Spring Break in Cuba

by Yasmin Gulec (Turkey)

I didn't expect to find USA

Cuba was a country I always wanted to visit. When I was young I would read about the Revolution and, for reasons unknown, listen to Hasta Siempre by Carlos Puebla and just try to understand what it would be like living in Cuba during the Revolution — weird things to think about as a 12 year old I know. Havana is such a colorful city full of lovely people, great vintage cars that I could not get enough of and delicious food. I romanticize the past, and coming to Havana was like time traveling. It is not only the cars, the colorful, a little broken down colonial houses or even the old songs they play ( a lot of Phil Collins, Eagles, you get the idea). The feeling of being in Cuba just feels nostalgic, I can’t really put my finger on it but it just does. There are two currencies, the CUC and the CUP. The CUC is the the tourist currency while the CUP is the local currency — 1 CUC is 24 CUPs and many places have prices in both currencies. The vast difference in what is catered for the visitors and locals did not hit me until I stumbled upon a street vendor near our Airbnb in New Havana — we made the great decision of not staying in the more touristic and expensive Old Havana. I got a delicious scoop of pineapple and orange ice cream for 3 CUPs. That is less than a dollar. The thing about this small interaction that was most striking was that it did not happen until our 3rd day. Up until then we were comfortably paying our tourist prices in CUCs and thinking how cheap everything was. It made me feel very privileged and a little spoiled. I did not like the feeling of paying 10 CUCs for a huge bowl of garlic shrimp with rice and beans and calling it so cheap while for the locals 10 CUC is a significant amount of money. That difference in our realities really stayed with me — especially considering I grew up in Istanbul and now am in college in New York. Our first day we were advised by a lovely Cuban lady to go to Coppelia, a state-run ice cream parlor. Walking there, you can see Cubans waiting in line for sometimes over 2 hours to get ice cream. When we walked in we were stopped by what seemed to be a cop and asked what kind of money we had. Upon showing our CUCs, we were guided to an upper level area without waiting in line. We paid around 2,5 CUCs for the ice cream which was still pretty good ( the delicious vanilla ice cream was served with some sort of wafer cookies and caramel sauce). Coppelia was founded by Fidel Castro who wanted to introduce his love for dairy to the Cuban people and make it affordable for all, and so began the ice cream obsession of Cubans. Something we only got to experience our last night there was going into a local’s house and eating food cooked in their kitchen. This is not something that is easily found, as they are not online. These places called, from one interaction I had with a local, “fonda,” are literal houses that open their kitchens to people for meals. They are almost like speakeasies — but not the 21st century New York ones that everyone knows about, I am talking some prohibition era actually hard to find speakeasies. With the limited internet access we had, we found the solution in talking to people on the street and letting them guide our day. When we were sunburnt from our beach trip to Varadero, we were pointed in the direction of an Aloe guy who allegedly sold aloe vera. Although we could not find him, we stumbled upon a garden. The lady there was gracious enough to cut some aloe from her garden which we put in the fridge and smeared on each other that night in the hopes that it would soothe our uneven and unfortunate burns. I have to go back and discover Havana and Cuba’s other cities more. So till next time…