Expenses for Two: 13 Nights in Cuba

Lovelies in their finery,

ready to pose for pesos in Havana Vieja

An accounting retrospective—- that’s the subject of this post. Planning a trip to Cuba? I hope you find my accounting useful.

When we left for Cuba we had a rough idea of our total spending. You must, because as a United States citizen, the cash you bring into Cuba is what you have to spend. Period. No plastic will work. No debit cards. No credit cards. Yes, it’s awkward and frightening, but if you think of it as our punishment for allowing the insane and inhuman embargo of Cuba to continue, you realize that it’s a logical consequence and it’s tolerable.

Our only fallback, in the event of catastrophic miscalculation, was to phone home and beg someone to send cash by Western Union. No, thank you! We were determined to stay within our budget—- the $1700 Canadian, and if desperate, dip into several hundred USD hidden away in the luggage. Now, where did all the money go? Let’s look…

An Overview
(Cost for two people in USD, for simplicity)

$410    Airfare to and from Fort Lauderdale (for two)
$608    Lodging for 13 Nights in Casa Particulares (purchased in USA prior to the trip)
$241    Transportation in Cuba
$331    Tours and Experiences
$485    Food and Everything Else

$2,075   Our Grand Total

Stunning, isn’t it! Can you spend thirteen days in the sunny Caribbean anywhere else for that sum? I think not. My guess is that if you’re thinking of traveling to Cuba, you’d like a bit more specificity…

The Flights

What a short flight! 65 minutes from Ft Lauderdale to Havana, and only 55 minutes back. Cheap, too. The cost of our  Jet Blue flights to and from Havana were slightly different, but each leg was around $100, so our total for the two of us only amounted to $410. If I were to go again I would plan to fly into one city, travel through the country, and fly back to the states from a different city. Costs would be similar, but no backtracking.

Craig peeking out from the kitchen/dining

area in our last Havana apartment

Lodging

I had booked all of our accommodations through Airbnb ahead of time because it was easy and convenient. In the future, I hope to have the persistence and courage to try using the Cuban sites. It is also possible to directly communicate with potential hosts via email, rather than using any travel site at all. My understanding from speaking with various host families is that it is in both of our best financial interests to avoid any outside organization claiming a slice of the pie. For example, a hypothetical apartment that rents for $60/night through Airbnb might rent for only $30/night if arranged privately.

No matter what kind of accommodations you need or want, you'll find it in Cuba. Here are the particulars of our lodging expenses with photographs of each in separate posts:

$219    3 nights in Havana  
            http://mycubadream.blogspot.com/2018/02/first-impressions-part-2.html

$163    4 nights in Boca de Camarioca
            http://mycubadream.blogspot.com/2018/02/boca-de-camarioca.html

$125    3 nights in Playa Giron
            http://mycubadream.blogspot.com/2018/03/playa-giron.html

  $47    2 nights in Viñales
            http://mycubadream.blogspot.com/2018/03/vinales.html

  $54    1 night in Havana

Our transportation to our Playa Giron casa de particular

Transportation in Cuba

We used  a variety of types of transportation, from bicycle taxis to luxury buses. If you’re planning your Cuba trip, the following itemization might be useful. All numbers represent the cost for two travelers.

$15    Shared taxi from airport to first casa (shared with Ken, who we met on the plane)
$50    Cubacan bus from Havana to Varadero (early drop off in Boca de Camarioca) – our priciest trip
$15    Taxi to Miramar prior to bicycle experience
  $2    Collectivo back to Havana from Miramar
  $2    Two days of round trip buses between Boca de Camarioca and Varadero
$24    Viazul bus from Varadero to Playa Giron
  $4    Bicycle taxi (twice) in Playa Giron
$26    Viazul bus from Playa Giron to Havana
$30    Taxi from Havana to Viñales
$16    Two taxi rides in Viñales
  $4    Collectivo in Viñales
$24    Viazul bus from Viñales to Havana
$25    Taxi to Jose Marti airport in Havana

Typical bus between Varadero

and Boca de Camarioca

School children also ride the "nickel bus" 

Tours and Experiences (cost for two in USD)

$120   Havana buggy tour (we got scammed!)
 $20    Havana, Key to the New World, plus $31 for entry fees and transportation
           http://mycubadream.blogspot.com/2018/03/cuba-day-of-tours-afternoon.html
 $60    Four hour bike tour west of Havana
           http://mycubadream.blogspot.com/2018/02/cuba-day-of-tours.html
 $25    Dive/snorkel trip in Playa Giron (includes dive gear for one person)
 $25    Dive/snorkel trip
 $40    Four hour horseback ride through Viñales
 $10    Entry fees for Cueva de los Indios

Pizza, part of our Boca "value meal"

Restaurant value in Boca de Camarioca: just on the east side of the river

Food

We experienced quite a range of food expenses during our trip, from economical breakfast emparedades --- two for 50 MN$, the equivalent of $2 USD --- bought with

Appetizers at our Boca value restaurant

with moneda national in Havana, to our most expensive meal on the rooftop terrace of La Concordia in Havana on Valentines Day—$44 CUC$, the equivalent of $44 USD.


We enjoyed an amazing value meal at a restaurant in Boca de Camarioca one night: appetizers, beer, fruit drink, and enough pizza for a meal the next day, all for 155 MN$, the equivalent of about $6 USD. You’ll save money if you can eat where the Cubans eat and shop for food where the Cubans shop. Places geared for tourists are invariably much more expensive.


We ate quite a few meals in casa, some prepared by our hosts and some prepared by yours truly. Breakfasts prepared by the host family routinely cost $5 and $10 each as described in Lonely Planet. One exception was our Viñales casa where we had the option of a lighter breakfast for $3 each: freshly-made juice, coffee, milk, eggs, bread, jam, and fresh fruit. We opted for that rather than the heavier version which would have added ham and cheese.

We appreciated our lighter $3 breakfast in Viñales

Boca sandwich with bread, cheese

and vegetables purchased from street vendors

My home cooking occurred over the course of a few slightly panicked days in Boca de Camarioca after we discovered more than $140 USD missing from our luggage (a sad tale for another day). Our home-cooked meals were the cheapest by far, as you might expect. The $17 CUC we spent between Varadero and Boca provided a weighty bag of 8 or 9 fat frozen, chicken thighs, a bottle of rum, coffee and a couple of ice creams for the road. That, plus vegetables, rice, bread, and queso from the Boca street vendors, supplied plenty of food for the next five meals. Even after we started counting every peso, we did not suffer in the least, at least not over food quality or quantity. Although we denied ourselves quite a few expensive rum drinks, we bought a couple of bottles of rum over our thirteen days and, with fresh fruit and juice, made our own luscious tropical taste sensations.

Kathy making produce selections in Boca de Camarioca

Not from Coppelia, but good!

A word about ice cream. When our son, Ty, returned from his months-long Cuba cycling trip, he rhapsodized about the ultra-cheap, scrumptious ice cream sold at government-run ice cream shops. We hunted for them everywhere we went. Nothing in Havana. Finally, we bought ice cream in plastic containers in Boca de Camarioca and then Varadero. The ice cream tasted cool, light, and delicious on a hot day, but the price and the packaging bothered me. It wasn’t really expensive, but not dirt cheap either, and any package labeled “Nestle” just couldn’t possibly be the real thing. We thought we had discovered it in Playa Giron. We had suddenly noticed a little hole-in-the-wall (actually the side door to a little casa) right across the road from our casa. We bought cones and bowls of ice cream there for only a few cents each. Great, but still not the real thing. We never did find one, but I just found it on Wikipedia. The state-run chain is called Coppelia. Wiki states that the Havana store “employs more than 400 workers and serves more than 4,250 gallons (16,100 l) of ice cream to 35,000 customers each day.” I’ll look forward to visiting Coppelia next time in Cuba!

Everything Else

We spent $5 on internet cards, but did not use them all. We couldn’t resist buying a few cigars, so there went another $20. It’s hard to keep track of all the little things—- a dollar here, a dollar there. Tips. One small bottle of rum for the cab driver who waited a painful amount of time for Craig to extract himself from a Havana grocery on a Sunday, everyone’s day off.

I told Craig about this post and he asked me if I was including the $140 that was  stolen from us. Well, if we add in the cash that “went missing”—-our unexpected contribution to the Cuban economy—-our grand total comes to $2,215.

$2,215 for thirteen unforgettable days.



More about the currency in "Cuban Currencies: Pesos y Pesos"
http://mycubadream.blogspot.com/2018/02/cuban-currency-pesos-y-pesos.html

Viñales

Just a peek. That’s all we had, really. Two nights and one full day allowed us just a small sample of lovely, lush Viñales, a northern valley studded with majestic mogotes. This area is a magnet to hikers, climbers, and lovers of beauty the world over. We packed a lot into our one full day. But first, a good night sleep in our new casita.

Casa Dos Sonrisas (Two Smile House) contained the most comfortable bed of all our Cuban homestays, with a snugly fitted sheet stayed on, a rarity among our home stays.

The private bathroom was roomy with elegant blue tile work and an unusually warm and wonderful shower. We even had WiFi that worked occasionally in the casa! What more could we want?

Breakfast, perhaps?

We kicked off the next morning with an in-casa breakfast (3 CUC$ each) of coffee, eggs, bread, butter, homemade jam, fruit, and juice blended from fresh fruit. We appreciated the lighter option. For two more CUC each we could have added ham and cheese. Our feast was ample without that.

Craig and I outfitted ourselves as best we could for horseback riding—- longish pants, sturdy shoes, hats, sunscreen—- and then walked, following our escort, a fellow on an electric motor scooter, to the stable where our horses were waiting. Off we clopped, first on and along streets, and then onto the rough and rutted roads and paths of the valley, passing little casitas along the way. Our guide, whose name now escapes me, spoke little English, but we did our best to communicate. He pointed out different crops and an organic garden.

 Our first planned stop was a tobacco farm. It felt wonderful to stretch our legs again! Behind several tobacco barns stretched fields of green tobacco plants. A farmer worked a new field with oxen and plow. In the barn, we joined four tourists from Europe and began learning about the production process. Thousands of tobacco leaves were suspended above our heads and on vertical drying racks. The golden glow was magical.

Next, we all sat around a table in the shade and our guide demonstrated the cigar rolling process. Whole leaves tightly wrapped form each cigar and, surprisingly, honey is used as a final sealant at the edge of the final leaf, holding all together.

Then it was time to smoke a cigar—- a pretty hilarious experience for the inexperienced like me. We laughed like crazy. Not much coughing, though, so we must have succeeded at taking the smoke into mouth only and not inhaling. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Perhaps dipping the mouth end in honey helped! We bought five cigars (20 CUC$) and mounted the horses.



Riding on, we passed fields of tobacco, granjeros (farmers) harvesting tobacco leaves, and even a new drying barn under construction.

Yorjan

Our next stop was a place to learn about coffee and rum, but mainly an opportunity to sit in the shade, buy an expensive rum drink, and bottles of rum, if we wanted. What we enjoyed most was chatting with our on-site tour guide, Yorjan, a young man soon to graduate with an English degree. His daily grind involves educating tourists about coffee and rum and answering the same questions day after day. He’d prefer more of an opportunity to expand his English vocabulary. I gave him my email address and, of course, my blog address.

We left, vowing to sample more rum at home.

 

Junior and Bimba (with guitar)

Soon it was time confront the outhouse and to mount the horses once again.


We rode through the beautiful Valle de Silencio (Valley of Silence), viewing tobacco in various stages of growth, and other crops that flow like green water around the mogotes. Our last stop was a lake with a lakeside shack offering food and drink. Some folks swam, but we weren’t much interested or prepared.

By this time, we were ready for the ride to end, so we remounted and started the journey back to the stable. I now understand why cowboys wear boots; my ankles were exposed and I had to keep repositioning my feet so my skin didn’t chafe. Our buns were ready for a break. On the way back we had the strange, disconcerting, and refreshing experience of sloshing through and across stream beds. The ride was a great experience. As we walked back to our casa, I knew my inner thighs would be remembering this ride for days to come!

Back at the casa: showers! Ahhhh.... Our beautiful, private bathroom had a strong, warm shower, a rare treat in Cuba. No time to rest, however, since this was our only day in Viñales.

We walked down the hill a couple blocks toward town and quickly found a little restaurant with an appealing menu and prices. We shared the lovely view and a plate of ropa vieja (old clothes), delicious stewed pork with threads of onions and peppers at La Cachurra Grill. We had earned our cold drinks and a moment of relaxation.

View from our table at La Cachurra

Great food, great value

On to the cave!

Our next adventure was to catch a taxi to an ancient indigenous dwelling, Cueva de los Indios (Indian Cave), a few kilometers north of Viñales. It was a lovely drive through mogotes that soar straight up from the flat floor of the valley. We arrived at the site only a half hour before closing. The walking portion within the cave is short but dramatic, about 200 meters. We soon arrived at the spot deep within where we awaited the next of two boats that ply the underground river. After a fifteen minute wait we boarded a flat-bottomed boat along with about fourteen other people, and ooohed and awwwwed as we were ferried through the final 400 meters. Craig even said he’d go back and do that a second time!

Disembarking after exiting the cave

The next challenge was hailing a taxi or collectivo back to town. Always an adventure! We wanted to go to “El Balcon,” one of the restaurants recommended by our charming casa host, Daily. She had said this one had a gorgeous view and great food at more reasonable prices. Our taxi driver tried to persuade us to go to a different restaurant with good food, better view… He probably would have gotten a kick back. We almost fell for it—-heard about menu, even sat down—- but we tuned in to our own discomfort, got up and walked out, found the taxi driver and requested to be taken to El Balcon.

Mogotes rise up from the valley floor

At that point it was a very weird situation. The cabbie and his girlfriend told us to walk down a sketchy looking dirt road behind a fence to get to El Balcon. She seemed okay, but we didn’t trust him! After looking around a beautiful hill top lookout and asking around, we discovered that truly, down that sketchy road we would come to El Balcon. It was a 5 minute walk to a gorgeous series of decks suspended over the valley.

El Balcon

This panorama is clearly distorted, but still captures the exquisite beauty of this site.

The sun was dropping in the west. We had arrived just in time. They squeezed us in and we enjoyed a phenomenal meal of shrimp in garlic and assorted sides as the sun set over this breathtaking valley.

We shared the cost of a taxi back to town with a couple of European tourists, and swapped stories of being hustled and cheated, and our accompanying feeling of stupidity. Back at Casa Dos Sonrisas, Craig and I collapsed on the bed. The respiratory crud I’d been coping with for weeks was flaring up, but Craig had a second wind so he walked downtown to see the Saturday night action we’d been told about. The central square and several blocked off streets were party central with music and dancing. He danced some, and rubbed it in for days. I’d missed out!

We had a good night sleep and woke very early for a 6:30 breakfast before saying goodbye. It was a long walk pulling our rolling suitcases down the street toward the central square where we would catch an 8:00 bus. There we watched the Cuban flag being hoisted up the flag pole. We also bumped into Yorjan who was there to connect to WiFi in the square.

Goodbye Viñales! We will remember this beautiful valley and our perfect casita.