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Mankind did a huge step in technical and scientific context in last hundred years. From complicated telephone systems we pass over to tiny little mobiles which are connecting us in free microcosmos. Information’s going like a streak of lightning over us as lightning at worst storm. Good, bad, useful, worthless. Life became so simple but not on Cuba.
I’m looking at street and it’s like being trapped in three different centuries. I’m sharing narrow pavement with the rest of the pedestrians and hanging guys on the wall. I carefully descend to the road. Thanks God for loud hooves and carriages with cracking noise. Pooh, what a smell. It reminds me of my sister’s wedding and green faces of bride, groom and best men. They were holding their breaths chivalrously. Watch out! Cyclists, rickshaws. They are not using breaks. Ooh la la! I jump on the pavement and admire the beauty of oldies. What a cars! What a shape! What a colors! ¡Que bueno! My Cuban photo collection consists of two categories. Cars and other. I stop walking 10 meters before crossing. Bus driver is rolling steering wheel and driving against me. There’s not enough space for both of us on this narrow one-way street in city center. There’s no space for me on the local bus (for long distances). Asking why? Because they’re cheaper, quite good quality, but you have to pay in moneda nacional (local currency - peso). I can take only expensive buses because I have convertible peso (currency for tourists) in my valet. Breaking the news. 1 CUC (convertible peso) is 24 units of local peso. I’m in a hurry to exchange CUCs because money is melting away like a snow at 30 Celsius. I’m checking how much money we spend and I get headache. Like older Slovenian we met while waiting for the internet. He was convinced that he was robbed secretly. But when he was calculating he realized that he spent 120€ in a day. At first our budget was 45€. We have to adjust our budget. We were also considering idea to leave Cuba earlier as we thought. We will have to prolong our visa and banks can’t provide us with money. Actually everything went wrong when we got first offer for renting bicycles. US$ 750 for 20 days! Are you crazy?! We had to change our plan and reconcile with the fact that we aren’t going to cycle. We’ll take it easy by buses.
We left half of our luggage in Havana at Ana Julia (best casa particular in Cuba). It was time for 7 days of vacation after 3 months of traveling. Sandy beaches in Varadero. We received another offer for renting bicycles, 120€ per bike. Too late! Lesson of this story is: Don’t go to Cuba without your bicycle. And another one: before you about to take longer trip prepare yourself more thoroughly and not like us, frivolous people. Recalculation of budget says that we’ll have to skip a few locations especially if we won’t be able to withdraw money. It would be much easier if we would come to Cuba directly from our country. We could take suitcase full of money. So we have to combine withdrawals on ATM machines (while we could in developed world), exchange half of Mexican peso in Euros to be on safe side (you can forget about America Dollars, it’s not best exchanging currency in Cuba anymore), and half of them we exchanged at the airport in Havana and we were not 100% sure that it will be possible. Money affairs can be interesting.
Now I have to call casa particular to confirm our arrival. OK, we were told in hotel that isn’t possible make outer phone call. Hmm, I doubt in this. I find callbox on the street and I throw a few convertible peso in it… it’s not working. Hmm, maybe I should use local peso. Aha, there’s a guy waiting for something or somebody. I use my poor Spanish, me, call casa, necesito moneda nacional… and he takes out all coins that he has. But this is not the end of the story. Oh, no. He dials a number for me. It’s wrong. He dials 113 (information) and gets the right regional number. They are frequently changing these numbers in Cuba. All right now I have the right number. First you have to press special button PTT so that money stays in the box. Then you press next button, dial your number… oiga, aqui habla con Aleksandra… Aleksandra and machines. These are special stories. Like the one how to use shower in Heidelberg’s campground. Water was running in all shower cabins except in mine.
Gzg, gzg, gzg, lights are blinking… It’s hard rain outside. Wow, hail. We are out of electricity. But which one? American, Russian, Bulgarian? It’s funny when you’re looking for plug in your room and you find different standards. North American, Italian… Luckily we have all these converters but right now they can’t help me though.
PS: No, I don’t have pencil (I gave all of them to the kids in Laos), neither caramel, nor soap. Money? Oh, no.
PSS: Now when we are speaking about money. For example foreigners are paying for the museum entrance 4 convertible peso (about 3,35€) plus additional 1 for taking photos (about 0,85€). Locals are paying 1 local peso for entrance (about 0,035€) and almost nothing for taking photos. I’m appalled over the fact, if this is true, that qualified workers (like doctors and architects) are earning about 500 local peso (about 17€)
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