The fame of Che Guevara in Santa Clara relates to the Battle of Santa Clara, the last and decisive battle of the Cuban Revolution after which dictator Batista fled the country, led under the command of Che. In a crucial moment, Che managed to derail an armored train containing lots of soldiers and supplies for the government troops, by using a local bulldozer. The event is remembered with a memorial of the bulldozer and the scene of the derailed train.

When mentioning Che to the grandmother at our Casa (a rather grim looking lady) she suddenly got sparkling eyes and excitingly started to tell us all about her handsome hero. Being of similar age as Che, she met him on his victory tour through Santa Clara and shot a few cool photos of him. We got a long history lesson via her photo and memorabilia album, including a hand written letter of Che to her cousin, while the love for “her” Che was still radiating all over her.

While we enjoyed our stay in Santa Clara a lot, we were rather disappointed by Camaguey. It has a small unusual Mexican inspired square, and getting lost in its confusing street layout can be an interesting experience, but you might as well give the city a miss.
Or maybe it was just that after one month in Cuba it offered too little new to us…

One great place to get your share of nature is Vinales, a very laid-back small town, famous for its karst-mountain scenery, fertile lands with fruit, coffee and tobacco plantations and its cowboys looking after the land old-fashioned way.

The town basically consists of a small square, from where individual, one-story houses spread out,  merging with the surrounding fields. The design of the houses is very consistent, which would make for quite a boring view if it weren’t for the bright and varied coloring.

All houses seem in perfect maintenance with spotless front porches and the compulsory two rocking chairs, putting up their best faces for the few arriving tourists. Nearly every house has the blue anchor in front, renting out one or two rooms.
For once we had a quick look on tripadvisor before departing from our last place and called ahead to reserve a room at “sunny balcony”. And it really lived up to its name! One of the very few two story buildings, we had its second story totally to ourselves, with a nice room and huge balcony! Where we loved to spend long breakfasts, admiring the beautiful view and indulging in the gorgeous breakfast with pancakes, home-made coconut paste and savory tomato-chili bread spread.

The beautiful landscape can be explored on foot, by mountain bike or by horse. We opted for the lazy option, which turned out to be a wise choice as it has been raining regularly for the past few week and several paths have turned to ankle-high mud.

We got one of the grumpy cowboys as guide and spent a very interesting half day exploring the countryside and visiting a tobacco farmer and a fruit plantation.
The majority of the tobacco harvest is handed over to the famous (government run) Cuban cigar companies, but every farmer is allowed to keep a small share for their own consumption and for selling to tourists. But instead of a big sales pitch, the relaxed farmer took all his time explaining us the whole process of making tobacco and how to roll a proper cigar and only casually mentioned the possibility to buy a bundle. It was really cheap, but we decided to remain non-smokers

Also the visit to a fruit farm was pretty impressive as to the huge range of different fruits being grown – even though the organic production techniques result only in baby versions of the fruits we are used to. Or are our fruits just abnormal inflated versions of how fruits are supposed to be? hmmm…

Vinales is a great place to relax and enjoy its peace and nature. Even for Cuban standards, clocks are ticking slow and you have to search hard to find the compulsory government propaganda, which usually fills large billboards

We settled down for five nights in the modern casa of a very charming Swiss-Cuban couple and limited our explorations to mornings and evenings, avoiding the very strong sun and most of the tour groups.

The beautiful little main square has two distinct churches, very popular photo and postcard theme. And in the evening the area becomes lively with music in various bars and restaurants.

Trinidad’s main attraction lies in its atmosphere and harmonic architecture. It’s however not a place for museum enthusiasts. We tried the recommended “best” museum out of the few and quickly browsed through the unappealing artifacts on the lower floors, fast forwarding to the only highlight of the museum, the stunning view from its roof (cf. title photo).
If you cant live without a museum, rather explore the various restaurants, which seem to have borrowed the real treasures.

For photographers however Trinidad is a great playground. In particular during sunset, you get a nice shot at every corner.

[See image gallery at 2young2simple.debraaf.eu]

All are dotted nicely along the main boulevard, which also has a beautiful seaside section which becomes lively in the evening with families and romantic couples.

We stayed in two very different private casas, one at the most southern coastal tip with cozy hammocks and a beautiful restaurant terrace overlooking the bay. Only a shame that the secluded bay was too polluted – I was really looking forward to some swimming in the ocean

Next we moved to one of the villas along the central promenade, our most beautiful place yet. And as you can see, the living room will be very hard to top:

Overall a very pretty town with a lot of things to explore and a much more casual vibe than Havana.

Beautiful old-school theater:

[See image gallery at 2young2simple.debraaf.eu]

Transportation works like the combi system in South America, only with a horse carriage instead of a van. The very nice ones are however reserved for tourist rides:

This one really should be in a museum:

Thanks to our large time budget, we also spent time just doing “normal” things, like going to the screening of a Cuban movie in the local “cinema” …

…listening to live music and exploring local “supermarkets”. This week they apparently got a large container from Germany, as every store had tons of German Gurken, salad dressings and tomato sauces

On the other hand, the container with swimming pool supplies was apparently running late. All three swimming pools in town were closed due to lack of chlorine. Viva la revolucion!

Add to this its unique government system, shaping Cuban lifestyle in so many ways, and you are set for an interesting holiday with lots of great experiences.

You might have read about “the changes”. Following the restart of Cuban-American relationships, there seems to be a last-minute panic among Europeans to experience Cuba before it gets taken over by McDonald and Coca Cola. Personally I wouldn’t expect any drastic changes soon, or they will rather be a continuation of the changes which are already happening since Raul Castro has taken over from his brother in 2011. He implemented a few big changes to liberalise Cuban economy, all to a great benefit of tourists and locals. Thanks to these new laws, an excellent private B&B (“casa”) market has established itself, where you get consistently good quality accommodations with a family at 20-30$ for a double room, a lot of good new restaurants have opened, fighting against Cuba’s bad culinary reputation, and local travel guides can now finally do their job legally.
The high motivation and good standard of private accommodation and restaurants is understandable when you compare the potential income with the standard wage of $40 per month for a government job. Naturally that the new sources of income start to be visible in daily life: smartphones, Beats headphones, LCD TV and even the sporadic scooter or new Peugeot car are no longer inexistent, but remain an exception, in a country where only 4% of the population have a car and where outside of Havana the main means of transport are still horse and bicycle.

We started our Cuban exploration in Havana, which is so rich in sights that you can easily spend several days here. The whole city center feels like an open air museum, where thanks to a long history of steady restorations nowadays many of the impressive buildings are restored to their original glory. And thanks to Havana’s strategy of mixing restoration projects for tourist use (museums, hotels etc.) with social projects supporting schools and elderly, the center has remained an extremely lively district. From the balcony of your casa you can watch the happening street life – together with your neighbors on their balconies.

The big majority of historical sights is in the oldest district Habana Vieja:

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So many historical buildings, even the students get to stay in a mansion:

Everywhere you will see signs with a blue anchor , sign for a room being rented out, one house more intriguing than the other

On our three visits to Havana (this time my fault: Visa for China), we stayed in four different casas in four different districts and took time to also explore other areas. Havana Centro is the neighboring district of Habana Vieja, less rich on impressive sights but with a very lively community.

A dozen youngsters playing catch, all over the statue:

And beautiful cars wherever you look (here Yang Ke’s favorite):

The district Vedado, while still close to the center, is of a totally different vibe with wide alleys and lots of neo-classical villas:

We visited the Napoleon museum, hosting a huge private collection on Napoleon spread over four floors of a Renaissance style mansion. Apart from the beautiful collection it also provides an interesting perspective on the effect of communism on human behavior. The government-run museum has several staff spread out over the rooms, which you could categorize into two groups: On one side those who perform their job with the minimum effort possible. We had some surreal moments where one staff was “showcasing” the exhibits to us by reading their tags to us or pointing at the objects  and saying “here you see a chair, here a painting of waterloo, here …”.  On the other side you had several staff who were unimaginably motivated, with the hope to make some hard-currency tips. We got photos taken from all angles, they would rush us past the barriers and they had good stories to tell about the sights.

Bravely facing the brutal sun on huge non-shadowed Plaza de la Revolucion, only to see the famous Che Guevara image:

On the other side of Havana bay, you will find the nicely preserved ancient fort with lighthouse and great views on the city:

It also hosts the coastal guard for Havanna’s harbor, which consists of only one guy, who has so little to do in his job that he went to great lengths to explain us everything and let us take photos through his telescopes