday, I finally took my first ride on Friday afternoon through the beautiful residential area of Vedado. We had had a tropical downpour in the early afternoon, so the streets were a bit wet and it was about 4 pm or so by the time I got out. Of course, by that time, rush hour traffic had already started and there were thousands of people in the street, waiting for buses. The bicycle was a pretty new mountain bike, but it seems that all the gears and derailleurs were totally screwed up and I constantly had problems with the chain. 2 of the 3 chainrings in the front didn”t work at all and I had a pretty hard time getting along with the bike.

But even more so than the technical difficulties, the stares I got from all the locals were a really unnerving experience, especially since there were so many people in the street. You don’t see too many modern bicycles on the street, and even fewer are ridden by women. Of course the guys whistle at you at every turn, which, as I am told, is totally part of the culture and not a threatening gesture. Nevertheless, I did feel rather unnverved with this experience.

Bicycles in general are basic means of transportation here, not recreational vehicles. And considering that even a very basic new bike at maybe $100 or so is worth 5, 6 or even 10 months of state salary, it’s not surprising that they tell you never to let the bicycle out of your sight. And riding through the streets I almost felt as if I was surrounded by a group of lions that were ready to pounce to capture their prey.

So as a result I decided, I’d rather not attract that much attention to myself and I decided to hand the bike back to the owner. The last thing I wanted is for the bicycle to get stolen, so I decided I’ll wing it with regular transportation options and do more walking, getting some exercise at the same time.

In the evening my friend Pedro and I decided to catch the “GuaGua” again and we took a “Camello” (a very large bus with 2 humps, pulled by a truck engine) from around the Capitolio to the other side of Havana Bay to the old fortress of “El Morro” which was built in th 16th century. The Camello was so full that one of my feet couldn’t touch the ground and the hydraulic doors coulnd’t close because people were hanging out the door. Certainly an experience…..

Every day at 9 pm they have a ceremony at the fortress where they have a few men dressed up in old (colonial?) uniforms and they shoot off 2 cannon balls across the bay to commemorate La Habana’s military past. El Morro and Las Cabanas is an interesting area with a museum and numerous stores selling tourist merchandise. After the ceremony we caught another, much less overstuffed, GuaGua back to the western side of La Habana and we had another very affordable dinner in the Barrio Chino.

This time my intestinal system was okay and I caught a good night’s sleep to rest up for the weekend.

Susanne Pacher is the publisher of a website called Travel and Transitions(http://www.travelandtransitions.com). Travel and Transitions deals with unconventional travel and is chock full of advice, tips, real life travel experiences, interviews with travellers and travel experts, insights and reflections, cross-cultural issues, contests and many other features. You will also find stories about life and the transitions that we face as we go through our own personal life-long journeys.

Submit your own travel stories in our first travel story contest(http://www.travelandtransitions.com/contests.htm) and have a chance to win an amazing adventure cruise on the Amazon River.

“Life is a Journey

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On Sunday it was gorgeous. The cold front had finally passed through, the rain was gone and we had a beautiful warm sunny day without any humidity.

My hostess is also a guide for the National Park System and Vinales is a nationally protected natural habitat. She had a tour planned through a side valley of Vinales (Valle del Ancon) with 3 participants, an older couple from Germany and me.

The tour was fabulous, we got picked up by a local in a taxi and went about 20 minutes outside of town and got dropped off at a local primary school, which had several communist slogans painted on the outside. Political graffiti, paintings and message boards are extremely common in Cuba. Although there is no western style advertising, there are plenty of political slogans (a collection of a few of which I will summarize at a later point).

This is a very strange experience when you come from a Western capitalist country like Canada, and then you see all these political slogans about Communism and defending the Revolution. Truly fascinating indeed, a completely different world.

On our 3 hour trip we walked through local fields, were told about local wildlife, special birds (the Cuban Tocororo, Turkey vultures and other birds. We also heard about local farming which still takes place with human labour, manual ploughs and oxen. We were introduced to crops such as Malanga (pureed and given to babies), Yucca, various types of sweet potatoes, corn and yams.

One of the highlights was a 20 minute walk through a limestone cave through one of the Mogote hills. We saw some interesting stone formations and even strange pale plants growing inside the pitch-dark cave. Our guide had illuminated the cave with a strong flashlight for the 4 of us and it was a pretty easy walk with no cave-dwelling animals in sight, only one political slogan spray-painted in the cave (apparently this was a hideout for the revolutionary army at some point..).

After exiting the cave, we ended up in an uninhabited small valley completely surrounded by mountains and we ran into a local farmer of 60 years, whose leathery face and slim body gave him the appearance of an 80 year old man, evidence of many decades of sun and hard work.

He had a flock of turkeys (with 61 young chicks), a dog and some fields of corn and beans. And he generally spends most of his days working manually in this little valley, completely isolated, sometimes staying overnight in a single hut made from the wood and leaves of the royal palm tree, Cuba

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