The Rough Guide to Cuba

587 Pages·2016·14.68 MB·English

by  McAuslan Fiona

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THE ROUGH GUIDE to
Cuba
Miami Great
CUBA Bimini Berry Abaco
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Pinar 2 1 Matanzas 4 Santa ma Bank MA
del Río 3 CienfuegColsaraSancti S
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5 Trinidad and Sancti Spíritus
About this book
Rough Guides are designed to be good to read and easy to use. The book is
divided into the following sections, and you should be able to find whatever
you need in one of them.
The introductory colour section is designed to give you a feel for Cuba,
suggesting when to go and what not to miss, and includes a full list of
contents. Then comes basics, for pre-departure information and other
practicalities.
The guide chapters cover Cuba in depth, each starting with a highlights
panel, introduction and a map to help you plan your route.
Contexts fills you in on history, music and musicians, sport, books and films,
while individual colour sections introduce Cuba’s coast and music and dance.
Language gives you an extensive menu reader and enough Spanish to get by.
The book concludes with all the small print, including details of how
to send in updates and corrections, and a comprehensive index.
This fifth edition published September 2010.
The publishers and authors have done their best to ensure the accuracy and currency of all the
information in The Rough Guide to Cuba, however, they can accept no responsibility for any loss,
injury, or inconvenience sustained by any traveller as a result of information or advice contained
in the guide.
The Rough Guide to
Cuba
written and researched by
Fiona McAuslan and Matt Norman
www.roughguides.com

Contents
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Colour section 1 7 Northern Oriente ...............383 |
8 Santiago de Cuba and
Granma .............................427
Introduction ...............................4
9 Isla de la Juventud and
Where to go ...............................8
Cayo Largo .......................473
When to go ..............................14
Things not to miss ...................16
Contexts 499
Basics 25
History ...................................501
Cuban music and musicians ...519
Getting there ............................27
Cuban sport ...........................528
Getting around .........................34
Books and film .......................533
Accommodation.......................42
Food and drink ........................46
Language 539
Health ......................................50
Money ......................................53
Spanish ..................................541
The media ................................55
Spanish language basics .......541
Festivals...................................57
Cuban menu reader ...............546
Sports and outdoor activities ...61
Idiom and slang .....................551
Culture and etiquette ...............64
Shopping .................................65
Travel store 553
Travelling with children.............69
Travel essentials ......................70
Small print & Index 557
Guide 81
1 Havana and around .............83
2 Pinar del Río .....................181 Coastal Cuba
colour section
3 Varadero and Matanzas ....219
following p.216
4 Cienfuegos and
Villa Clara ..........................271
5 Trinidad and
Cuban music and
Sancti Spíritus ...................311
dance colour section
6 Ciego de Ávila and
following p.472
Camagüey .........................341
3
(cid:2)(cid:2) Trinidad old town (cid:2) Playas del Este
Introduction to
| I Cuba
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W
H
E There can be no greater testament to the beguiling
R
E
magnetism of Cuba than the triumph of its culture over its
T
O
politics. Few countries are as closely associated with their
G
O
political system as this communist stronghold, and few
|
W
H provoke such intense political feelings and allegiances,
E
N yet the world is as taken with the Buena Vista Social Club

T
O as it is with Fidel Castro. And it’s not just the music. The
G
O clichéd images of guitar-strumming troubadours, and of
1950s Chevrolets rolling past crumbling colonial buildings,
identify the country in an instant, yet while they may
attract many visitors, Cuba also captures the imagination
for a host of less familiar reasons too. World-class
ballerinas and baseball players perform for no more than
an average state wage; diverse Art Deco architecture rivals
that of New York and Los Angeles; top-class restaurants
are run from residential living rooms; striking Santería
worshippers dress in white from head to foot; while life is
lived out in the open, unselfconsciously and on view.
Of course, the culture and politics of a nation are inextri-
cably connected and it’s the potency of their combination
in Cuba that explains why one of the world’s most isolated
countries is so full of visitors. There are few more instantly
recognizable faces in the history of the twentieth century
than Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, whose respective
death and retirement have served only to intensify the hold
they still have on so many Cubans and non-Cubans alike.
All eyes have more recently turned to one of the first political icons of the
twenty-first century, Barack Obama. His policy on Cuba now holds sway over
4 the hopes and fears of all who take an interest in one of the last bastions of
communism. Many believe he represents the best chance yet of the lifting of
(cid:3)
Fact file
D
e
tail on • Cuba lies at the mouth of | IN
E T
dific the Gulf of Mexico and is RO
io B bound on the south by the DU
ac Caribbean Sea and on the C
íard, H nOocretha na.n Idt iesa tshte b lya rtghees At tislalanntdic TION
avana in the Caribbean and covers | W
110,861 sq km. H
E
• According to UNICEF, Cuba R
E
has a 100 percent adult T
O
literacy rate, the highest in all
G
of Latin America. Life expect- O

ancy at birth is 79 years, also |
W
the highest in Latin America. H
E
• Ethnically, the population N

is predominantly of mixed TO

African and European G
O
ancestry, as the indigenous
Taíno who inhabited Cuba
the US trade embargo that has crippled
before Columbus’s arrival
the island’s economy for so long. The were almost entirely wiped
watchword is change – will it come and if out by Spanish invasion
it does, how much and how fast? and European diseases.
The population is currently
Yet change is already afoot. An
51 percent mixed race, 37
increasingly left-leaning Latin America
percent white, 11 percent
has united behind Cuba like never black and 1 percent Asian.
before, strengthening its position on
• Cuba is a republic with
the continent. At the same time, the a centralized socialist
country continues to slowly shift from government. Political power
a centralized, socialist economy to a rests with the Popular Power
National Assembly, which
more diversified one. This is a nation
nominates the Council of
that well understands the commercial
Ministers, the highest execu-
power of rebranding and has reinvented tive body. The Communist
itself as the home of sun, salsa and rum. Party is enshrined in the
In what is now one of the Caribbean’s constitution as the only legal
political party.
major tourist destinations, running
• Tourism is the country’s
on capitalist money, newly opened
main industry, while sugar
department stores and shopping malls
is the second. It’s estimated
attract large crowds, entire resorts full that some 3 percent of the
of state-of-the-art hotels are created economy is constituted by
from scratch, farmers sell their produce remittances sent to family
at markets for personal profit and house members by Cuban- 5
Americans.
owners rent rooms to tourists.
Feet Metres 0 100 km USA s da
| INTRODUC 5432000000000000 11965211214049 Gulf of Mexico F l o r i dS tar aiKtesy of Flori
T
IO 1000 305
N
500 152
|
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BBAA
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NICARAGUA COLOMBIA Grand
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VENEZUELA
At the same time, visitors may think that nothing has changed for decades.
Cut off from the capitalist world until the end of the Cold War, and hit
hard by the economic crisis that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union
(which provided hefty subsidies to this communist outpost), modern-day
Cuba is in many respects frozen in the past – the classic American cars, horse-
drawn carriages, original retro shop signs and ageing buildings, all apparently
unaffected by the breakneck pace of modernization. Besides being sharply
split between modern and traditional, Cuba is a country which, in a sense,
has become divided by tourism. Foreign visitors bring in hard currency, but
not everyone has the means to profit from it, leading to a two-tier economic
system where taxi drivers and waiters earn more than doctors and lawyers, and
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where capitalist reforms are seen as the answer to preserving socialist ideals.
Bimini Islands
Islands
New
Providence Eleuthera A T L A N T I C |
I
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O C E A N T
R
B Cat OD
Grea Andros A GGCuraaenyaat Island San UCTIO
t H Great Salvador N
Bah A Exuma | W
a H
m Little Long E
a B M Exuma Island RE
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Sancti Ciego de Ávila TO
Spíritus Júcaro N G
Nuevitas Santa Lucía O
LAS TUNAS
CIEGO Camagüey Playa Covarrubias
DE ÁVILA
CAMAGÜEY PPuaedrrteo Gibara BGaunaerdsalavaca
Archipiélago Jardines de la Reina Media LunaManLzaansGil lTRouAnNasMBAayaCmonotramaestra HHoOlLguGíUnÍN MArarMyibaaaryCiaaryio SaGeutíaanMtoáanamo Baracoa Maisí
Niquero SIERRA MAESTRA GUANTÁNAMO
Cabo Cruz Pilón deMl Paorertaillo SANTChIAiviGricOo DE SCdaeUn CBtiuAabgao Baconao USB Nasaeval
Provincial boundary
HAITI
Part of what makes Cuba so bewitching is the ease with which foreigners
can come into contact with local people. Cubans are generally outgoing,
sociable and hospitable, and the common practices of renting out rooms and
opening restaurants in homes allow visitors closer impressions of the country
than they might have thought possible in a short visit. The much-vaunted
Cuban capacity for a good time is best expressed through music and dance,
and despite the queues, food rationing and free-speech restrictions, people in
Cuba are always ready to party.
You are bound to come across occasional reminders that Cuba is still essentially
a centralized, highly bureaucratic one-party state, which can give a holiday here
an unfamiliar twist. Simply queuing for a train ticket or withdrawing money
7
from a bank can prove to be unnecessarily and frustratingly complicated. There
Cuban rum
| I When Carlos V issued a royal order in 1539 formalizing rum production,
N
T it secured Cuban rum’s place on the map. Today Cuba produces some
R
O of the world’s most respected brands of rum; silky smooth modern
D
U varieties that have little in common with the harsh drink enjoyed by
C
T sixteenth-century pirates and renegades. Quality ranges from the most
I
O basic white rum widely used for mixing in cocktails (famously the Mojito,
N
| the Cuba Libre and the Daiquiri), to various dark rums aged in oak casks
W for different lengths of time, from around three years to as many as
H
E thirty, the latter of which sell for around $50CUC a bottle – and are best
R
E enjoyed neat or over a chunk of ice. Though Havana Club is the best

TO known of all Cuba’s rums, browsing the shelves of the convertible peso
G shops will reveal tempting but lesser-known varieties such as Cubay’s
O
pleasantly sweet dark rum and Ron Palma Mulata, a good white rum that
|
W is slightly cheaper than its Havana Club equivalent. Among the finest
H
E Cuban rums are Havana Club Gran Reserva and Santiago de Cuba Extra
N Añejo – reputed to be the favourite tipple of Fidel Castro himself.
T
O

G
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are times when you discover Cuba has its own special logic and that common
sense doesn’t count for much here. If you can take the rough with the smooth
you may even regard this as part of the charm of the place. Despite these
idiosyncratic obstacles, for the foreign visitor things are becoming easier all the
time, with the introduction of more efficient bus services, a wider variety of
consumer goods and an increasingly professional private sector. Ironically, these
improvements also mark an irreversible move away from what makes Cuba
unique. Whether the country will change significantly in the near future is
anyone’s guess, but given the determination to sell the country to a worldwide
market and a greater prospect of an end to the US embargo than ever, the time
to go is now rather than later.
Where to go
N
o trip to Cuba would be complete without a visit to the potent
capital, Havana. A unique and personable metropolis characterized
by a small-town atmosphere, its time-warped colonial core, Habana
Vieja, is crammed with architectural splendours, some laced with
Moorish traces and dating as far back as the sixteenth century. Elsewhere
in the city there are handsome streets unspoilt by tawdry multinational
chain stores and restaurants: urban development here has been undertaken
8
sensitively, with the city retaining many of its colonial mansions and
numerous 1950s hallmarks.