This is the story of an unsupported cycling trip of approximately 1000 km from
Holguin in the east of Cuba to Havana in the west over a period of 14 days.
Along the way we took one rest day when we stayed two nights in Camaguey
otherwise we cycled every day. We spent two nights in Havana at the end an we
cycled around Havana on the full day that we were there for.
We had a wonderful holiday, nice
roads to cycle on, great weather and best of all a very warm reception from all
the kind and generous Cubans that we met along the way.
Please click here for a slide show about our trip with some commentary
If you are flying to Havana, a good place to start is at Raśl Sarmiento's Casa Particular in Vedado, an excellent location in Havana. He also rents bikes. His website has links to other useful sites and he is very good at answering any questions about cycling in Cuba.
General Information:
Accommodation/Casas
Particular
The first night we had stayed in an Islazul hotel (state owned chain) ,
one night we stayed (illegally?, no choice) in a private house in the
country and the other 12 in officially licensed B&B's (Casas
Particular).
Casas Particular seem to me to be the preferred option for independent travellers, for numerous reasons: low cost, generally high quality, meet the locals, good wholesome freshly cooked food etc . For more information on Casas Particular see the sections below on Costs and Meals.
Casas
Particular seem to have a short life span and so lists in
guidebooks are not all that useful. There are some websites
which attempt to list them. ?? is perhaps the best one.
Our first Casa P. in Las Tunas, gave us the name of a recommended next
one in Camaguey and even called ahead for us to make a reservation. This great
service was repeated most of the time. Please see the appendix
for a list of the Casa Particulars that we stayed at and the website list for how to find
Casas Particular .
For independent travellers it is also useful to know about the two state owned(?)
hotel chains, Horizantas and Islazul. Islazul seems to the cheaper one. These
hotels which are scattered throughout Cuba can be very useful for emergency
accommodation, talking to somebody that you can probably trust to help
with a problem, to using the phone and Internet, changing money and any
other emergencies. Casas Particular owners may have only limited access to
facilities that you may require in an emergency.
Bicycles
and Panniers
I took my 10 year old Miyata hybrid with 38 mm wide tires and Harvey rode
his new Cannondale Touring bike. We took a collection of spares (cables, tubes,
puncture repair kit lubricant, spare spokes) but we had no problems at all with
the bicycles not even any flat tires. Before I left I bought and installed two
new $50 Specialized Armadillo Kevlar puncture resistant tires.
We each packed our gear in 2 large rear panniers.
Costs
Our total expenditures in Cuba amounted to about $700 Canadian. Except for the
first night we stayed in Casa Particulars.
Casa Particular prices were fairly uniform at 20 CUC's for the room with 2 beds,
3 CUC'c each for breakfast and 8-10 each for dinner or about 22 CUC's (see Money
below) or about Canadian $28 per day each. We found that the charge
for meals is per person and the room charge is per room.
Understanding this helps to avoid confusion and possible misunderstanding. Most
of the Casas had small fridges with bottled drinks (beer, pop, water),
payable for per usage, the bottled water being more expensive than if purchased
in a store. No tax is payable. Its best to ask to see the room and what
the charges are for room and meals if they have not already been specified
(which occurred sometimes), before committing oneself to taking the
accommodation.
Flights
We flew with Cubana Airlines from Toronto to Holguin and at the end of the
trip from Havana back to Toronto.
Booking was done through Solysun Vacations in Toronto who are the agents for
Cubana. This proved to be cheaper than booking through a travel agents. Cubana
offered the lowest fares and also were the only airlines which would allow us an
"open-jaw" schedule (fly to Holguin, return from Havana).
Maps and guidebooks
Meals
Of our 14 nights, one was
in a hotel (the first night), three were in Casa Particulars that provided
dinner only (Matanzas and two in Havana) and the other 11 offered dinner as
well. Good restaurants are hard to find in Cuba so its by far the best to
try and find Casa Particulars that offer dinner. The Islazul hotel meals at
Hotel Pernik in Holguin were buffet style and of mediocre quality.
My previous experience with Islazul hotel meals was similar.
The dinners we had in Casas Paticular (for $8 or so) were always good and often very good. Dinner was usually some combination of a very large helping of fresh fish or chicken with rice, beans, cassava, a large salad as well as fresh fruit, bananas, pineapple and mango. In short dinner (and breakfast also) was home-style cooking with a vengeance and great for keeping ones internals working well in a foreign environment with all those strange bugs around.
Paladars (private restaurants in homes) are supposed to be good also for dinner but we only looked for one on one occasion in Havana and it was no longer in business, we ended up eating in a bad restaurant.
Breakfast in the Casa's was also very good, lots of fruit plus bread cheese and eggs done tortilla style plus of course tea and coffee and milk. I brought some packets of instant oatmeal with me for which they were very happy to supply boiling water.
Lunch was usually leftovers they gave us from breakfast plus the usual gorp. Sometime for a very small fee the Casa's would make us a sandwich for lunch. Highway rest stops sometimes sold food and bananas and other fruit was sometime available for purchase along the road.
We never did get to try one of the cheap Cuban eateries of which there are a few. In some cities there is a El Rapido, a Cuban version of KFC, we never did get to try their food. Their washrooms are ok! . Also in Havana a French chain called Pain De Paris with croissants etc.
Money
We took with Canadian cash and some Canadian travellers cheques. The
Canadian cash was easily converted to convertible Pesos at Banks and Cadecas
(official currency exchange offices) and in all Islazul hotels. All of the towns we spent the night
in
plus many of the towns we passed during the day had banks. We generally
carried sufficient cash for 3-4 days.
Cuba has 2 currencies, CUC's = us$1.08 which we had to pay in most of the time
and Pesos Cubana (24 to a CUC) for some but not all street food. There is no
easy way to tell which currency should be used but for tourists it CUC's most of
the time.
Route
Cycling east to west as we did, one goes with the significant prevailing
wind. The other way is supposed to be much harder. We lucked out here. We only
found out about the wind after we had booked our flights.
For the first half of the trip from Holguin to Sancti Spiritus we followed the Carretera Central (the main highway in that part of Cuba). Alternate routes, where they exist would have taken much longer and accommodation could be a problem. There was some traffic including trucks particularly near the towns but this was not a problem. The truck and bus drivers all seemed to be very considerate, warn us with their horns and also give us a wide berth. From Sancti Spiritus to Matanzas we followed much quieter roads. The last section from Playa Jibacoa to Havana was a divided highway with some traffic.
Transporting the bicycles
For the Toronto to Holguin segment the bikes were packed in bike boxes which
were picked up for free from a bike store in Toronto. Bicycles are accepted at
no extra charge by Cubana as one of the two allowed checked items.
To pack the bicycles in a box one removes the peddles with a 15 mm wrench (take
it with you!), loosens the stem and aligns the handle bars sideways, detaches
the rear derailleur, removes the wheels and removes the skewers from the
wheels.. The wheels are packed in the box on the side opposite to the chain
wheel. All of the Lonely Planet cycling guide books have a very useful section
on how to pack your bike. We each had 2 front panniers and these we
strapped together and placed in large plastic bags so that they would only count
as one item of luggage.
The return trip was a bit more complicated as we had to discard the bike
boxes at the hotel in Holguin as we were not returning to Holguin at the end of
the trip.
We had contacted via the Internet,
Raśl
Sarmiento, who runs a Casa
Particular in Vedado in Havana and who also rents out bicycles. His website
home page is www.geocities.com/vedadohabana/
We arranged to
stay with him and his wife at the end of the trip and he had a spare bike box
for us. Bike boxes are not available in Cuba. On the return Harvey's bike went
in the box. I had brought with a large bike size plastic bag which I got from
Air Canada plus 2 smaller airline plastic. We also saved the plastic bags which
the panniers came in and brought a good supply of packaging and duct tape with
is. I took cardboard, picked up easily on the street on Havana plus cut up water
bottles and taped these around the chain wheel, derailleur and frame. Each of
the wheels went in a plastic bag, and then the wheels plus the frame I whole
tied together and placed in the large bike size bag. This made for a secure
parcel. Both bikes arrived back home undamaged.
An alternative arrangement is to return from the same point as one arrives at, ask ones hotel or Casa Particular to save the bike boxes but this would have necessitated a 14 hour bus ride from Havana back to Holguin which we did not wish to do.
Water
Bottled water is readily available for about one CUC for a 1.5
litres and we drank it most of the time. Once or twice we ran out and used tap
water from a Casa with iodine tablets added. We generally stocked up with
3 litres each of bottled water before we set out in the morning and found that
it would last us for the day even in the 30 C sunny all day weather. Most Cupet
gas stations have small convenience stores attached that sell bottled water, pop
etc. On most main roads there are also other small stores or highway rest stops.
APPENDIX: CASA PARTICULAR LIST IN
ORDER
( All were official Casa Particular's with the official logo
on the door except for 1. the hotel)
("e/ street1 y street 2" means between corner
of street1 and street2)
All the Casas provided breakfast, were centrally located (except for the one in Matanzas), had hot showers and were able to give us separate beds in one room.
