Cuba
So I arrived in Cuba with rather a lot of expectations. I was expecting the whole place to look like it was straight out of the fifties, have awesome dancing/music at night and have a chilled-out populations lolling about smoking cigars. While aspects of these expectations were met, overall it wasn´t as I´d imagined it.
I started off in Habana where there´s a very interesting but entertainingly biased and self-glorifying revolution museum, a lovely art gallery (which seemed to have a somewhat sexual theme in most of the works), lots of beautiful old buildings, though many that are falling to bits and a mix of funky old cars and new ones that spoil it a bit.
The thing that really got to me in Cuba was the incessant harassment. I was constantly subject to kissing noises, hissing noises, hey lady and other ways of getting my attention in the street and I constantly found that I was being asked for money to the point where it felt as though noone saw me as a person, just as an ATM.
This gave me the shits, but I still foolishly trusted a few people here and there and got burned. That said I saw some awesome things and had some pretty crazy adventures!
I went to Cienfuegos with its beautiful bay and gorgeous castle and got stuck in a tropical storm in a pagoda, chatting to the other hostages while kids ran around in the torrential rain others played football in it and we shuffled our chairs further forwards to avoid splashing. I saw traditional music and dancing as well as going out dancing myself where I discovered that the `jinteras´ who are more or less wome who are prostitutes are heaps of fun to dance with - they sure know how to dance.
In Trinidad I pottered around the lovely cobbled streets admiring the old fashioned buildings and also rode a bike to nearby Playa Ancon where I went kayaking and snorkeling (though this time without a guide - so while I saw a bit, I didn´t see nearly as much as I did in Tulum). There was a nightclub set insided a cave which apart from being too hot was heaps of fun!
I went to Santa Clara which is Che Guevara´s adopted town, where there´s a statue in his honour, a museum with lots of fabulous photos about his life and a memorial to him and other martyred revolutionaries.
I headed back through Habana to get to Vinales where there are beautiful limestone mountains that have been carved into by rivers and has a vast network of caves as well as cliffs and is a stunning location. I would have loved to have gone rock climbing here, but couldn´t manage to arrange it as they expect you to bring all your own gear if you´re climbing there. I did manage to go horse riding to a cave where I got to go swimming in the darkness in a natural pool deep inside the cave. It would have been a blissful time, except the place where I was staying, my ´Casa Particular´ was run by a family - husband and wife (with a 18 month old boy) as well as the husband´s parents. This would have been fine, except the husband kept hitting on me. At one stage he was thankfully caught by his wife just as he was about to try something - meaning that he received a number of slaps to the face and I got saved - but was subsequently (understandably) disliked by the wife. I thought that was enough drama, but then the wife´s father in law started hitting on me - I was very pleased to escape by the end!
I spent my last day in Habana, where apart from getting harassed a fair bit as usual I had fun checking out the Partagas Cigar factory and wandering around town.
So, I did do and see some cool things in Cuba, but I feel I´ve come back cynical. I think I would not recommend any young females to go travelling there on their own. I´d kind of like to give it another go at some stage - there are still heaps more fabulous things to see and do and I´d like to have a trip to Cuba that I thoroughly enjoyed. S´pose I´ve set myself a challenge.
