Trip Report From April (toapril@hotmail.com) July 25-August 1, 1998 I just got back from Cuba, it was my first time and I didn't have any real expectations upon going there. However, I ended up loving it!! I went to Veradero and stayed at Melia Las Americas, supposedly a 5 star hotel, I'd rate it 3 plus. The beach, and most of all the friendly and down to earth Cubans were the real attraction in Cuba. The Hotel offered a few tours (for addt'l costs), so I went on tour to Havana and a tour to Rio Canimar. The Havana tour took us to visit Morra Castle lookout, Revolution Square, the cementry, a walk through new and old Havana, and a stop at the cigar store, lunch at a local restaurant (very good), and of course the market area where they sell tourist souvenirs, local crafts etc. I really enjoyed this tour, it cost $51 US, and we travelled to and from Veradero to Havana on a comfortable, air conditioned bus (Grey Hound Style bus). My second tour to Rio Canimar was real Cuban style ($45). The bus was more like a school bus (european of some sort)and our guide was a 23yrs old cuban guy, Caesar. One of the many stops/activities of the day was snorkeling, which, for some of the group turned out to be too adverturous. On this particular day the ocean was pretty wavy, and one really needed to be a good-strong swimmer to snorkel out 300m from shore to see the coral reef. Caesar had a pretty ingenious way of getting the tourists out to sea. He brought with him a rope (25m) with two life rings tied to the rope, which he instructed us to hold onto the rings and he'd swim and pull us out to sea. It's a long story, but by the end of this snorkeling excursion, all but one of the tourists were sea sick, dizzy, and one threw up from 45mins of up and down on the waves, another girl had turned back before the getting out to sea too far when she realized her boyfriend hadn't made it out with the rest of us. He'd turned back without anyone noticing, because he was having problems with his mask and became scared of the waves. He also cut himself on the coral while making his way back to shore. All this made for an interesting start of a tour, what next I thought. However, the rest of the tour went smoothly. Next we went to visit Saturn's cave, it was beautiful, the water in the cave for a clear as a glass of drinking water and torqouise blue in colour..amazing. At lunch time, we were treated to a real Cuban style lunch up in the hillside(somewhere). We had pork (although Caesar said usually they serve fish) mangoes, homemade potatoes chips, rice & beans, a salad. It was cooked simply, but tasted great..better than most the hotel food I had eaten. After those two tours, I decided to spend the remainder of my days in Cuba just browsing around without any set agenda except to enjoy as much as possible, in what was turning out to be too short of trip. If I had known, I'd love Cuba so much I would have booked a min. of two weeks, now I know. Well, no visit to Cuba is complete without cigars, so my cigar adventure began. I was warned, don't buy cigars off the black market, they are all banana leaves. So I headed off to the House of Cigars in town Veradero, but was intercepted by a smiling, friendly cuban guy who promised his cigars were real and alot cheaper than the store. Since, I had a list of 5 boxes to bring back to Canada, I couldn't resist checking out what he had. So against my better judgement, within mins. we're in a taxi heading off to his house to check out his goods. Not what I expected. I get to his house, I'm introduced to his mother, his sister who smile and try to make me feel welcome (they don't speak english, I don't speak spanish). Next, I'm lead to a nearby house and meet another cuban guy and his wife and daughter and here I'm asked to sit and wait while they review my list. The other cuban guy leaves the house and comes back with a box of cigars covered in shirt, then his wife leaves and comes back hiding another box in a bag, this went on a few more times until all 5 boxes on my list were in front of me. I bought them all, and one free box of Romeo and Juliet No. 5 were thrown in for free. Before leaving, they insisted I have an espresso back at his mother house so I did. With friendly goodbyes and lots of smiles I finally left and went back to my hotel. Later, it hit me, the cigars looked real, smelt real, and the free ones were real, I'd already tried one. But, what if all the rest were fake! For the next couple of days I couldn't stop thinking what if they are fake, as I was bringing this back to Canada for a friend who is a big cigar smoker who was going to repay me for all the boxes (if they were real). So I kept thinking what if..finally, I asked one of the cuban guys I met at the hotel to check them out for me. He did and said all but one box were real, what a relief, one box of fakes I could handle, besides I did get a free box. I never found out if the supposedly fake box was fake because I ended up throwing them out at the airport (Toronto) when I realize I was way over my duty free limit. BTW, all the other boxes were real, my cigar friend in Toronto, validated them too. I've only been back a week and I miss Cuba. I had a great time, met some wonderful people, whom are now trying to learn English so they can better communicate with me. I am going to try to learn Spanish, at least a basic level, for my next trip. Now that I'm back and realize I needed to spend more time in Cuba than a week, I'm trying to figure out if it is feasiable to go to Cuba every other month for a 4 day trip from Toronto, Canada (my home). Since I've used up most my vacation days, I can't book another 1 or 2 weeks straight until next summer. As well, I've met some people there who I'd like to visit more frequently, versus once a year. Return to Links Return to Budget Guide