28th of April - 12th of May
Introduction
During the New Year's Eve 2016, with Doria and Julien we had a talk about vacations in May... it has been decided very fast to go to Cuba as there was no anymore an American embargo and we thought that it could be good to go there before it becomes a summer destination of the Americans and looses of it charms.
In middle of January 2017 we booked our tickets!!! Yupiiiii !!
As it was done several months in advance, we had enough time to plan the cities we wanted to go to... well we planned it basically 2 weeks before we leave... from then until the departure and during the trip plans have changed at least 10 times :).
Indeed, once in Cuba we realized that:
All this made us take the decision to book only the 3 first nights at Havana and then do the rest "locally". It was my first time doing this... but really not disappointed at all.
Funny part, we were so well organized that we had our visas only several days before leaving because we always thought we had a lot of time...
Impressions:
Enough impressions, here are the cities we managed to visit during to weeks:
During the New Year's Eve 2016, with Doria and Julien we had a talk about vacations in May... it has been decided very fast to go to Cuba as there was no anymore an American embargo and we thought that it could be good to go there before it becomes a summer destination of the Americans and looses of it charms.
In middle of January 2017 we booked our tickets!!! Yupiiiii !!
As it was done several months in advance, we had enough time to plan the cities we wanted to go to... well we planned it basically 2 weeks before we leave... from then until the departure and during the trip plans have changed at least 10 times :).
Indeed, once in Cuba we realized that:
- it takes a lot of time to travel as the infrastructure is not so developed.
- the available transportation is either bus or shared taxi... taxis are a bit expensive for a underdevelopment country.
- some destinations are complicated to be reached even by a shared taxi.
- the country is quite big and there are wonderful places but we needed to adapt with our limited time.
- some destinations as Cayo Coco or Cayo Santa Maria are very expensive.
All this made us take the decision to book only the 3 first nights at Havana and then do the rest "locally". It was my first time doing this... but really not disappointed at all.
Funny part, we were so well organized that we had our visas only several days before leaving because we always thought we had a lot of time...
Impressions:
- It is always better to speak the local language so we can exchange with the people... as Doria and me were good in Spanish and Julien a bit less we had the chance to do so. The conclusion is simple: the Cuban people: lovely, helpful, smiling and really really nice.
- the majority of people is poor but beside this there is a smile and people who like to share their life.
- the tourism has helped a lot of people to live better (still a small percentage and especially the ones working in hotels and casa particulares) it also helped to renovate the downtowns of big cities such as Havana and different colonial houses and to improve the infrastructure.
- the "family-cousins-friends" connections work a lot when you want to travel. Some people directly send you to the house of another family member in the city you travel to. It is also a way to make money: recommending people one to another gives a small amount of commission to the person who had recommended.
Enough impressions, here are the cities we managed to visit during to weeks:
