Cuba travel tips

Cuba travel tips
By Gay Nagle Myers

• One CUC (Cuban convertible peso, pronounced "kook" and on a par with
$1 U.S.) is the universal tip for a maid each day, for a coffee, for a
bellhop.

• Tourists use CUCs, Cubans use the Cuban peso. Two different
currencies, both confusing. One CUC equals 25 Cuban pesos.

• Tip the maid daily, instead of at the end of your stay. If you're
lucky, she will take all the towels from the bathroom and fold them into
a design of some kind, sprinkle flower petals on top and leave a note,
as mine did: "I wish you have safe flight and successful in your
personal and professional life. Many kisses. Bye-bye."

• CUCs subdivide into smaller coins, called centavos. Tip the restroom
attendant 25 centavos. Carry toilet paper; a lot of places don't have it.

• Cars have the right of way, always. Cubans are crazy drivers. Look
right and left and don't jaywalk. Watch out for the bicis, the
rickshaw-like bicycle cabs; the zippy, three-wheeled coco taxis that
look like bright yellow, hollowed-out coconuts; and the colectifs,
clunker cars that serve as local taxis for the Cubans. Horse-drawn
wagons carrying produce and passengers can be a pedestrian hazard, as well.

• Coffee-to-go is not available. Starbucks could make a fortune here.

• Disconnect and don't worry about it. Turn off your cellphone. There is
no cell service for U.S. phones. Internet is slow in Havana and almost
nonexistent elsewhere. There are no Internet cafes. In Havana, I paid
$14 at the Melia Cohiba for two hours of Internet use, using my laptop
in the lobby. Don't bother with sending photos. They won't go through,
no matter how small.

• Cubans love oudabas -- rum, pineapple juice and sugar cane juice. They
fill the glass three-quarters full of the juices and then pour in the
rum, right to the top. It's a potent brew without ice cubes, but ice
cubes (and water, unless it is bottled) are chancy.

• Carry a copy of your passport and just the amount of money you need
each day, and leave the rest in the room safe.

• Avoid money changers. Use the cambios (government currency exchange
desks) in banks or state-run hotels. Don't get change in Cuban pesos,
which is the currency used by Cubans. Tourists use CUCs.

• Rum, cigars and coffee might seem like great gifts, but leave them in
Cuba or you will end up handing them over in customs and immigration,
much to the delight of those officials. Don't buy cigars on the street.
They are knockoffs, and you will be disappointed. Buy at the hotels or
in authorized cigar stores found all over Cuba. Expect to pay $20 U.S.
for a Cohiba, and light up before you leave.

• The large state-run hotels have cable TV with an eclectic choice of
programs, such as "Duck Dynasty" in Spanish, news reports in Chinese and
the Home Shopping Network, the Weather Channel and "Monday Night
Football," all in English.

• Apple iPhone plugs work in Cuban electrical outlets without needing a
converter, so recharging the phone for its camera functions is not a
problem. I carried my cord with me each day, and handed the cord and
phone to a waiter while I was having lunch. The iPhone got charged, the
waiter got a CUC and I was set to take another 100 or so photos that
afternoon.

• Don't miss Coppelia, Havana's famous ice cream parlor, started by
Fidel Castro himself in 1966. Its goal was to produce more ice cream
flavors than the big American brands. That didn't work out, but the ice
cream was -- and still is -- a huge success. The government-subsidized
scoops sell for the equivalent of 4 cents, payable in pesos or CUCs, and
more than 35,000 cones are scooped out on any given day, in strawberry,
orange-pineapple and vanilla flavors (usually only two flavors are
available). Coppelia also has branches in Santa Clara and Varadero.

• Sloppy Joe's, Havana's prerevolutionary bar and once the haunt of
American film stars, reopened last April 13, 48 years after it closed.

Business took a nosedive after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and a fire
in 1965 did the rest.

A meticulous, six-year, government-funded restoration returned it to its
former glory, including parts of the 60-foot-long bar immortalized in
the 1959 movie "Our Man in Havana, " starring Alec Guinness. The menu
features 80 cocktails.

• Air conditioning is scarce. The state-run hotels have it, some
state-run stores and museums have it, as do some restaurants. But that's
it. Buy a hand-painted fan for 7 CUCs and use it to cool off.

• Don't miss the Nacional Hotel. Stroll through the gardens, gape at the
black-and-white photos of screen stars, world leaders and mobsters on
the lobby walls. Have a mojito in the Starlight Terrace Bar. The hotel
opened in 1930 and was used as the headquarters by Che Guevara and Fidel
during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 to defend Havana from aerial
attack. It's a tangible link to Cuba's past.

• There are a couple of car rental companies in Havana. Rentals run
about $60 a day. There is one oil company, Cupet-Cimex, in Cuba, and the
gas is expensive by Cuban standards.

• Cubans smoke. State-run restaurants do not permit smoking inside, but
everywhere else, smoke hovers. Cigarettes are 40 cents a pack.

• There is no fresh milk in Cuba. Powdered milk is the universal
substitute.

• Hotel coffee is weak and watered down. Stick with espresso or yummy
cappuccino, sold at hotel bars or in restaurants.

Follow Gay Nagle Myers on Twitter @gnmtravelweekly.

Source: "Cuba travel tips - Travel Weekly" -
http://www.travelweekly.com/Caribbean-Travel/Cuba-travel-tips/