CUBA ES BUENISIMO!
On a whim we decided to visit Cuba with friends, and we are so glad that we did! A beautiful place that is full of culture and delicious food, we left feeling rich with happiness. Below are the highlights from our trip!
HAVANA
I should assume that this goes without saying, but Havana is a must to visit. We flew into Havana and stayed there for three nights at The Rainbow House owned by our host José (which I recommend to anyone). The city is very busy and full of things to do. Something so many people talk about in Cuba is the classic cars. Since there has been an embargo on Cuba, it is very hard and expensive for them to get any vehicles to the island. Therefore, so many people drive cars from the 50s & 60s. On the square in Havana, many of the classic cars line up to offer tours of Havana. Amanda and I chose the cutest pink convertible we could find and went for a spin! The tour was actually a lot of fun and informational. We made a stop at a place most famous for mojitos to cool down. Once we started back on our tour we were actually pulled over by the police. Of course we were nervous since we had no clue what we were doing wrong, our driver told us he was pulled over for “talking too much and not paying attention to driving.” In the end, he paid the officer off to let us go. Around the square in Havana is very pretty; we spent a day walking the streets and visiting all the locals shops. The capitol is also a must-see. One of our top restaurants was about a block away from where we were staying, San Cristobal. It’s the restaurant where President Obama ate at on his visit to Cuba while in office, and also where Jay Z and Beyoncé ate. The food was quite delicious, and it had a good atmosphere. I hear the Cabaret Tropicana is an amazing dinner and show that is a must-do; however, it is on the “do not do”/illegal list for US citizens. So attend at own risk!
VIÑALES
Ah what a beautiful city! Yes, a whole city is on the list because honestly I could write an entire blog about just this one day! About two and a half hours southwest of Havana, it is a must see while in Cuba. It looks like a scene out of a movie. Limestone mountains rise from the ground with green foliage that is beautiful. The buildings and homes are painted in bold, beautiful colors while the buildings in the center of the town have a colonial look. We booked an all day tour prior to visiting Cuba through Airbnb experiences for our trip to Viñales. Viñales is known for its tobacco farms, and who doesn’t think of cigars when they think of Cuba? Obviously this was a must-do for us. We were able to tour a tobacco farm, step inside a tobacco barn drying the tobacco leaves, and even watch a farmer hand roll cigars for us to smoke. The farmer sold hand rolled cigars 10/$10 so we bought some, and let me just say they were the best cigars we had while we were in Cuba. So good in fact, we went back later that day and purchased more. After the tobacco tour we rode horseback through the valley and farmland. THE VIEWS. I cannot say for sure, but I think this is were James Cameron got some inspiration for Avatar. Our horses took us out to a sugar cane and coffee bean farm. Here we watched as farmers picked sugar cane and rolled it with a hand crank to get the juice from the sugar cane while the a woman told us about how they can use the sugar cane to make rum. She then picked oranges (that looked like lemons) cut the tops off and filled with their homemade rum, yummm! Again, we were so impressed we bought a bottle of their rum. We returned to our horses and rode back through the valley smoking our cigars and loving our lives.
LA MAKINA
This was the first restaurant we ate at in Cuba. We had arranged in advance to meet up with a local for dinner to get the ins-and-outs of Cuban life. It was so good. And I don’t just mean the food. The atmosphere. It was the only place that we ate at while in Cuba that had live music at the restaurant, which just makes any dinner or night even better. We sat upstairs which has a patio style area, which was very nice and breezy. Once the music started, other people dining would get up and join in the band. The waitresses danced to the music they were playing. A lot of laughter and good time at this place. La Makina was our first taste of Cuban food. To be honest, I was not sure what to expect. We ordered family style and ate off each other’s plates just to get a taste of everything. The fried banana appetizer was one of my favorites. As I mentioned earlier, we met up with “The Cuban Whisperer” (a local) here. He made great recommendations of places to eat, must do things in Cuba, where to stay away from, and all around made our first night in a foreign country (that none of us spoke the language) fun and optimistic.
SALSA LESSONS
If you know anything about Cuba, you know it is centered around music and dancing. We felt like if we were ever going to take salsa lessons, this would be the place to do it. Many people actually move to Cuba for months at a time to learn salsa. We found a place online in advance and booked it, Salsa Express. It was located in Vedado, which is right outside of Havana. Personally, I had the best time doing salsa. Dancing is my thing, though. I grew up taking dance lessons and to this day I enjoy watching Broadway shows that involve dancing. We were each paired up with an instructor for two hours. That was nice because we each learned the basic step, but we could also learn more or less at our own pace. My instructor was Ariel and yesss. He was an excellent dancer and also very funny, making the learning experience a lot of fun. We learned individual steps and group salsa dances. At the end our teachers did a performance for us. They were all really great dancers. I highly recommend this to anyone. It is such a big part of the Cuban culture. Several times after our lessons, we would turn on the music where we were staying and salsa with one another.
CATAMARAN
Oh the Catamaran. In hindsight, this is actually a really funny story. For the last two nights of our trip, we stayed in Guanabo at a beach house. While we were here we had an amazing house host, Juan Carlos, who was able to assist us in making our Cuban vacation perfect. Everyone agreed that we did not want to spend all of our time just lying on la playa, so we asked about possible sea adventures. Sailing out on a catamaran and snorkeling sounded the best to us. It is so funny to look back because one of our initial questions about the catamaran was if there was a mini bar on board or if there was room for us to bring drinks. Juan Carlos simply laughed and said “do you know what a catamaran is?” Obviously we only thought we did. So we woke up early on a Friday morning and taxied our way to a local park in Guanabo to set out for our adventure. After being fitted for our snorkel gear, we were introduced to our guide who was nice enough but spoke absolutely zero english. Walking out to our boat, we quickly realized why Juan Carlos had laughed so hard when we asked about the minibar… it was just big enough to fit the four of us plus our guide (hahaha!). We hit the ocean and thought we would make it to our snorkel spot in approximately thirty minutes. After an hour had gone by, we started trying to ask our guide in some type of sign language how much longer it would be. No clue what his answer was. Not saying we were being dramatic or anything… but we definitely started to wonder if we were actually being kidnapped and sailed out to meet a pirate ship. Alas, two hours in the ocean suddenly started to turn a magnificent color of turquoise blue, and our guide dove into the ocean to set our anchor. No pirates in sight. There was actually no one in sight. And it was amazing. We dove in and started exploring the beautiful reef. When coming up for air, the only thing I could see was more beautiful water and our cute little catamaran on the skyline. It was so. much. fun.
PORTO-HABANA
All I can say is YES. Eating is my thing, so it is no surprise that this is top on my list. It is not just about food for me, it’s the whole experience of sharing a meal with friends talking and laughing. This is a restaurant located in Havana, and it is amazing. At our dinner the first night with a local Cuban, he recommended we go to this place if we had time and were wiling to spend a few extra dollars. We are so glad that we did. Let me first say that expensive in Cuba is not the same as expensive in the States. We had a dinner that would’ve costed $600-800 in the US, but was only $125 in Cuba (for all four of us). It was definitely a nicer place, I was glad I decided to wear my one dress that I packed here. It is on the 11th floor of a building overlooking Havana and the bay. The view is spectacular! We watched the sunset through the open windows while enjoying ourselves. There are less than ten tables in the entire place. The top half of the walls were just windows that were open, letting the breeze flow in and out. I think we ordered everything on the menu. Okay, not really… but we did get a lot. My favorite dish of the whole trip was the bruschetta appetizer… wowza. We actually ordered a second one after tasting the first. We had five appetizers for four people. Then we all ordered entrees, I had fried pork, and Orry had the pineapple chicken. Rice, beans, and avocado salad were served in family style dishes. Then we all ordered dessert. I felt like it was necessary to order the flan since that was the traditional thing to get. Orry had banana pie and Andrew a chocolate cookie cake. But to me, the best was Amanda’s gluten free chocolate brownie with ice cream. Their bartender was also serving great drinks; the Cuba libres were a favorite.
Like I’ve said so many times, we had a blast in Cuba! Check back in a couple of days for our blog post on the Six Things to Know Before Traveling to Cuba!