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Our people-to-people trip was exactly like every other adventure we take and how we prefer to travel (setting up our own itinerary based on the available travel time). In Cuba we were hanging with locals every day, jiving to Cuban music, dancing Cuban salsa, eating Cuban food, and learning about the Cuban way of life — drinking ample Mojitos, their fabulous Cubana coffee and chewing on cigars, of course. Cubans are very easy-going, friendly and hospitable. We stayed in family homes called “Casa Particulars” (CP) and occasionally hotels where no CPs were available for 4 travelers. Cuba is an isolated island in the Caribbean Sea close to the Florida Keys, Jamaica and Yucatan (Mexico). It’s not only famous for its rum, cigars, old cars and salsa but also for Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, beautiful nature, white beaches, and colonial cities. Cuba seems to be stuck in a time-warp. They have expansive motorways between cities with very few vehicles on them. They employ horse carts to move people in the cities. Only a few people have cellphones and internet connection is dodgy and cumbersome. Cuba is very safe for travelers. No one seems to be in much of a hurry. The locals realize that tourism brings wealth to their country and they seem to have completely embraced it. The vast majority is very friendly. They seem to have a lot of time on their hands — someone told me they spend more time looking for food than working. They have very little money and work on ways of supplementing their income which is $20-$30 per month — the government pretends to pay everyone and everyone pretends to work occasionally. In addition to baseball, dominos is an obsession in Cuba. Check out this video of a game on a sidewalk in Camaguey: Video — Dominoes on the Sidewalk
60,000 Old Cars from pre-1959 — all available for hire
The world famous Malecon is 8 km of seawall along the Havana waterfront
Colonial cities still with the old colonial buildings and narrow streets (Santiago de Cuba)
Cuba is a very Catholic country (from Chris’ Guest House rooftop in Camaguey)
Beisbol is the National Obsession (Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana which normally holds 55,000 fans but this was a very cold day by Cubano standards and there was barely 10,000 in attendance)
An immaculate ’58 Chevy on a cobblestone street (Santiago de Cuba)
