Semana Santa (Easter) in Antigua

It's not surprising that a country as religious as Guatemala should work itself into a frenzy over its Easter celebrations. And its not just church services Good Friday and Easter Sunday, or food comas resulting from too many chocolate eggs. Here, Easter is a major public event; a 10-day long party called Semana Santa, or Holy Week. Big themed parades, floats and marching bands take over the town, weaving their way through the streets as they make their way from one church to the next.

In Guatemala Semana Santa is celebrated all over the country, but the most elaborate celebrations are held in Antigua, the beautiful former colonial capital nestled in the highlands among a ring of volcanoes and pine forests. Now, we're not usually ones to go organising our trip around religious festivities, but we were curious to find out what Semana Santa was all about and what it means to people.

It did not take us long to find the festivities. We bumped into a procession as we were walking into town trying to find our hotel. All of a sudden we found ourselves in a massive thronging crowd watching a procession of people dressed up as Roman soldiers and others as wise men, followed by a marching band.

The interesting (and somewhat crazy) thing about these processions, is that they walk over these amazingly intricate floral carpets that are purpose built for each individual event. As soon as a procession blitzes through, trampling all over these beautiful decorations, a dump truck follows behind to clean up the mess and then people jump back into the streets to start all over again.

The arrangements were set on beds of pine needles and were jazzed up with intricately dyed sand and sawdust sprinkles. Some of the fancier ones had little Jesus and Mary figurines while others had carved mangoes and watermelons. One even had 10 mini tablets inlaid within the flowers that spelt out the 10 commandments!

All of this was set against the amazing backdrop of Antigua's immaculately preserved colonial buildings and quaint cobblestone streets. I'm sure if Guatemala were to have a tidy town competition (as happens in Australia), Antigua would emerge a clear winner. It is so neat and tidy, and with all the immaculate paint jobs, well-maintained roofs and flowers sprouting from elegant window pots, you actually begin to wonder what its doing in Guatemala.

More importantly, why is Antigua so prim and proper while so many of Guatemala's villages and towns are so blatantly neglected and in need of repair? Drive 10 minutes down the road from Antigua in any direction and you'll encounter villages with two-roomed houses made of slapped-together concrete blocks and rusting corrugated roofs. To add to Antigua's beauty and to this stark contrast, it has somehow managed to add to its beauty by burying its power lines and banishing stray, mangy dogs.

But back to Semana Santa. Each of the processions tells a story about a certain aspect of Easter. Friday is the main day and draws the biggest crowds; again there are the Roman soldiers along with hundreds of men dressed in black robes cart a giant statue of Jesus dragging a cross. Thick, fragrant smoke from incense burners being swung through the air cloys the nostrils and stings the back of the throat. The procession moved to the relentless beat of big kettle drums, further emphasising the sombre mood.

Later that night, the same black-robed men were carrying a float with a model of Jesus laying in a clear-glass coffin. Other smaller floats of Mary and some angels followed, as did an ominous skeleton with a scythe who appeared to represent the grim reaper. Saturday's processions continued the sombre theme, with most of the marchers dressed in black, and the marching band continuing to play dark, heavy notes.

 On Sunday, along with the weather brightening up (it had been cloudy the whole time and rained on Friday night's parade), a giant flotilla of Jesus dressed in white and standing among a beatiful arrangement of fresh flowers emerged out of one of the churches. In an instant the streets were covered with confetti and the marching band started cranking out bright Guatemalan folk ballads (which to my untrained ear sounded much like Mariachi music).

Jesus was so big he tore down a power cable!

Antigua was buzzing with energy the entire weekend, as folks poured in from far and wide to join in the revellery. It looked like many had not managed to organise a place to stay - scores of people were camped out under the cloisters of buildings in the grand plaza, with entire families huddling together under a blanket for warmth. It was nice that most of the Guatemalans there were from other parts of the country, so in a way nearly everyone was a visitor and for once we weren't the token "tourists" getting gawked at by the locals. And because the place was crawling with American tour groups, we somehow found it easier to blend in!

Studying Spanish in the Guatemalan higlands

Lake Atitlan

We spent a few days chilling out at Panajachel, the stunning highland enclave perched on Lake Atitlan, a massive body of water ringed by lush, pine covered mountains and two enormous mist-shrouded volcanoes. Sometimes the clouds were so low that they barely cleared the roof tops of the town as they passed by.

We took Spanish lessons at one of the local schools here, Jardin de America. Guatemala’s approach to language instruction is vastly different from the regimented, rote-learning method we experienced at the university in Mexico City.

For one thing, most Guatemalan schools do one-on-one instruction with a teacher, which is probably less threatening when you’re first starting out. When you’re more advanced, you can ask the teacher to just teach you certain things to fill in the gaps of your knowledge, and you don’t have to waste time waiting for other students to catch up.

Adam in the garden of learning

That said, I enjoyed the Mexico City classes because they were incredibly varied and we got to have a lot of discussions and debates with other students based on topics we had studied. Here there was a bigger focus on learning grammar, but I was able to break this up by asking my teacher to talk about certain topics to help improve my vocabulary.

He taught me some Guatemaltecismos, slang words used only in Guatemala, such as pisto, meaning money, bolo, which means drunk and chonde, slang for police. There is no way my uptight super-religious teacher in Mexico City would have taught me any of this stuff!

True to its name, lessons at Jardin de America were conducted in the school’s pretty garden in a quiet back laneway. It was great learning outdoors, and fortunately in the highlands it is a few degrees cooler and easier to concentrate than at sea level.

In the afternoons there were free activities and excursions to various places. We saw a Guatemalan film one day (about the popular topic of crossing illegally into the United States for a better life) and visited an indigenous lakeside town a short distance away from the school.

Panajachel is pretty touristy - its main street chockers with handicraft stalls, upmarket bars and restaurants - so it was good to escape it to see how locals actually live. San Antonio Palapo clings precariously to a steep hillside, its modest concrete-block dwellings seemingly stacked on top of each other.

Down at the lakefront, there were a couple of submerged buildings, the result of flooding that happened years ago that increased the water level by five metres, and has not since receded as the water drains too slowly to keep up with all of the rainfall.

Villagers here mainly dress in their traditional costumes, a combination of brightly-coloured woven skirts, blouses and scarves. It was funny to see three-year-old girls in the same outfits as their grandmothers, with the same hairstyles and jewellery to boot. Most of the men did not wear the complete outfit, which includes a skirt, but many sported a traditional white cowboy-style hat.

Groups of women were preparing the for the upcoming Easter celebrations, threading fresh lilies and pansies into complicated floral arrangements with which to decorate the town. Everywhere I looked, people were doing things by hand – washing clothes, cracking holes in the road to repair the pavers, weaving scarves – and lugging massive packages on their heads as they navigated the steep hillside pathways.

We travelled to and from the village in the back of a ute loaded up with about 20 other people, mainly women returning from selling goods in Panajachel. On the return trip we were joined by a group of cute giggling kids, who were doing this funny counting game, where they would spot something on the side of the road and scream out “uno…dos….tres….quatro”, etc in unison. When I asked them what they were counting, they cried “casas!!” (houses).

The vibe on the main streets of Panajachel got progressively busier as the week went on, with tourists pouring in from other highland and lakeside towns. The reason? Panajachel is a hotspot for Easter celebrations, which take place over an entire week in Guatemala and other Spanish-speaking countries, known as Semana Santa, or Holy Week.

On the last day of class, we were frequently interrupted by loud explosions coming from the nearby school - they were setting off fireworks in preparation for the big processions that take place on Good Friday, Saturday and Easter Sunday. However, we decided to head to the highland town of Antigua, Guatemala's mecca for Semana Santa celebrations. So on the Thursday afternoon we hit the road again, braving the gridlocked holiday traffic to get to Antigua, two hours east of Lake Atitlan.

San Antonio Palapo

A friendly welcome to Guatemala

On arriving in Guatemala, our wallets breathed a collective sigh of relief. Belize and Cuba were far more expensive than we had bargained for! Our first meal Guatemala’s seedy port town of Puerto Barrios cost just over $1 per person, our accommodation a little under $10 (although admittedly at an establishment where most paid by the hour) and long distance bus tickets were also a steal.

But there’s more to Guatemala than great-value everything. When we crossed the border was like flicking a switch – everyone was suddenly in friendly mode, smiling at us, saying hello, joking around, asking if we needed directions when we looked lost.

At once Guatemalans proved themselves to be forward and friendly. Where many Mexicans had acted aloof, it is surprisingly easy to strike up a conversation in a shop here.

Unlike Belize or Cuba, there were no apparent strings attached. People weren’t trying to prise money out of you (unless they happened to be selling something), they were just being…helpful. It was weird!

It was like I had shed the giant dollar sign I’d been carrying above my head, and also the sign that said “beware gringo” that had plagued me in Mexico. Sure, in Guatemala I am a tourist and look different, but its cause for curiosity, rather than alarm.

In many ways Guatemalans have little to smile about. Officially there is a government, but it doesn’t do much to improved the fractured lives of families who have lived through a bitter 40-year civil war that only officially ended a decade ago.

Living standards are far lower than the other countries I’ve visited. True, there is a sizeable urban middle class and a few wealthy families, but life is a struggle for the majority of people. This was apparent driving through Guatemala City, where we alternated between big, tarmac avenues lined with US burger and retail chains and ominous grey hillsides stacked with concrete shoebox lean-tos and littered with rubbish.

Guatemala City wasn’t a place where we were keen to linger due to its safety record. We arrived at one bus station, jumped in a taxi to another bus station and were in and out in half an hour. Our first bus was a super-plush double decker with fantastically comfortable seats; the second was one of Guatemala’s notorious “chicken buses,” so-called because locals are famed for strapping all manner of cargo to the roof, including chickens and other livestock.

These are second-hand American school buses, as in Belize, but here chicken buses are seriously pimped out. They are painted in bright colours and patterns, and bear religious slogans or names of saints along with the department or towns that they serve.

Our journey in the chicken bus to the Guatemalan highlands was hair-raising to say the least. The surly driver had constant competitions to outpace the many other fume-belching buses and trucks on the roads, and took the wide curves at unimaginable speeds. Passengers were thrown left to right as they gripped the handrails with white knuckles. The journey on the narrow vinyl seats (originally built for children) seemed to last forever as we stopped every few minutes to pick up and set down passengers and their cargo.

Un-Belize-able*

Belize. Just saying the country's name makes your face break into a smile. The contrast between deeply conservative and religious Mexico and this laidback rastafarian paradise was apparent as soon as we had our passports stamped at the super-relaxed immigration desk.

"First time here? Welcome to Beliiiizzze," the customs officer smiled, waving us through.

People speak English here, a hangover from Belize's British colonial legacy, but you wouldn't know it sometimes as it is a crazy lilting Caribbean creole dialect (more like Jamaicans). "Better" becomes "Betta", "you" becomes "ya" and dollar becomes "dolla", and the rest, well I understood about as much as I do listening to Mexican teenagers chatting.

A Belizian buddy

A colourful heritage of ancient Maya cities, a British colony, slave outpost and pirate hangout have all left their mark on Belize, making it an amazingly kooky melting pot. For a tiny country with just 300,000 residents, the diversity is amazing. Creoles - descendents of European pirates and African slaves live alongside mestizos, those with both indigenous and Spanish ancestory and a range of other groups including the Garifuna, descendents of shipwrecked African slaves and indigenous Maya.

Backgrounds aside, Belizeans have BIG personalities. They are outgoing and friendly, and always keen to stop and chat. After many, many awkward interactions with Spanish speakers these past few months, it was nice being able to just joke around with people in English and not worry about being misunderstood (although sometimes I had trouble understanding their Ali G- style accents).

Some people stretched the friendship though, as a friendly chat quickly turned into a request for money, and subsequent anger and disappointment if we didn't provide. In Belize City, people weren't shy about asking for coin. We were bailed up after using the ATM, and were hassled by at least 10 people while eating dinner at a restaurant. Walking back to our guest house after our meal, we were pursued by a guy who we had seen earlier in the night. He wanted money because he had recommended the restaurant - in fact it was the only option still open in town (Belizeans have big lunches so most places are closed at night).

Colonial house

We were followed a few times in Belize City by some pretty desperate people, enough to make us realise that it is not the safest place in the world and that lots of people have drug problems. It has had a big surge in crime in the past year - we read about gang-related murders in broad daylight and there was a tale going around about a traveller who had his room busted into by the cops because they were hunting down a suspect.

On balance, Belize City is probably somewhere to avoid - we stayed 2 nights to recover from our 30-hour transit marathon, but otherwise we would have pushed on through. We did meet some interesting (and less threatening) characters though, like a man that went by the name of Prince Charles Paris, and bailed us up on a street corner to give us a history lesson about the history of Belize and how the country got its name.

Funny Belizian English

An animated character, Mr Paris babbled as quickly and excitedly as Willy Wonka as he boasted his history teaching credentials, and insisted we have a free (as if) lesson there and then. He went on for about 20 minutes, about how Belize was called British Honduras until its independence but before that it was called Belkini, after the Mayan Goddess of beauty. Furthermore, he intoned, the British mistakenly thought that Belize meant "muddy waters" but that this was offensive to locals, because the name Belize existed long before their pirates were marooned there.

Finally, he pronounced us Belizian history ambassadors, and after making us stand with our hands on our hearts for several minutes then asked for cash. Again, he wasn't impressed with the amount but I said it was enough to buy him a beer which was what he'd asked for. As soon as we were free of him, another guy raced up to us calling "green and white. I got it all, green and white. Whateva ya need." When we politely said no thank you, he cried "that ok. I'll be here."

Busin' it Belize style

We escaped Belize City for low key Placencia, a trendy getaway down the end of a long, sandy peninsula. Compared to the rest of the country, where most live in two-room wooden houses that do not look hurricane proof, Placencia is pretty upmarket. Yet it seems to have resisted overdevelopment, compared to other beachside resorts we've visited. Most accommodation is either in simple (but well-appointed) beachside cabanas or spruced-up wooden colonial houses with breezy verandas.

Placencia had a good number of beachside restaurants and open-air bars playing reggae, even if it was all a bit above our price range - Belize is surprisingly expensive, even compared to Mexico. We splurged on some beautiful creole food, a delight after the dry, bland pork chops and rice we had been forcing down in Cuba. We had spicy fried chicken and coleslaw, jerk fish (is there anything this country can't jerk?) and a tasty vegetable burrito - Mexican favourites are popular here.

Laidback Placencia

Our next leg - a water taxi, bus and then ferry to Guatemala - was a little clunky. It was all supposed to link together, the bus arriving in time to catch a ferry to the port town of Puerto Barrios, but when we arrived at the wharf we were told the boat was full and we had to wait four hours for the next one. Still, there are worse places to be stuck than at a waterfront immigration office with stunning views of the Caribbean.

Puerto Barrios lived up to its reputation as a seedy port town. It was dusty, jam packed with trucks unloading the contents of a recently arrived container ship, and crawling with shady characters. We found a bed for the night at a ridiculously cheap hotel (no running water during the day, no windows and no light in the bedroom). The price list on the back of the bedroom door listed room rates charged by the hour. Sure enough we awoke throughout the night to the sound of the doorbell being rung by prospective "people of the night" customers.

*Disclaimer: thankfully I am not the author of the terrible pun in the title of this entry - Mr Prince Charles Paris said that whenever we said the word "unbelievable" we were to substitute "belize" for "believe."

Transit terrors

In the past week we bounced from rustic Havana past the tropical Caribbean outpost of Belize to the stunning Guatemalan highlands via a couple of seedy port towns. We spent five of the past seven days on buses, boats and planes, from air-conditioned coaches to water taxis and old American school buses in Belize and the infamous Guatemalan chicken buses.

The following is a big ol rant about our hellish 30-hour passage from Havana to Belize City via Cancun in Mexico. If you don’t like nightmare transit tales, best to tune out now. We thought we spread this trip over two days. It had seemed so easy – just a one hour flight from Havana to Cancun, a one hour mini bus to Playa del Carmen where we would spend the night, then a bus to Belize City changing at the Mexican border outpost of Chetumal.

As soon as we’d been dumped at the wrong airport terminal in Havana, I suspected it would be a mission. When we found the right terminal, we found out that our flight had been cancelled and that we would instead have to fly to Cancun via Mexico City, turning a one hour flight into two, two hour flights with a measly 45 minutes in between.

Belizean bus lines: second-hand US school buses

The connection in Mexico City was ambitious – in that 45 minutes we had to leave the plane, find luggage, have luggage screened and check in again. Naturally the plane was held up on the tarmac and our luggage took ages to arrive and we missed the flight. After waiting in the mammoth check in queue, we find out the next flight isn’t for another five hours and won’t arrive in Cancun until midnight - 8 hours after the original ETA. This left us without accommodation for the night as we had reserved a hostel in Playa, and it was now too late to catch a bus.

It is nearly 1am by the time we land in Cancun; we decide to head to the bus terminal to go directly to the border. We arrive 15 minutes after the last bus has left, so we bought tickets for the 5am bus and got comfy on the metal seats in the departure lounge.

We tried to get on the 5am, but were told we didn’t have the right tickets and that our bus hadn’t arrived. Nearly an hour later, the conductor admitted that we should have been on the bus, but the lady at the ticket window refused to put us on the next bus until we paid an extra 50%.

By this time we hadn’t slept in 24 hours, and were getting cranky after being continually stuffed around. So I let loose, in Spanish. I demanded that she put us on the next bus and said I wouldn’t pay a cent more because it wasn’t our fault the conductor stuffed up. When she wouldn’t comply, I demanded to see her boss. She said he wasn’t in until 6am but I kept at her until she relented and called the manager over, who immediately changed our tickets to allow us on the next bus.

The rest of the trip was blissfully uneventful. Six hours later we arrived at the Mexican border, crossed into Belize and spent another four hours bumping along on an old American school bus, with the wind in our hair and reggae blasting out of the sound system. Thirty hours after arriving at Havana airport, we made it to Belize city - with only a hike accross town in 30 plus degree heat with our packs standing between us and a shower/bed.

An upside to having our flight cancelled was that it affected several other travellers as well, and we met a really lovely kiwi couple who helped us pass the time when we were stuck in Mexico City.

Trinidad...where the music never stops

Travelling independently can be tricky in Cuba. Few activities can be done without a guide, and most other tourists we have spotted are moving about the country in organised groups.

Even the transport system has a tour group feel to it. Tourists are barred from using Cuba’s regular bus network because it is free to ordinary Cubans. There are two bus companies available to tourists.  Our bus to the to the colonial city of Trinidad came complete with an annoying ditzy tour guide and stopped for well over an hour at this bizarre touristy roadside stop with overpriced restaurants, a bar and this curious zoo setup with snakes and crocodiles in cages.

Trinidad has an incredible buzz to it. It is very touristy and you are constantly bombarded by touts on street corners whispering, “psst..restaurant…cigarros..taxi” but it is the locals hanging out of their windows, sitting on their porches in rocking chairs watching the world go by or playing dominoes in groups on the sidewalks that gives Trinidad a special atmosphere.

One night a big baseball match was on, with the team from Trinidad’s province up against a key rival. The streets were virtually empty, but people were jammed into every living room visible from the street, all eyes glued to the match on television sets.

We got lucky with our accommodation at a casa particular in Trinidad. Located smack bang in the middle of the cobblestoned old town, the house was so close to the live music venues that we could hear strains of Cuban son music as we kicked back in  the pretty rear courtyard.

Our room was upstairs in a breezy loft-style area and the downstairs living areas were big and airy as well. Best of all, the owners of the house didn’t even live there, so we had the place to ourselves! The owners just came over to cook us dinner – and they turned out to be amazing cooks so more often than not we forked over the cash for their food. One night they cooked succulent and delicious lobster tails with rice, salad and a tasty bean soup, appetiser, dessert and coffee. Total price – just $12 each.

Everywhere you walk in Trinidad you hear some kind of music playing, from the band that hangs out on the sidewalk leading up to the town cathedral, to the roving troubadores who go from table to table at restaurants, to the lively bar at the top of the main square. Most of the music venues are open-air, with tables and chairs set up in vine-fringed courtyards or outdoor restaurants.

This is a good thing because it was bloody hot when we visited – up to 35 degrees every day, very humid, and at night the temperatures did not abate much, although at times there was a hint of breeze. Luckily our little turret room had an air-conditioner, which we cranked at night and so were able to sleep soundly.

The heat sapped our energy levels during the day though, and we found ourselves just vegging about after lunch time. Every time we walked around town it was like doing strenuous exercise and we would return to the house hot, bothered and drenched with sweat.

La Boca beach

Trinidad is close to a string of idyllic beaches, so we rented bicycles to check them out. Riding there through the town’s network of streets was a delight – there are so few cars on the road that we easily blended in with the traffic – other bicycles, horses and carts and bicycle taxis. Along the way Adam made friends with a fisherman who was riding the same way as us on his bicycle to sell his catch.

When we arrived at the beach we followed a sign that said “official parking”. We were planning to chain the bikes to the fence but then a guy with a jacket and badge walked over and said he was the official government parking guy and that he would watch our bikes and get us drinks and we could use the thatch umbrellas that were dotted along the beach, provided we tip him at the end of the day. It seemed harmless enough so we agreed.

After hours lying around on the powdery white sand and enjoying the warm turquoise water we decided to walk up to the resort at the other end to check out their pool. Manuel, the parking guy, said he would continue to watch the bikes but asked how we would get home because one of the bikes had a flat tyre. We thought it strange that a tyre could just deflate like that, but then maybe a puncture had been developing the whole time. Manuel offered to give us a lift on the back of his horse cart back to Trinidad.

Manuel's horse and cart scam fleeced us of a few pesos

He dropped us off at the service station where we could pump up the tyre – it inflated straight away and there was no puncture, which left us wondering. Did Manuel deflate the tyre so he could offer us a lift and weasel $10 out of us? Had we been taken for the proverbial…ride?

We spent a fair bit of time at the house, because we had the place to ourselves and it was nice to hang out in the rear courtyard with strains of Cuban music playing in the background. But after a few days we got the impression that we weren’t shaping up as very good cash cows for the owners. Besides having negotiated a cheaper room rate, we were buying our own water, soft drinks and rum from the shop because it was cheaper, and also our own bread and fruit for breakfast.

In the end we stayed four nights and could have easily stayed on a couple of days but it was starting to feel a bit awkward so we took a taxi to the Topes de Collantes, the mountain range that forms part of Trinidad’s beautiful backdrop.

We stayed in the state-sanctioned hotel, housed in a concrete soviet-style block. Though it was nice to have a break from staying in casa particulares because while it is invaluable to interact with Cubans and the food is generally good, at the end of the day you are staying in someone else’s house and it your movements and activities are always being monitored. 

There were three hotels listed but we were told only one was available. They tried to charge us high season rates but according to the calendar they had displayed we were actually in low season so we argued successfully and won. We took a walk around to check out the other hotels and were barred from entering one because we were told it had been converted into a hospital!

There was a cover charge for each hike – something I’ve not experienced before – although this included a free cup of juice at the start of the trail. We chose trail that led to a waterfall and intended to connect to a different trail to make the walk longer, but the second trail was overgrown and we were informed we needed to pay for a guide to use it – Cubans will do everything in their power to discourage you from travelling independently.

We ended up doing two loops of the same track. The waterfall was beautiful; it cascaded into an enormous green pool encircled by sheer cliffs. The water was chilly but deliciously refreshing.

Vinales...horses and carts and rolling cigars

Staying in casas is lovely and homely and relaxing, but you are often reminded that you are the family’s cash cow – often the primary source of their hard-currency income – and they are looking up-sell as many extras as possible. The actual cost of the accommodation is minor compared with what they can earn by cooking your meals - $8-12 for dinner and up to $5 for breakfast, as well as organising tours or activities through their mates.

Vinales - rust red tobacco fields shadowed by mountains

Some of the casa owners have been quite relaxed, and will only suggest things if you ask for them, but others won’t leave you alone. To get you to eat your meals there, which is far more expensive than eating at cafeterias, they will tell you that eating in town is bad for your stomach, poor quality, not fresh etc.

That said, friendly hosts have helped organise great activities such as private salsa lessons (where the teacher comes to the house) and a horse riding trip to a tobacco farm. Adam and I hadn’t yet tried salsa, nor had we tried any form of coupled dancing, so a private lesson was a great way to minimise embarrassment. The actual step is easy, but to do it properly is pretty involved. After nearly an hour and a half we had only mastered the three most basic moves.

Horse riding was fun, but a downside is that you can’t check out the condition of the horses and how they’re being treated in advance. Our casa owner in the picturesque town of Vinales, west of Havana, organised for a friend to take us over to his stables. When they walked out the first horse, I automatically assumed from the size of it that it was meant for me, but it was actually their biggest horse for Adam to ride. Its hip bones jut out quite a bit and it had caked mud behind its ears and down its neck.

Everyone has time to stop for a chat

My pony was in an even sorrier state – hardly taller than a Shetland, its hips were incredibly bony and its neck had hardly any muscles on it at all. For some reason most of the horses in Cuba are quite small and lean, but most we have seen looked to be in better condition than these ones.

We plodded past rust-red tobacco fields and vegetable plantations on dirt tracks that wound their way in and out of farms. The landscape was dotted with A-frame palm-thatched huts where tobacco leaves are dried for three months of the year. Huge emerald-green limestone mounds provided a stunning backdrop.

There are few cars in Vinales, besides a handful of puttering 50s model buicks and oldsmobiles. The main forms of transport here are horse and cart or fixed-speed bicycle. Our trail led us into a tobacco farm where a guy with a hilarious Tshirt that said “Single…wanna mingle?” made us mojitos made with orange and honey and showed us how to roll a cigar from freshly dried tobacco leaves.

Sealing cigars with honey

Tobacco producers are self-employed but the catch is they have to sell 90 per cent of their harvest to the government. The leaves are whizzed away for drying and processing with chemicals. The remaining 10 per cent are treated with a mixture of rum, sugar and honey (I’m beginning to understand where the idea for the mojito recipe came from) and then dried in the A-frame huts. Cigars are rolled when the leaves are still a touch moist so they don’t break.

The tobacco is bunched together and firmly rolled to prevent air pockets from forming. To seal the cigar, it is rolled in a single custom-shaped leaf and affixed with honey. The fresh-rolled cigars we were given were really strong, because apparently they contained a large percentage of the top - or crown - of the plant.

We were lucky enough to arrive in sleepy Vinales during its biggest annual event. Each town in Cuba has a week-long state-sanctioned party, or carnival, once a year. Not that Cubans are prevented from partying at other times, but on these occasions the entire main street of town is closed off and a variety of performers are on show on several different stages.

Fruit store

The carnival is like a Big Day Out-style festival only it’s free and the music is way better – from Cuban son to salsa, reggaeton and techno. The main street is lined with vendors selling cheap trinkets, lollies and snacks. There were even whole suckling pigs whose meat was pulled out and stuffed into baguettes.

Trials and tribulations of Cuban food

With the days of rations and food shortages a not-too-distant memory, the government still exerts control over the food chain. As well as owning all farming co-operatives, there are also state-controlled restaurants with set dishes and prices complete with indifferent wait staff clad in regulation black and white uniforms. Beef can only be served in these government restaurants as all cows are state-controlled.

Our experiences with these restaurants (and I use that term loosely) have been, for the most part, hilarious. We turned up to one only to find the menu being completely different (an unaffordable) from the one advertised outside. At others, we have tried to order food off a menu where 90 per cent of the food was unavailable.

Restaurant menus have their fair share of hilarious poorly-translated English. We nearly ordered a prawn dish with “optional extra pricking” just to see what we would be given. Equally interesting was a dish named “whimsical seafood,” which turned out to be skewers of prawn and pork meat hung from a metal frame on a bed of salad.

Reads: one of the most noble ways to serve the party is work!

At the state-sponsored El Rapido, Cuba’s answer to McDonalds, the only “foods” available were rock-hard pre-cooked chicken drumsticks or limp bread rolls stuffed with processed sausage meat. Everything was heated up in the microwave by the incompetent staff that seemed to be unable to open the microwave door without it falling completely off its hinges. In a moment reminiscent of a Fawlty Towers episode, three staff members struggled to re-attach the microwave door, only to realise they were attempting to affix it upside-down!

Finding a decent meal can be difficult here, but some family-run paladares, which have been legal since 1995, are managing to survive in the face of these terrible government-sponsored fast food joints. Some of these places make really nice food, where there is more than fried chicken and sloppy pizza to choose from and dishes actually come with real salad and vegetables.

Vegetarians would starve here, as menus almost entirely revolve around meat. Most dishes, if they’re not pizza or a ham and cheese sandwich, involve a hunk of grilled or fried meat, congri - rice cooked with beans, a “salad” of shredded cabbage, a limp lettuce leaf and shavings of carrot, and sometimes fried bananas that look and taste like soggy potato chips.

Trying to self-cater to save money or avoid fried food is an exercise in futility. Cuban grocery stores, especially in touristy areas, don’t sell much food that you can use in a sandwich, salad or other meal that you can put together yourself without cooking. And with accommodation owners trying to get you to pay for breakfast and dinner, its not as if they are going to throw open the doors to their kitchen and let you cook your own food.

After several attempts to find something to put in a sandwich, we eventually found tinned tuna, although one can cost more than a flimsy ham roll or hamburger or piece of fried chicken at a government cafeteria. No shops sold, fruit, cheese, milk or bread, they were sometimes sold at bakeries, dairies or on street corners. At the bakery, bread is only available at certain times of day, and prices seem to change depending on when we bought it.

Agriculture collective fruit distributor

Most of the food we ate in Cuba was pretty average, plain and had no discernable sauces or spices but we did get lucky a few times. The best meals we ate were usually dinners cooked by the accommodation owners – a standout was this incredible four-course meal with lobster tails in tomato salsa as the main dish in the place where we stayed in Trinidad.

Our experience one night in Havana quite sums up the food situation in Cuba. Havana has four Spanish clubs which are supposed to have good, relatively cheap food. There was a massive queue and an hour’s wait outside the first one we tried, but one of the hosts at the door gave us a card for another restaurant a few blocks away.

Of course, this proved to be a ruse. The average price of a dish on the menu was $15-17, about three or four times what other places charge. We walked out, and headed to another Spanish club. This one seemed perfect – reasonably diverse menu, good prices – lobster for $5 – and a band was about to start playing.

We ordered paella, but were told it wasn’t available. We then asked for lobster, prawns, chicken. It turned out that the entire menu was a mirage, except for two stodgy pork dishes!

Finally we found a family run paladar restaurant nearby that served up generous portions of chicken and pork staples with fried banana, cassava and rice. Sometimes it was difficult to find a square meal that wasn’t fried, microwaved or ridiculously overpriced!

Cubanomics

Cuba is undoubtedly an incredible place to visit as it is like nowhere on earth. That said, it’s not easy for the budget-conscious traveller to get around, stay or eat cheaply and it is easy to get fleeced for a few units of hard currency, but for us it was completely worth it to come and visit this land of contrasts and contradictions.

In some ways Cuba is a land full of joy and good humour – the friendliness and laid-back nature of its people, the beautiful sound of its music and its stunning landscapes, from idyllic beaches to rust-red tobacco fields and emerald mountains. 

Commie propaganda slogans are everywhere

But everywhere you look there is stagnation and the feeling that this island nation is missing its chance to be a part of the world. Everything is rustic, cracking and broken, cars, trucks and machinery are outdated, factories idle, freeways unfinished and hurricane-damaged buildings unrepaired. That said it is charming to see horse-and-carts, 1950s cars, bicycle taxis and steam trains.

Whether you point the finger at the US embargo, diplomatic immaturity of Cuba’s communist regime, its silly economic policies or over-reliance on the Soviet Union that led to its 1991 economic crash, there is still hardship aplenty in Cuba. I’ve heard the days of food shortages and rationing are over, but walking the streets its quickly apparent that many are doing it tough in a land where much is subsidised but wages still disgustingly low.

Cuba’s move to a dual currency system in the 1990s, with its moneda nacional and internationally accepted Cuban convertible pesos has created a two-track economy rife with inequalities. People are paid in moneda, yet many consumer products, entertainment and restaurant meals are priced in the more valuable CUC. Tourists must pay for most things – accommodation, bus fares and activities - in CUC, which is stronger than the US dollar and so makes Cuba a relatively expensive place to visit.

State-run monopolies, the embargoes and restrictions on just about everything have resulted in some pretty bizarre contradictions in this centrally planned economy. For many, its cheaper to own (and feed) a horse and cart than to buy a second hand car. Barely any new cars are imported, and to own a car you need to pay a very expensive licensing fee. 

Another bizarre feature is the cost of consumer products. State-regulated rum and beer is super cheap, while water, soft drinks and juice are expensive. You can get a 700ml bottle of Havana Club for under $4, while in some places a 1.5L water will set you back $3!

People

An upside to Cuba’s time warp is that people actually interact with each other in the streets, the old fashioned way. Instead of hiding indoors, hooked on the internet and playstations, kids actually play outdoors here and roam the streets, throwing baseballs and kicking around soccer balls.

Havana’s parks and plazas are permanently full of groups of ladies chatting away while watching their kids play, and men casually lounging on park benches and front porches shooting the breeze.

Havana's "hot corner" where people argue about baseball

A corner of Havana’s Parque Central is permanently home to a crowd of men who convene to discuss the ins and outs of the national baseball league. They crowd around in small groups, fiercely debating match statistics and the merits of players, teams and upcoming fixtures. Some of the conversations looked rather heated, with men bellowing loudly at each other and frantically waving their arms around.

Aside from being bothered incessantly by taxi drivers looking for their next fare, most locals have been really friendly and often inquisitive, stopping to chat to us in the street or in cafeterias. Compared to Mexico we have met a lot more people just walking the streets, although admittedly some were trying to wrangle a few dollars out of us by selling us cigars or playing songs for us.

Clothes were, until recently, strictly rationed, so it’s not surprising to see many 70s and 80s fashion on show in Havana. The most striking thing about the way people dress is their obsession with lycra. The outfits are so…tight. Halter tops, short shorts and super minis… I’ve never seen so much flesh on display, and not just on the part of teenage schoolgirls. Middle aged ladies are also in on the act, proudly displaying thighs and cleavages. Muscle singlets appear popular on guys, many of whom appear to work out regularly.

T-shirts with hilarious English language slogans are also popular here. We have spotted girls sporting tops with things like “single,” “I love my hubby” and “baby doll” written on them. One guy wore a shirt that read “someday they’ll make a movie about me,” while another had one that read “single..wanna mingle?”

The tight clothes may explain some of the audacious behaviour of men toward women here. We have seen Cuban men openly grabbing women in public, although they are usually told where to go pretty quickly. Cuban guys make this creepy kissy, slurpy noise when they walk past girls they like the look of, and many a neck is craned to check out the hindquarters of ladies walking past.

Scams

Ordinary Cubans have a knack for squeezing a few pesos out of the unsuspecting tourist. Charm is their weapon; they approach you with the standard cry of “where you from?” and engage you in conversation, before offering you something. The next thing you know, you’re shamed into forking over a couple of pesos.

We were caught out a few times. Strolling along the waterfront in Havana, we were confronted by a smiling man playing the guitar, who serenaded us with a few bars before asking for money. When we went at a rumba drumming performance in a laneway I was grabbed by an old guy who taught me a series of meringue dance steps in exchange for some pesos.

Perhaps the least benign, but most elaborate scheme was the guy who ran a beachside parking lot and offered to watch out bicycles while we swam. When we went to collect them he pointed out that one had a flat tyre, and then offered us a lift back to town on the back of his horse and cart for $10.

Others put less effort into their approaches. Many kids saw us, stuck their hands out and cried “one peso, one peso!” We were also approached for clothes and toiletries, which are expensive and not always available in Cuba. One lady asked me for a shirt because she only owned a single outfit and was sick of hand washing it all the time.

Home sweet home

Cuba has few accommodation options besides the big hotels, but fortunately its citizens open the doors of their homes to welcome travellers. It’s possible to stay in a room in someone’s casa around $20 per night, and enjoy delicious dinners and breakfasts for a few extra dollars.

For us though, the real value wasn’t in being able to avoid three stodgy meals of fried chicken and pizza per day, but in being able to interact with the owner of the house and their family. Usually they set you up with a room away from the rest of the house’s occupants and your own bathroom, so it isn’t too awkward.

In the houses where we have stayed people have been very keen to chat and very inquisitive about Australia. It has been great Spanish practice – although it took a few days to get used to the Cuban accent, which drops the ‘s’ off the end of most words, for example you hear gracia instead of gracias.

Some have been pretty open about life in Cuba, intelligence which is pretty hard for us to find out through official channels. People I have spoken to seem frustrated at the lack of freedom they enjoy – they are pretty much barred from having internet connections at home and they are not allowed to travel unless they are invited by someone living in another country and get special approval from the government.

When Fidel Castro comes up in conversation, most people we have spoken to roll their eyes and mutter something about a crazy old man. Complaints about broken services of lack of freedoms are usually attributed to “El Senor,” where they stroke their chin, as if to indicate Fidel’s beard.

Music

Sidewalk musicians in Trinidad

Thank god Cuba’s communist government didn’t ban music after the 1959 revolution. Music is like a religion here. It’s not just about paying big dollars to go and see big name acts play – music infects all aspects of daily life in Cuba. From guys practicing their trumpets and saxophones by the side of the road to music blaring out of every second house to people bursting spontaneously into song, music is everywhere and is clearly the engine that keeps this struggling nation going.

Dozens of musical and dancing styles originated in Cuba, with Afro-Caribbean and European influences, and in turn these sounds and moves have infected a wide range of styles in other countries from Latin American salsa to New Orleans Jazz.

Rumba, or African drum rhythms, are the backbone of the country’s musical history, responsible for spawning several music and dance styles including salsa, mambo, son (which mixes guitar music with drumming and percussion), hip hop and reggaeton.

It’s not hard to find bands playing the son sound made famous by the Buena Vista Social Club – musicians frequent just about every bar, café and nightclub in town, all day, every day. Havana also has a host of other musical entertainment including cabaret shows, salsa clubs and jazz bars. While I love this kind of music and already had several compilations before arriving in Cuba, it does get a bit repetitive hearing classics like Chan Chan, Guantanamera and Lagrimas Negras day in day out.

Most bands comprise at least six members – two guitarists (one playing a tres or three-pairs of strings instrument) a double or electric bass, singers who play claves and maracas and horns, usually trumpets.

Havana's excellent Jazz Cafe

In Havana we saw an impressive 10-piece latin jazz band crowded onto a tiny stage at the Jazz Café. The group included three different drummers playing bongos in all shapes and sizes, several different types of percussion, as well as singers, horns and a bass player. They played a mixture of straight-up Jazz favourites including Johnny Coltrane and Miles Davis, latin drum pieces and 70s funk tunes.

Trinidad was the best place to see live music. There are musicians playing in several of its open-air bars just about any time of day. In Havana, the music tends to be played in clubs that are tucked away from the street and don’t usually open until late at night, with the first act coming on well after 11pm.

Finally, I can post my Cuba blog entries!

Barely 200 kilometres apart, Cancun and Havana showcase the extremes of economics. Cancun’s glistening malls and hotels lining a thin stripe of man-made beach are a shrine to capitalism. And dilapidated Havana, well… the result of a communist revolution, nationalised industries, a Soviet love affair and subsequent economic crash, the effects of which are still evidently being felt.

For some reason, we were singled out of the arrivals queue at the airport and had our passports taken away. A customs official then “interviewed” us about the reason for our trip, how much money we had, how many credit cards, our occupations and where we worked.

By the time our passports were eventually handed back, we were a little distracted and neglected to exchange money at the airport and didn’t realise until we were being shunted into an overpriced taxi – for which we paid in $US at a ridiculous exchange rate.

Havana isn’t much to look at in some respects, but you can’t judge this book by its cover. The grand colonial buildings in its old quarter are beginning to be propped up, restored and freshly painted, but a large part of the rest of town is simply falling down. We strolled past dilapidated tenements supported by jagged timber beams, crumbling facades, caved in roofs and boarded up windows with broken shutters.

I don’t think I was quite prepared for the state of disrepair this once stately capital has fallen into. Many “shops” are in reality the front room of houses, with makeshift counters placed in front of the half-opened doors. They are run by people looking to supplement meagre incomes. Others are state-controlled, with products on half-empty shelves stashed behind counters.

Cruising the streets downtown, the impact of the US embargo on Cuba is immediately noticeable. Or is it the lingering effects of Cuba’s 1991 economic collapse after the breakup of the Soviet Union? From the roads, to the cars, to the curious dark holes in the walls that seem to pass for shops, everything looked to have been frozen in time.

Havana’s rustic appearance is at the same time charming, and while a good chunk of its buildings are undoubtedly condemnable, they endow the city with unshakeable character. Its 50s-style American cars, the last of which were imported before the 1959 revolution, are enchanting. Some are complete rust-buckets, spew out clouds of black smoke, and have been tinkered within an inch of their lives, but others are lovingly restored, all polished chrome and freshly painted.

The bare-shelved dimly lit shops are not exactly up to much, but at the same time it is refreshing to be in a country that is totally devoid of American influence, especially after spending time in Mexico. Gone are the fast-food joints, big brands, the drive-in malls and the constant in-your-face advertising. There is no urge to own the biggest TV, the newest car, the nicest home. You can’t keep up with the Joneses because they don’t live here.

In Cuba, everyone's a mechanic

We have travelled in communist countries before, and are aware of the unique situations and absurdities in which travellers find themselves, but nothing quite prepared us for Cuba. Money has been the trickiest aspect of our visit thus far

Cuba’s dual currencies are very confusing. There is a big push for tourists to use convertible pesos, the hard currency that can be exchanged for foreign currencies, but it makes everything more expensive than using the local currency, called moneda nacional.

Sometimes you walk into a restaurant thinking you will pay in MN and they hand you a “convertible pesos” menu. When you pay in CUC they give you change in MN but rip you off on the exchange rate. Worse, both currencies are called pesos and both have the same $ sign symbol.

I didn’t think rocking up with no Cuban pesos would be a problem – I could just cruise over to the nearest ATM and withdraw cash, right? It turns out that ATMs only work when banks are open, after which the phone lines are switched off – at 3:30pm. It was 5pm by this point, and fortunately the kind owner of the guesthouse where we stayed lent us some money until the next day.

When we went to the bank, we discovered that my mastercard would not work because it is a brand owned by GE, one of the US’ biggest companies. Cards issued by US banks are not accepted in Cuba.

The bank had strict protocol. Only one of us was allowed to visit the teller. For each transaction you had to sign at least three different receipts, including each time my card was declined. Then I had to sign to say the transaction went through and again to say I had received the money. The teller counted the bills manually, then put them through a money counter, then counted them out manually in front of me.

Before I could touch the bills, she gathered up all the receipts, my card and my passport and called out “signature check!” She handled the bundle to a colleague who sat down at a separate desk and analysed all of my signatures for a few minutes. Only then did she hand over the cash!

Using the internet is another logistical headache. Its only available at the state-run telephone company offices or at some hotels. You buy a card that gives you an access password and an hour’s worth of usage, costing between $6-10.

We discovered the hard way that cards purchased at hotels cannot be used at the telephone offices or even at other hotels. After two weeks we had probably spent $25 on ridiculously slow internet, allowing us to check emails a couple of times and book a hotel room. Hence the 3-week hiatus in publishing these blog entries!