Carefree in Cuba: Havana Highlights

Being carefree in Cuba has always held an allure for me because of its time-capsule like environment, African influences, and the ingenuity of its people so the chance to visit once President Obama opens it to the U.S. is too good to pass up.

Read our airport adventures on the return flight from Havana here.

 

Carefree in Cuba: Havana Highlights

Jan 19 – Around Vedado

After settling into our Air BnB, we decide to explore the area. We are ravenous at this point and need food so we go into a restaurant in the area. Selorm has Adobo and pepper because we heard and read that food is bland in Cuba because of restrictions and rations.

These seasonings come handy as my garlic shrimp and rice is devoid of taste whatsoever but the others’ lobster meal is passable. Still, I don’t let that taint this novel experience.

We cross two wide lanes to get to the Malecon, a sea wall wide enough to sit on, to take pictures of the classic cars, people and environment. We find a supermarket and enter to see what it looks like. The shelves are bare; I mean bare! All we want is water and maybe a wine or two. The only shelves with product are alcohol shelves and water is at the back of the store where we take the last seven bottles.

I look into the refrigerators and they are hot. The packages thaw and leak water out of the fridge. Clearly, no one buys these “frozen” foods and it is a pitiful sight with row after row after row of empty shelving. I wish I am fluent in Spanish to ask questions but we are careful not to inquire about rations and the ruling elite, even though I am so curious to know first hand about life there.

Outside, we pass by a cab area and it is so obvious to people that we aren’t Cuban because they speak to us in broken English, which is great as our Spanish is pitiful. Lol. Sondah, our basic Spanish speaker, haggles with a cabbie to take us to Playa del Este, a beach outside Havana, the next day. The fare is cheap and split four ways, it is nothing.

Carefree in Cuba: Havana Highlights

Jan 20 – Playa del Este

It is morning and I open my eyes and once again, feel at home. Not home in NYC, but home in Nigeria. A part of me thinks I am in Calabar – my mother’s hometown – because of the earthy smells, roosters crowing, birds chirping, the clang of basins, the voices of women calling and the smells of food frying. Ahhh…Cuba!

It rained the night before because I can still smell the rain in the air. These are smells and sounds that I do not experience in the concrete jungle of NYC and I am suddenly nostalgic for Nigeria. Relax, people. I returned to my senses in about 10 minutes. Lol.

Beach time! We bring toilet paper and wet wipes to Cuba, and good thing we do so because with four girls, we run out of the one roll left for us. Flip flops, hat, bikinis, shades, braids in buns and we are off in a cabbie booked the day before. Our cab is small and we cramp in like sardines.

The cab is what Nigerians refer to as kabu kabu, a rickety contraption held with spit and duct tape that leaves you wondering how it is still road worthy and whether you will arrive in one piece. Those kind of cabs can transport you from Lagos to Accra, no shaking, and it delivers us to la playa. It’s a wonder we don’t get vertigo from whipping our heads all over the place to take pictures from the cab because the sights are amazing and indescribable. They are better in pictures and best in person.

We arrive at the beach and it is so quiet. Apparently, January is slow season because of the cool weather. The locals wear long sleeve shirts and we are in shorts and bikini tops basking in the sun’s rays that our bodies have been missing. We order deck chairs, shades, seafood and coconuts for cheap, and set about our enjoyment.

There are quite a number of Americans by us and we get talking to them and coincidentally, all of them are from NYC too! It is like we all have the splendid idea to escape to sunny Cuba for a few days in January.

The water is crystal clear teal and we can literally see our feet below even far out as we are. I don’t go any further because I know that the bottom can drop off suddenly and then I find myself in mami wata’s palace answering questions. Abeg o!

We roam the beach and buy some tamales, my first time trying one despite living in NYC. Tragic, I know. I’ve remedied that travesty many times since then. I take one look at it and say, “ekoki”.

Ekoki is ground corn, seasoned and steamed in its husk. The Efiks eat it, and the last time I have some is as a child in Calabar. Wow! I mean, I know of the historical links Cuba has with Africa, especially the Yoruba and Efik tribes from Nigeria, but this is amazing! I have two wraps: one plain and one stuffed with carne. Delish!

I can’t explain how serene it all is: no crowds, no noise, soft coconuts…just taking it easy and not wanting to return Stateside for a while. We stay beach-side for a couple more hours and board our kabu kabu back to Vedado completely relaxed but starving.

The homeowner’s nephews had asked us if we wanted dinner for CUC20 and to choose what we want. “Sure!”, we exclaim. We ask for lobster and other seafood, arroz con habichuelas and jugo de pina and when we return, they are indoors cooking up a storm and the aroma is incredible.

We are treated like the queens that we are to a fully set table and a wondrous spread of food. The vegetables are so fresh that you would’ve been forgiven for thinking that I’d never had tomatoes and cucumbers before. So fresh and juicy; the sauces are flavourful, the boiled yucca so soft and delicious and the rice and beans heavenly.

These are simple foods that we’ve had before but they taste so different in Cuba and I tell you that no food remains. We clear all plates and are fully sated. We ask the boys about taking a cab to Vinales, and they promise to send their relative in the morning to take us to Vinales and back for the whole day. It is time to watch a movie to send us to sleep because we have a long day tomorrow.

 

Carefree in Cuba: Havana Highlights

Jan 21 – Vinales

We are up and ready waiting for Fidel, our cabbie, to arrive in his Cuba classic car. Awon bigz gehs (big girls) that we are. Lol. Vinales is a 4 hour trip each way and we make sure to pee before setting off but that didn’t stop us from wanting to pee 2.5 hours in somewhere in the countryside.

We arrive at a tobacco plantation where we tour cigar-making areas and puff on cigars. I have no idea that there are special cigars for women made from less potent leaves of the tobacco plant and the ends of cigars are dipped in honey to soothe your throat as you puff. I don’t smoke so can barely puff the cigar; all I do is suck on the end to imitate puffing.

After that, we are led to horses to ride through fruit orchards around the plantations. Our horses are tame and know where we are going as they’ve trotted this route countless times. Our guide is behind us and we keep squealing at him not to leave us but it was a very fun and rowdy ride.

Nevertheless, the horses are somewhat feisty, and we let out excited screams. I have one hand on the reins and another taking pictures, selfies and recording videos and I feel like an equestrian princess.

Our horses arrive at the right location and we dismount and proceed to open-air seating with other tourists. We are one of a handful of Americans there, and the only black/Africans; the rest are Europeans, judging from the smattering of French and German we hear.

We definitely look different because we are asked countless times throughout the trip where we are from and we respond with Nigeria, Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire living in America. People think that we are black Americans and don’t think we are directly from the continent. A few men even ask whether our fathers or husbands paid for our trip. Lol. Right.

Back at the ranch, we are serenaded by a wandering band, have cocktails with freshly made juices, order bottles of rum to take back for CUC20 apiece, and organic honey made on the plantation. We remain for a while then ride our horses back to Fidel.

After all that activity, we are starving and we let Fidel know. He drives us to a local restaurant, buka, and it is packed. We ordere crabs and lobster, yucca, rice, salad and more drinks and they are delicious. The amount of lobster we eat in 3 days is more that I have in 6 months in NYC. Lol.

Our palates are so accustomed to preservatives in western food that simple, fresh and flavourful meals taste like liquid gold. We eat to our heart’s content and again, are specially serenaded by a band. Time to go. We pee for the 4 hour trip back to Havana and set out.

By the time we arrive Havana, we are tired and hungry again. Lol. Hey! We are on no diet whatsover and I have no intention of watching carbs during this trip.

Those darling boys are in the kitchen cooking up a storm again. Did I say that we are stuffed from Vinales? That was 4 hours ago and we are raring to go again. We devour fried chicken, rice, yucca and vegetables like hungry hippos.

Carefree in Cuba: Havana Highlights

Jan 22nd – Cathedral Plaza/Playa del Este/Casa de Musica

Our last full day before departure the next day and we hit old Havana and the beach one last time. Our kabu kabu comes round in the morning to take us to Palace Hotel for cigars and currency. It is a popular tourist hotel with its own pool facing the water as well as stores selling the usual souvenirs.

At the hotel, there is a store that sells Orisa name boards of various Yoruba deities like Ogun, Yemoja, Sango et al as well as several black dolls. I buy an Osun name board and a small rag doll and I come close to buying a large child-like doll but remember Chucky and my terror watching that as a child, so I refrain.

I go to pay and show the man at the counter a picture of Ekpe, an Efik masquerade, I have on my phone. His eyes literally light up and he communicates in broken English, Spanish and hand gestures that he knows and is part of it. It is at this moment that I vow to learn Spanish but I manage to convey that this masquerade is from my ethnic group and he seems to understand.

We leave and head to Plaza de la Cathedrale for the famous cigar puffing black senora sitting in front of a yellow backdrop. In the process, we discover many hidden calles, street musicians, famous building ruins and so many souvenir shops.

There are many beautiful sights and architectural structures to marvel at in Havana and we catch glimpses of them before dashing off to the next spot. You need to chill and absorb Havana and I wish that we have time to do so in 3 days. No worries. I’m definitely returning to this magical island for longer.

We find her and there is a queue to take pictures. Sondah brings out a cigar and we take turns holding it in our pictures with the senora. We leave the Plaza, head to our kabu kabu and zoom off to la playa one last time.

 

 

We return to our last home cooked Cuban meal, shower and get ready for Casa de Musica. Some locals tell us that this is a happening club in Miramar so we hail a cab and head there. It’s raining lightly at this point and there’s a queue.

We pay the cover fee, enter and…it’s not the vision of a club that we are expecting. There is a stage with a live band singing popular Cuban songs and an open seating area that you apparently have to reserve in advance. It is packed shoulder to shoulder and we have no seats so stand for most of the time.

We ease to the bar with great difficulty, order drinks, and just stand around watching everything. The live band is great and Sedi, my beautiful Ghanaian gal, finds an Antiguan bae that is ready to whisk her off to his island immediately. Lol.

We get chatting to some New Yorkers at the bar and we are ready to leave. It is too crowded and we have been crushed into a corner with no seats, sweating our melanin off. We go out, hail a cab to our digs and turn in.

 

Carefree in Cuba: Havana Highlights

Jan 23rd

Departure day. We are so not keen but at least, we escape the rat-race for a hot minute. The boys arrange for a cab to take us to the airport and when he arrives, we bid the boys a fond farewell. We arrive at the airport, check in our luggage and hunt for our boarding gate.

Cuba is an experience that should not be rushed but is the perfect Havana escape from NYC in all seasons. I will definitely be returning to the island very soon.

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