I just paid 25 dollars for 2 hamburgers, a few chips and a rice salad with a couple of vegetables, at the Havana airport. You see, the price is in CUP (Cuban pesos) but they don't accept that currency, the moneda nacional. They want dollars, euros, or credit card. If you pay in cash, they give you change in CUP, that you can't use !
Everytime we ate at government restaurants, the food was pretty bad, but it was very cheap (in pesos). However that's in part because the real value of the CUP is 4 times less than the official rate. At the airport, they apply the official rate. Some people get here, and first thing they do is change 1000$/€ for pesos, getting 25000 pesos, when at the street rate they would get 100000 !
So our burgers were something like 600 pesos = 6 dollars. But we paid the official rate of 25:1 and it ended up at 24 dollars.
Makes you understand (the whole trip) the madness of an ever devaluing currency. Everyone here has at least 2 jobs, one given by the government, and one on top so they can actually live, since the government job pays literally peanuts.
Wow, that's some expensive burgers! I guess it's a wise thing make sure you have a lot of USD on hand before you visit. How was Cuba though? Any 'must see' or 'must do' recommendations?
Back when I was working, I had a work mate from Cuba. He had some pretty wild stories, growing up in Cuba in the 80ies, in the midst of the Cold War. I wonder if the country is as poor and isolated as is was back then.
Also, another thing that confused me is the Guantanamo Bay. How come the US has a military base in Cuba considering the relationship with the two nations? I guess I can google, but it just strikes me as odd.
The US pays top dollars for Guantanamo.
Otherwise you're better bringing euros than dollars (since Trump declared Cuba a supporter of terrorism).
I can't really recommend visiting Cuba unless you're really interested in experiencing the madness of the system. Everything is falling apart. I mostly slept in "casa particular", these are well kept, but in old Havana half the buildings are in literal ruins. Due to COVID some of the attractions were closed, like the history/revolucion museum.
You can't get into a supermarket, they're only for Cubans, and they have to queue for hours. These supermarkets have like 4 products total... So all your meals have to be provided by Cubans or restaurants.
The water situation is complicated, there is "running water" as long as the place you're at has a tank on the roof and a pump to fill it. That water isn't drinkable. You spend your days looking for bottles of drinking water.
It's nice to see old US cars everywhere (and a bit less old soviet ones), however if you know your stuff, you soon realize that you're not hearing much old V8s or 6 in-lines : that's because most of these cars have had a diesel engine fitted, often of Asian origin.
The air pollution is unbelievable considering there aren't that many cars/trucks : no catalytic converter in sight, of course.
The more rural parts, the nature, are very nice, full of birds. And horse carriages...
The beaches are also great. For the last few days we went to a Varadero all inclusive hotel so we didn't have to deal with all the "Cuban complications". But even there everything is a bit dodgy, aircon leaking, rust in the bathtub, electric wires all over the place. It's clearly unsafe to bring kids there.
The Cuban people are very nice, and personal safety seemed fine. I couldn't find anybody supporting the government, they all know it's fucked up, another "revolucion" might be coming.
