We had learned from various source (online and in guidebooks) that it would be a good idea to change our money on our arrival at the airport in Havana in order to get the best rates. We were also aware of the fact that there are two currencies in use in Cuba - the convertible peso (CUC$ - informally called the cuc) for tourists, and the peso (CUP - also called moneda nacional) for everyone else. There are 25 CUP to the CUC$ and it makes it easier to charge tourists that little bit more for pretty much everything.
While it is very possible to get by with only the tourist money, we had heard that it wasn't a bad idea to carry a bit of the local currency around for buses and bits and pieces, so when I went to the currency exchange desk, I first converted the bulk of what I wanted changed into CUC$, and then handed in a €50 note and asked for that in CUP. The lady looked at me with raised eyebrows and asked warily, "All of it?" I nodded, somewhat nervously as I was worried that tourists weren't supposed to get the moneda nacional (technically I don't think they are) and had visions of her pressing a red button under her desk and of being taken away by security for questioning. But she pulled an enormous stack of 20 CUP notes out of a drawer and counted them, all of them, before handing them over to me.
"Gosh, that's a lot!" I thought.
She then took an even bigger stack of 10 CUP notes out of the drawer and fed them through the counting machine and I realised that I'd be getting all of them as well. I made a conscious effort to wind up my jaw which had dropped at this stage. To finish she then counted out the change and it was as she was sliding this over to me that I heard Anne-Sophie at the next window asking for 50€ converted to CUP as well. Luckily the lady serving her refused. My girl must have been new.
I had to try and discreetly wedge this gigantic wad of notes into my pocket before waddling over to our taxi, where I sat quite uncomfortably for the journey to our Casa. It was only after we had checked in and I offered to divide the CUP I had bought between us. It was Anne-Sophie's jaw's turn to drop. I can't remember exactly how much I received from the exchange, but €50 converts directly to 1,815.48 CUP, or in simpler terms 1 CUP = €0.03. Which meant that we were going to have a difficult job getting through it, particularly as for the first day we were slow enough to spend it. Eventually necessity made us bolder, and on day two we decided that instead of eating in a very obviously tourist place where we would be charged in CUC and usually around the €8-€10 mark, we would try a small place on a corner that seemed to have only Cuban customers. We got a salad and a sort of scrambled egg sandwich for 7 CUP. About €0.21!!! Only another 1,812 to go.
It turned out to be a tremendous incentive to try new things during the trip that we probably wouldn't have even considered otherwise. It seemed nearly every street had some small business operating out of a window, where you could buy sandwiches or pizzas for less than €0.50, and once I'd had my steroid injection after my allergies flared up I felt I could get away with a bit more food wise, so we made the best of it. When we'd arrived for the train in Pinar del Rio we decided it would be a good idea to get some water, so on my search for that I came across a woman selling little shots of something from a flask at her front door, so I approached her and bought one for 1 CUP. I did ask what it was first, which is a sign that I'm getting more cagey- but ever since somebody translated "shirako" sushi while my mouth was full of it I've been cautious. The stuff in the flask turned out to be hot, sweet and strong coffee. So good. We also grabbed what we could from passing street vendors, sampling sweets, nuts and a kind of pop corn that were all very good, and rarely more than 1 CUP.
On our first day in Havana we had included La Coppelia an ice cream parlour in the middle of a park that our guidebook had recommended highly. As we made our way towards the building that we assumed to be the place, a smiling man in a grey security uniform directed us under a big sign saying 'La Coppelia', and towards a covered seating area beside a stall run by a lone man in a yellow shirt. We were relieved to find we seemed to have avoided the queues that the guidebook had warned of, but were surprised to find only two flavours of ice cream - vanilla and chocolate vanilla, with an option of a sugar syrup over it. They cost about €3 each for a decent sized glass containing three or four scoops of ice cream which we felt was reasonable enough, although we weren't exactly blown away by it. While Anne-Sophie went to find the loos I read the paragraph on La Coppelia again, and looked from the description of a large concrete and glass building to the small wooden hut that we had been served from and began to suspect that we'd been done. Anne-Sophie confirmed my fears upon her return she had discovered the queues for the actual place described in the guidebook.
On our return to Havana on the morning of our flight home we left we made a point of going back and joining the queues to see what the fuss was about. Our friend in the grey uniform once again met us and tried to direct us towards the small shack, but we politely declined. He said it was for people paying in CUC$, but we smiled and said that we had CUP and he shrugged and let us go. After about fifteen minutes in a queue made up of predominantly Cubans, we took two empty seats at the counter where we ordered our ice cream and paid €0.15 each for a plastic dish with five or six good scoops of ice cream (the same flavours as before) and given a bowl of sprinkles and a bottle of sugar syrup to help ourselves from before passing it to others along the counter. We tried not to stare at the slim young lady sitting to my left who lined three of these plates in front of her and tore through them all.
The ice cream was exactly the same as the stuff we had got in the small stall, but we got so much more of it for a fraction of the price! Furthermore we got to take part in what appeared to be a cultural activity judging from the volume of locals passing through the place constantly. It seems that tourists are invited to skip the queue and pay
twenty times the price of the locals. Fair deal, I guess.
In the end I got through most of my remaining CUP by paying a rickshaw driver to carry me round most of the old quarter of Havana on my last day in search of a chemist and a way of sending postcards. I was left with about €10 worth of notes that they refused to change in the currency exchange desk in the airport, so in the end I used it to buy a small box of cigarillos as a gift. I also kept a 3 peso note as memoir.
While it is very possible to get by with only the tourist money, we had heard that it wasn't a bad idea to carry a bit of the local currency around for buses and bits and pieces, so when I went to the currency exchange desk, I first converted the bulk of what I wanted changed into CUC$, and then handed in a €50 note and asked for that in CUP. The lady looked at me with raised eyebrows and asked warily, "All of it?" I nodded, somewhat nervously as I was worried that tourists weren't supposed to get the moneda nacional (technically I don't think they are) and had visions of her pressing a red button under her desk and of being taken away by security for questioning. But she pulled an enormous stack of 20 CUP notes out of a drawer and counted them, all of them, before handing them over to me.
"Gosh, that's a lot!" I thought.
She then took an even bigger stack of 10 CUP notes out of the drawer and fed them through the counting machine and I realised that I'd be getting all of them as well. I made a conscious effort to wind up my jaw which had dropped at this stage. To finish she then counted out the change and it was as she was sliding this over to me that I heard Anne-Sophie at the next window asking for 50€ converted to CUP as well. Luckily the lady serving her refused. My girl must have been new.
I had to try and discreetly wedge this gigantic wad of notes into my pocket before waddling over to our taxi, where I sat quite uncomfortably for the journey to our Casa. It was only after we had checked in and I offered to divide the CUP I had bought between us. It was Anne-Sophie's jaw's turn to drop. I can't remember exactly how much I received from the exchange, but €50 converts directly to 1,815.48 CUP, or in simpler terms 1 CUP = €0.03. Which meant that we were going to have a difficult job getting through it, particularly as for the first day we were slow enough to spend it. Eventually necessity made us bolder, and on day two we decided that instead of eating in a very obviously tourist place where we would be charged in CUC and usually around the €8-€10 mark, we would try a small place on a corner that seemed to have only Cuban customers. We got a salad and a sort of scrambled egg sandwich for 7 CUP. About €0.21!!! Only another 1,812 to go.
It turned out to be a tremendous incentive to try new things during the trip that we probably wouldn't have even considered otherwise. It seemed nearly every street had some small business operating out of a window, where you could buy sandwiches or pizzas for less than €0.50, and once I'd had my steroid injection after my allergies flared up I felt I could get away with a bit more food wise, so we made the best of it. When we'd arrived for the train in Pinar del Rio we decided it would be a good idea to get some water, so on my search for that I came across a woman selling little shots of something from a flask at her front door, so I approached her and bought one for 1 CUP. I did ask what it was first, which is a sign that I'm getting more cagey- but ever since somebody translated "shirako" sushi while my mouth was full of it I've been cautious. The stuff in the flask turned out to be hot, sweet and strong coffee. So good. We also grabbed what we could from passing street vendors, sampling sweets, nuts and a kind of pop corn that were all very good, and rarely more than 1 CUP.
On our first day in Havana we had included La Coppelia an ice cream parlour in the middle of a park that our guidebook had recommended highly. As we made our way towards the building that we assumed to be the place, a smiling man in a grey security uniform directed us under a big sign saying 'La Coppelia', and towards a covered seating area beside a stall run by a lone man in a yellow shirt. We were relieved to find we seemed to have avoided the queues that the guidebook had warned of, but were surprised to find only two flavours of ice cream - vanilla and chocolate vanilla, with an option of a sugar syrup over it. They cost about €3 each for a decent sized glass containing three or four scoops of ice cream which we felt was reasonable enough, although we weren't exactly blown away by it. While Anne-Sophie went to find the loos I read the paragraph on La Coppelia again, and looked from the description of a large concrete and glass building to the small wooden hut that we had been served from and began to suspect that we'd been done. Anne-Sophie confirmed my fears upon her return she had discovered the queues for the actual place described in the guidebook.
On our return to Havana on the morning of our flight home we left we made a point of going back and joining the queues to see what the fuss was about. Our friend in the grey uniform once again met us and tried to direct us towards the small shack, but we politely declined. He said it was for people paying in CUC$, but we smiled and said that we had CUP and he shrugged and let us go. After about fifteen minutes in a queue made up of predominantly Cubans, we took two empty seats at the counter where we ordered our ice cream and paid €0.15 each for a plastic dish with five or six good scoops of ice cream (the same flavours as before) and given a bowl of sprinkles and a bottle of sugar syrup to help ourselves from before passing it to others along the counter. We tried not to stare at the slim young lady sitting to my left who lined three of these plates in front of her and tore through them all.
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twenty times the price of the locals. Fair deal, I guess.
In the end I got through most of my remaining CUP by paying a rickshaw driver to carry me round most of the old quarter of Havana on my last day in search of a chemist and a way of sending postcards. I was left with about €10 worth of notes that they refused to change in the currency exchange desk in the airport, so in the end I used it to buy a small box of cigarillos as a gift. I also kept a 3 peso note as memoir.
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