Cuba Libre

Places To See

Cueva Punta del Este

The Cueva de Punta del Este has been called the 'Sistine Chapel' of Caribbean Indian art. Long before the Spanish conquest (experts estimate around AD 800), Indians painted some 235 pictographs on the walls and ceiling of the cave. The largest has 28 concentric circles of red and black, and the paintings have been interpreted as a solar calendar.

Discovered in 1910, they're considered the most important of their kind in the Caribbean. Smaller, similar paintings can be seen in the Cueva de Ambrosio in Varadero. The long, shadeless white beach nearby is another draw (for you and the mosquitoes - bring insect repellent).

Valle de los Ingenios

The ruins of dozens of ingenios (small 19th-century sugar mills), including slave quarters and manor houses, are scattered throughout this valley. The royal palms, waving cane and rolling hills are timelessly beautiful. The prime sight is Manaca Iznaga, an estate purchased in 1795 by the dastardly Pedro Iznaga, who became rich by trafficking in slaves.

Mirador de Bacunayagua

Above the Vía Blanca on the border of Habana and Matanzas Provinces is the Mirador de Bacunayagua, an outlook over Cuba's longest (313m) and highest (100m) bridge. This is one of the best views in Cuba, with densely wooded valley chasms backed by blue waves. All tour buses between Varadero and Habana stop here.

La Jungla de Jones

La Jungla de Jones is a rich and verdant botanical garden containing over 80 varieties of tree. The highlight of La Jungla is the aptly named Bamboo Cathedral, an enclosed space surrounded by huge clumps of craning bamboo that only a few strands of sunlight manage to penetrate.

Bisected by a network of shaded trails and punctuated by bamboo, mangoes and Yamagüa, this expansive and recently restored garden once belonged to two American botanists, Helen and Harris Jones who set up the establishment in 1902 with the intention of studying plants and trees from around the world.

Museo de Ciencias Naturales Sandalio de Noda

The most interesting sight is the Museo de Ciencias Naturales Sandalio de Noda. In a wild, neogothic-meets-Moorish mansion built by local doctor and world traveler Francisco Guasch, this museum (called Palacio de Guasch by locals) has everything from a concrete T-Rex to a stuffed baby giraffe. Come for the flowering garden, architectural details and friendly specialist staff.

Events

The Havana Carnival in late July and early August features parades in front of the Capitolio or along the Malecón on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. The Jornadas de la Cultura Camagneyana is scheduled for the first two weeks of February, and the Festival Internacional de Jazz fills the first week of December with song and dance. April sees the Semana de la Cultura celebrated in Baracoa and the Electroacoustic Music Festival in Varadero. The first week of May has the Romería de Mayo in Holguin, and at the end of June Trinidad hosts the Fiestas Sanjuaneras. Carnival is celebrated in Santiago de Cuba during the last two weeks of July and the first week of August to coincide with the holidays around July 26. Carnival marks the end of the sugar harvest and originated as a period in which the slaves were allowed to celebrate. For those 10 days the drum is king. The Festival of Caribbean Culture is celebrated in June or July, October has the 10-day Havana Festival of Contemporary Music and the Semana de la Cultura Trinitaria happens in Trinidad in late November. The International Festival of Latin American Film is held in Havana in December of each year.

Public Holidays
1 January - Liberation Day
1 May - Labor Day
25-27 July - Celebration of the National Rebellion
10 October - Day of Cuban Culture
Note that Christmas Day has been observed as a public holiday since the Pope's visit in 1997.

Pre-Departure Information

When to go?

The best time to go to Cuba is between December and April, after the lashing rains of the hurricane season and before the hot and sticky discomfort of the scorching summer months. However this is also when planeloads of Canadians and Europeans arrive in pursuit of the southern sun, and room prices soar by up to 20%. Cubans take their holidays in July and August, so local beaches are very crowded at this time. Christmas, Easter and the period around 26 July, when Cubans celebrate the anniversary of the revolution, are also very busy. August to November is the worst time for hurricanes, while the winter months can bring in cold fronts when temperatures in the north and west of the island can dip under 15ºC (60°F).

Weather aside, Cuba has few other hurdles for visitors. Culture vultures should keep a close eye on the annual arts calendar for festivals and events; baseball fans will certainly not want to miss the post season, which runs from April to May; and political junkies may want to catch important days in the socialist calendar, particularly Día de los Trabajadores (Labor day; May 1) and Day of the National Rebellion (July 26).

Travel Visa Overview

Virtually all visitors require a Cuban visa or Tourist Card, available from travel agencies, tour operators or a Cuban consulate, for a stay of one month. These days cards are often given out on flights before landing. Check with your travel agency/flight operator before departure. Your stay can be extended for a further 30 days at an immigration office situated in any major provincial Cuban town (cost 25.00). After 60 days you must leave the country - although you can return immediately.

The USA officially prohibits its citizens from travelling to Cuba unless they obtain a special license and very heavy fines are imposed on visitors not fulfilling this requirement.

Electricity

110/220V

60Hz

Electrical Plugs

European plug with two circular metal pins

Japanese-style plug with two parallel flat blades

American-style plug with two parallel flat blades above a circular grounding pin

Health Information

Hepatitis

Several different viruses cause hepatitis; they differ in the way that they are transmitted. The symptoms in all forms of the illness include fever, chills, headache, fatigue, feelings of weakness and aches and pains, followed by loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine, light-coloured faeces, jaundiced (yellow) skin and yellowing of the whites of the eyes.

There are 6 known types of viral hepatitis:A, B, C, D, E and G. G is not dangerous. A and E are passed on by the fecal-oral route of transmission; there is a vaccine. Seek medical advice, but there is not much you can do apart from resting, drinking lots of fluids, eating lightly and avoiding fatty foods. A and E cause an acute illness, but you will recover fully from it.

B and D are passed on via blood, saliva, semen and vaginal fluids. They can be passed on by close contact, sexual contact, and blood-to-blood contact. The symptoms of hepatitis B may be more severe than type A and the disease can lead to long-term problems such as chronic liver damage, liver cancer or a long-term carrier state. There is a vaccine.

Hepatitis C is only passed on from blood-to-blood contact. There is no vaccine.

Weather Information

There are no great differences in seasonal temperature in Cuba, its pleasant subtropical climate being augmented by the gentle northeasterly trade winds. The wet summer season is between May and October, and the drier winter season runs from November through April. The average temperature reaches 27°C (81°F) in July and August and 22°C (72°F) in February. An average of 80% humidity exists all year round, with things just a little more sticky in the wet season. If you're coming between December and March, be prepared for cooler evenings. A light rain jacket is a wise precaution any time of year.

History and Culture

Culture

After the revolution the arts were actively supported by the government: many theatres, museums and arts schools were founded, musicians were guaranteed a salary and a national film industry was established. The government has sought to redress the influence of North American mass culture by subsidising Afro-Cuban cultural groups and performing ensembles, which contributes to a proud and lively cultural identity.

Pre-20th Centure History

It's thought that humans first cruised from South America to Cuba around 3500 BC. Primarily fishers and hunter-gatherers, these original inhabitants were later joined by the agriculturalist Taino, a branch of the Arawak Indians. Christopher Columbus sighted Cuba on 27 October 1492, and by 1514, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar had conquered the island for the Spanish crown and founded seven settlements. When captured Taino chief and resistance fighter Hatuey was condemned to die at the stake, he refused baptism, saying that he never wanted to see another Spaniard again, not even in heaven.

Cattle ranching quickly became the mainstay of the Cuban economy. Large estates were established on the island under the encomienda system, enslaving the Indians. By 1542, when the system was abolished, only around 5000 Indians (of an estimated 100,000 half a century before) survived. Undaunted, the Spanish imported African slaves as replacements. Cuba's African slaves retained their tribal groupings, and certain aspects of their culture endure.

By the 17th century, other European powers had begun to challenge Spain's grip on the Caribbean. British troops invaded Cuba in June 1762 and occupied Havana for 11 months, importing more slaves and vastly expanding Cuba's trade links. In 1817, Spain's long-standing monopoly on tobacco ended, which raised prices, encouraging the crop's expansion. Sugar had also become a major industry, as American independence in 1783 created new markets, and the 1791 slave uprising in Haiti eliminated Cuba's biggest sugar-producing competitor. By 1820 Cuba was the world's largest sugar producer.

Cuba and Puerto Rico were Spain's last holdings in the Western Hemisphere. Spanish loyalists fled the former colonies and arrived in Cuba in droves. Even they, however, began demanding home rule for the island, albeit under the Spanish flag. Cuba's First War of Independence was launched in October 1868. After 10 years and 200,000 deaths, the rebels were spent and a pact was signed granting them amnesty. A group of Cuban exiles in the USA began plotting the overthrow of the Spanish colonial government. They landed on Cuba's east coast in 1895; one of them, the poet Martí, conspicuous on his white horse, was shot and killed in a skirmish with Spanish soldiers. His martyrdom earned him the permanent position of Cuba's national hero.

Gómez and rebel leader Antonio Maceo pushed westward, burning everything in their path. Spain came down hard, forcing civilians into reconcentración camps and publicly executing rebel sympathisers. These methods effectively reestablished Spanish control, but Cuba's agriculture-based economy was in ruins. The Spaniards adopted a more conciliatory approach, offering Cuba home rule, but the embittered populace would agree to nothing short of full independence.

José Martí had long warned of US interest in Cuba, and in 1898 he was proved right. After years of reading lurid (and often inaccurate) tabloid tales about Cuba's Second War for Independence, the American public was fascinated with the island. Although everything was quiet, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst told his illustrator not to come home just yet: 'You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war.' In February 1898 the US warship Maine, anchored outside Havana harbour, exploded mysteriously. All but two of its officers were off the ship at the time. The Spanish-American war had begun.

Spain, weakened by conflict elsewhere, limped to battle, trying to preserve some dignity in the Caribbean. They nearly beat future US president Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders (though they'd had to leave their horses on the mainland) in the Battle of San Juan Hill. The USA's vastly superior forces eventually prevailed, however, and on December 12, 1898, a peace treaty ending the war was signed. The Cubans, including General Calixto García, whose largely black army had inflicted dozens of defeats on the Spanish, were not invited.

Modern History

The USA, hobbled by a law requiring its own government to respect Cuban self-determination, could not annex Cuba outright, as it did Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. Instead, they installed a governor, General John Brooke, and began a series of public works projects, building schools and improving public health, that further tied Cuba to the USA. US leaders did retain the legal right to intervene militarily in Cuba's domestic affairs: in 1903, the USA built a naval base at Guantánamo Bay that is still in operation - notoriously so - today.

By the 1920s US companies owned two-thirds of Cuba's farmland, imposing tariffs that crippled Cuba's own manufacturing industries. Discrimination against blacks was institutionalised. Tourism based on drinking, gambling and prostitution flourished. The hardships of the Great Depression led to civil unrest, which was violently quelled by President Gerado Machado y Morales. In 1933 Morales was overthrown in a coup, and army sergeant Fulgencio Batista seized power. Over the next 20 years Cuba crumbled, and its assets were increasingly placed into foreign hands. On January 1, 1959, Batista's dictatorship was overthrown after a three-year guerilla campaign led by young lawyer Fidel Castro, flanked by military leaders 'Che' Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos. Batista fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic, taking with him 40 million of government funds.

Castro was named prime minister and began reforming the nation's economy, cutting rents and nationalising landholdings larger than 400 hectares. Relations with the USA, already shaky, deteriorated when he nationalised US-owned petroleum refineries that had refused to process Russian oil. The Americans retaliated by cutting Cuban sugar imports, thus crippling the Cuban economy, and the CIA began plotting devious ways to overthrow the revolutionary government. Desperate for cash, Castro turned to the Soviet Union, which promptly paid top dollar for Cuba's sugar surplus.

In 1961, 1400 CIA-trained Cuban expats, mainly upper-middle-class Batista supporters who had fled to Miami after the revolution, attacked the island at the Bay of Pigs. They were promptly captured and ransomed back to the US for medical supplies. The following week, Castro announced the 'socialist nature' of the revolutionary government, something he'd always denied. The Soviet Union, always eager to help a struggling socialist nation (particularly one so strategically located) sent much-needed food, technical support and, of course, nuclear weapons. The October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is said to be the closest the world has ever come to nuclear conflict.

The missiles were shipped back to the USSR, and the USA, already refusing to import Cuban goods, declared a full embargo. Castro and his Minister of Economics, Che Guevara, began actively supporting guerilla groups in South America and Africa, sending troops and advisers to assist socialist insurgencies in Zaire, Angola, Mozambique, Bolivia (where Guevara was killed) and Ethiopia. The US response was to support dictators in many of those countries. By the 1970s, Cuba had limited itself to sending doctors and technicians abroad; there were problems enough at home. Despite massive Soviet aid, the Cuban command economy was in ruins, and the country's plight worsened in 1989 when Eastern Europe collapsed and Russia withdrew its aid.

In December 1991, the Cuban Constitution was amended to remove all references to Marxism-Leninism, and economic reforms began. In 1993, laws passed allowing Cubans to own and use US dollars, be self-employed and open farmers' markets. Taxes on dollar incomes and profits were levied in 1994, and in September 1996 foreign companies were allowed to wholly own and operate businesses and purchase real estate. These measures gradually brought the economy out of its post-Soviet tailspin. The US responded by stiffening its embargo with the Helms-Burton Act, ironically solidifying Castro's position as defender of Cuba against the 'evil' empire.

Critics of the Cuban government's human rights record include the Pope. At least 500 people are 'prisoners of conscience'. Each year, hundreds of Cubans brave the shark-infested waters separating Cuba from the USA, hoping to make a landfall that guarantees US citizenship and support from the wealthy Cuban exile community in Miami, Florida.

In November 1999, six-year-old Elián González, whose mother died during that dangerous trip, made it to Miami by clinging to an innertube. This prompted an unusual custody battle between the boy's great uncle in Florida and his father in Cuba. US officials enforced a court order returning Elián to his father.

While there is broad support in the US for a relaxation of sanctions against Cuba, Washington continues to pander to the powerful Cuban community in Florida. In May 2002, it accused Cuba of producing biological weapons and added it to its list of 'axis of evil' countries (coinciding with an historic goodwill visit by former US president Jimmy Carter). Meanwhile, Cuba's worsening human rights record drew criticism from all quarters, such as the European Union (which has threatened sanctions), the UN Human Rights Commission, and even old friends such as Mexico and Uruguay (with whom diplomatic ties were suspended in 2002).

Recent History

Throughout 2004-5 a series of tit for tat measures between the Cuban and US governments put the prospect of an end to the embargo on the back burner once again. In May 2004 the Bush administration set up a special commission designed to bring about the swift demise to the Castro regime. New laws heightened restrictions on Cuban Americans visiting family members in Cuba and placed similar restrictions on the sending of money between the US and the Caribbean country.

Castro responded in November 2004 by taking the US dollar out of circulation. He also sought sanctuary in ever-closer relations with enigmatic Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

The 2005 hurricane season hit Cuba hard with Hurricane Dennis devastating parts of Cienfuegos and Sancti Spiritus provinces and Hurricane Wilma flooding much of Habana Centro. In mid-2006, for the first time since leading the 1959 revolution, Fidel Castro temporarily handed over power to his younger brother Raul due to ill-health. As Fidel recovers, Cuba continues to strengthen economic and political bonds with the region's new champions of the left, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and the Evo Morales-led Bolivia.