22 December 2015 ~ Next Up: Cuba

Listening to:  David Bowie ~ Lazarus


Over Thanksgiving I partook in a National Geographic Tour to Cuba. The great part was to have a National Geographic explorer with us at all times, as well as a women who just wrote the Frommer's Guide to Cuba 2015 edition.

As a People-to-People Exchange Program, the US government allows currently direct flights from the US to Havana due to the Embargo. Direct commercial flights may resume next year if all follows through as planned. I took a charter flight from Miami to Havana.




I didn't get to travel to many places on the island. Mostly the time was spent in Havana, with short trips to Cienfuegos and Trinadad, which are both on the northern part of the island, on the south sea side. In comparison, Guantanamo is on the southern eastern tip of the island. This map was on our tour bus at all times for easy reference.

Two beers reign supreme: Cristal and Bucanero. I usually ordered Bucanero when it was available.

Exchanging money is easy but must be done strategically. US dollars will be charged an additional 13% as an exchange rate, so I took Euros to be exchanged at a 3% rate. There are local pesos and CUC's, or the "tourist" money. Here are samples of the denominations. However, it's a 1:1 rate whereby 1 USD = U CUC.