During Christmas holidays my wife decided to take us on a surprise trip. I had no idea where we were going. All I knew was more or less how much the trip would cost.
Once at the airport I knew we were going to Varadero Cuba. We landed there in the Middle of the night and then took a 1 hour bus ride to our hotel in Havana at the HOTEL.
We tried to make this a really inexpensive trip, so rented an apartment suite complete with a kitchen so we could make our meals. The three of us really enjoyed this hotel as we also had a GIANT bed that allowed our daughter to sleep between us.
We were able to see a good portion of the city using Taxi's and the Havana Bus Tour.
Our first day there we just spent touring the area close to our hotel. The beach wasn't very beachy, but it was neat to see the water smashing against the rocks. It was quite windy here and there were a lot of guys playing with smaller kites. It looked like they were kite fighting, but it was a little hard to tell. The first thing we noticed is that this area of Cuba seemed very run down. A lot of the houses looked like they were once really nice, but just hadn't been maintained.
The people were very nice. But I think it was more because we had our 20 month old daughter with us than anything. They would often show no expression when looking at you, but as soon as they looked at our daughter they would smile. One man later on our trip told me that "his people" love kids, but I had already figured that out.
On another day we spent a lot of time in Old Havana looking at the various architecture. The political building and various old churches. We visited El Capital first and then walked around. This was later in the evening and it was hard to believe how dark it was outside. There was very little out door lighting. It created an interesting ambiance. Most of the time we felt pretty safe, but there were a few streets that seemed a little shady. Although nobody acted particularly weird so it was probably nothing.
At one point we had to take a taxi to return home that evening. We were walking in the direction of the yellow cabs and a guy we were passing inquired "Taxi?". So we started to talk to him, discussed a price, no problem. Then he knocked on his car window, and this car just looked like a normal car, no taxi sign or anything. Weird. So we got in, and luckily it was his girlfriend in the passenger seat. That probably doesn't make much difference, but it set us at ease a little. We got back to the hotel without issue. It looks like there are a lot of unofficial taxi's in this area. Just some people trying to make a little extra money here and there.
Another day we went to the Communism Museum in Old Havana. This was an interesting experience as it showed their revolution from their point of view. You walk through the museum and it tries to present the story of how Cuba became what it is today. There were a lot of interesting artifacts, different items that Che or Castro owned. There were even some uniforms that were worn during an attack. They still had blood stains on them from gun shot wounds. I'd recommend checking this one out, but don't bring a kid, they'll just find it boring.
We spent two separate days on the beach near the Hotel Gran Caribe Atlantico. Getting here was a bit of an ordeal as we had to take three separate buses. Some of them came by very regularly, but others were an hour apart and didn't always follow their posted schedule very well. It might have been easier to take a taxi but it would have taken way less time. The beach was very nice, we were able to find a chair with an umbrella quite easily one day, but the second day we were told we had to rent it. So we just sat on the sand. The beaches were very light coloured and the water was nice. There were some parts where it was shallow enough our daughter could play. She really enjoyed the beach.
Cuba was a great experience and I would definitely go back. Although it is a small country there is still a lot to see in it.
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