CUBA with low budget – a short guide

In other countries we always hitch-hike and do not pay for accommodation, we cook ourselves using fuel-stove, we sleep in a tent or are invited to stay with local people.

We have travelled in Cuba for few weeks and discovered several tricks to make the stay in this country as cheap as possible. To stay low budget is not easy, but possible.

Money

Before talking about other things, a short overview about circulating currencies in Cuba. They have Cuban pesos, which in Spanish are called moneda nacional (national coin), pesos cubanos (Cuban pesos) or simply pesos. With this currency one can pay in the markets, in most of the snack-bars (cafeterias), and for other things sold on the street. The Salary for Cubans is paid in this currency, and it varies from 100 to 700 pesos (5-30 USD) per month, depending on the qualifications and position. The interesting part is that some of the daily goods are not available in Cuban pesos. Cubans have to go to a, so called, La Cadeca (money exchange office) and buy there Cuban convertible pesos (CUC), which cost 25 national pesos each. Only then one can buy for example soap or toilet paper.

Roughly, 1 CUC equals to 1 USD. To convertible pesos people also refer as dolares (dollars), divisas (currency) or simply pesos (the same as for national pesos). CUC one also gets from the ATM machines, or in the banks when selling foreign currencies. With this currency tourists pay for rental cars, accommodation and intercity public transport. Moreover there are lots of “chopis” – shops where food, clothes and other goods are sold in CUC. Chopi is also the place to buy soap (cheapest costs 0.25 USD) or other necessary daily products.

During your travels in Cuba you will need two pockets – one for CUC coins and another for Cuban pesos. You can buy Cuban pesos with your CUCs in one of the La Cadecas (rate in Feb 2007 – 1 CUC = 24 pesos).

By the way, the coin of 3 national pesos (value of 0.12 USD) has the portrait of Cuban hero Che Guevara. We think it is a very good and cheap souvenir from Cuba for your friends. You can change these coins in any La Cadeca office (souvenir shops might illegally offer this coin for 1 dollar).

Accommodation

In the back of the tourist card, which is given to travellers upon entry of the country, is written:
“In order to stay outside hotels, or in other non-authorized accommodation, request authorization from immigration.”

So, following this rule, camping is supposed to be illegal. We have done wild-camping for several times in Cuba. Of course, sometimes we had to walk out of the town or the village more than 5 km in order to find bushy place where we could hide during the night. Often there are people on the road passing by with bicycles or horses, but it is possible to wait for the moment when nobody is around and run behind the trees. When it is about to be dark – build the tent and make sure that next morning you are back on the road short after the sunrise.

Once we camped in the middle of nowhere near the sea between Trinidad and Cienfuegos. There was a small track for cars, but we did not expect that anybody will come there that day. We walked on the rocks near the sea and noticed a few days old fireplace with an old needle from syringe in it. It made us to be worried – what if these drug addicts will come here tonight? Anyway, we did not really have time to move anywhere else as the daylight was finishing soon.

It was about 9 p.m. when we heard two horses coming through the bushes towards us. When two man arrived, we thought we will be robbed. Fortunately, they were from Guardia de la Frontera (the border guards). The officers checked our documents and asked several questions about our trip. We tried to explain that we sometimes walk from one town to another as it is our way of travelling. So during the night we put a tent wherever we find a place. They wrote down our passport information and said nothing that about camping being illegal in Cuba.

If not camping, you will have to stay in so called casas particulares – private houses that rent rooms for tourists. Rooms are always prepared to host two people. All houses offering rooms have a blue logo sign with the words “arrendador divisas” (leasehold in currency). Cubans that decide to start this business first have to get a licence from the government. Each month they have to pay taxes which vary from 130 to 350 USD, depending on the location of the house (touristy or non-touristy place, located in the city center or at the end of a town) and the size of the room offered. Even during the low season they are forced to pay the same taxes. To cancel the licence temporally is not possible, as the permission to have this business is given only once in a lifetime. If they want to offer food service to guests, they have to get a separate licence additionally. Also for this they have to pay a monthly tax, if food is sold or not.

During the high season (December-May) the standard prices for a room in private houses is 20-25 USD, depending on the location of the house. It is quite easy to negotiate a price of 15 USD per night. Moreover, in February we also managed to get a room for 10 USD. Go far outside the town center and try your luck in the afternoon – this will bring more chances to get a room for a lower price. If you cook for yourselves, it will complicate the search of cheap rooms, as the house owners will not make any additional money by feeding you.

In Trinidad in February we had 3 offers for 10 USD. All of them were houses without licences. Finally, we stayed in one of them. According to the book “ROUGH GUIDE to Cuba” by staying in illegal houses foreigners do not risk to be punished, but the owner of the house risks that his or her house will be confiscated. In Cienfuegos we managed to get a legal room for 10 USD. It was a HospitalityClub.org member offering cheaper prices for the travellers from this website.

During the low season of tourism, a lot of houses offer rooms for 10 USD. So during this period you might try to negotiate for the prices of 7 or even 5 dollars.

Oh, there is another interesting thing worth to mention. If you have a friend in Cuba, you can stay up to three months with him. In this case, your Cuban friend will have to get a permission from the immigration office, which costs 40 USD. This permission is only given once a year.

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Here are few contacts of private houses ready to host travellers:

×× Cienfuegos ××

The host: Ivonne Santos Perez (or simply Ivona)
Phone: +53-43-516367
To call from Cienfuegos, dial only 516367. Calling from another city, dial 01-43-516367. Address: calle 2 NE, #4716, entre 47 y 49 – very close to the bus station.

We stayed with Ivonne for more than a week. She is a former English teacher, so for travellers who have troubles with Spanish it will be easy to handle. The accommodation offered has a lot of space. There is a private bathroom and a balcony.

×× Baracoa ××

Seniores Nalvis y Efer
Calle Marti no.147
Phone: +53-21-643715
Email: m.machado@toa.gtm.sld.cu

Seniora Estele Mila Milhet
Ciro Frias no.14
Tel.: +53-21-43389

Both families above are located in the very center of Baracoa.

×× Santiago de Cuba ××

Nancy Perez Figueredo
Pio Rosado no.218 (Carniceria), entre Habana y Mac
eo. Phone: +53-22-620051

About 5 blocks from the main pedestrian street. The room has a cosy balcony with rocking chairs.

Transportation and hitch-hiking

Let’s start with the fact that private cars officially are not allowed to have foreigners in their car. This makes it difficult to hitch-hike in a way as we are used to in other countries.

Private cars here have yellow licence plates. Blue, red and brown – governmental cars. Brown with a letter “T” – cars for rent. There are lots of them used by tourists and rich Cubans (car costs 60 USD a day). Orange licence plate is given for diplomats and international organizations, like UN. Finally, the green licence plate is for military vehicles.

Buses for tourists are very expensive in Cuba. There are two bus lines “Viazul” and “Astro”. The first one is only for foreigners. Here are few prices for orientation: from Havana to Santiago de Cuba (860 km) – 51 USD, Santiago-Trinidad (600 km) – 33 USD. “Astro” buses are for Cubans, but each route also has 2 seats for foreigners, so you have to book your tickets early enough. The prices with these buses are 20-30% cheaper than “Viazul”. “Astro” prices for Cubans are extremely cheap (e.g., Havana-Santiago – 2.90 USD).

Train is a much cheaper option. Again, foreigners should pay about 20-30 times higher fees than Cubans. Havana-Santiago overnight train costs 32 USD, and Santiago-Santa Clara (about 600 km) – 18 USD.

The cheapest public transport in Cuba are trucks. The trailers of the trucks have 2-4 rows of benches for passengers. During the trip a lot of people are standing. Inside the trailer fit about 50-70 people. A trip with this mean of transport costs, roughly saying, 5 Cuban pesos (0.20 USD) for 50 km. In the towns, search for the “terminal de camyones” (terminal of trucks). The best is to come very early, around 6am, in the morning. To get a local price for a ride in a terminal will be difficult. The driver either will ask for 4-5 time higher price (instead of 10 pesos he might ask for 2 dollars) or will not be willing to take you onboard at all. The problem is that officially they are not allowed to have foreigners on board and police might give them a big fine.

From our experience, in some situations you have to be rough. It might end up in pushing yourself through a crazy crowd of people, all aiming to get inside the truck. If you have lots of luggage, you might face a really hard time. Fighting for being taken – that is what everybody does. If the driver refuses you because of the police checkpoints – offer to pay twice the usual price or a bit more, mention that you have never had problems while travelling with trucks, and at the same time try to get inside the trailer. Cheering the driver with praising his great country helps a lot. If the driver gets impertinent, even though he received already good money from you, try to ignore him and simply get on the truck.

While waiting for the truck in the terminal, there might be private collective taxies. A trip with these drivers for Cubans costs ~30 pesos (1.25 USD) for 80-100 km. Unfortunately, from the tourists they always ask about 3-5 USD, as they risk to have troubles with police and they know that tourists have a lot of money.

“Amarillos” (in Spanish “yellow”) – this is how people call the transport inspectors, which usually wear a yellowish uniform and have a metal box for collecting money in their hand. The thing is that because of lack of public transport, all cars with governmental licence plates (blue color) are obliged to pick up people from the road. Of course, not every governmental worker is willing to stop. For this reason, in the end of each town, and in bigger villages, there is a transport inspector “amarillo”. He stops the cars with blue licence plates for the people waiting in the stop. The ride in this case is for free, but each passenger, before getting into the car, must give a small donation into amarillo’s metal box. 1 Cuban peso for long distances is sufficient.

If you are waiting for the transport in the stops with “amarillo” – you will have a high chance to get a ride with a passenger-truck by paying the local price.

Travelling with trucks or with the help of “amarillos”, expect to spend one-third of the trip waiting for the transport.

Food

We assume that you will be cooking for yourself, as it is the cheapest way to travel. This is what we did in the private houses we stayed using our small PRIMUS Omni-fuel stove.

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Vegetables, fruits and meat you can get in the markets. Search for the main market, in order to get a bigger variety of veggies. If you are in a big city, different parts of the city will have smaller markets where you will be able to get few things. Following are the prices in the market in February 2007:

5 big onions – 10 pesos (0.40 USD)
1 kg tomatoes – 5 pesos (0.20 USD)
2 grapefruits – 1 peso (0.04 USD)
2 small bananas – 1-2 pesos (0.04-0.08 USD)
1 kg mandarins – 2-4 pesos (0.08-0.16 USD)
1 kg guavas – 10 pesos (0.40 USD)
3 cucumbers – 5 pesos (0.20 USD)
bunch of carrots – 5-7 pesos (0.20-0.28 USD)
1 pineapple – 6-10 pesos (0.24-0.40 USD)
1 papaya – 10 pesos (0.40 USD)
big bunch of salads – 2 pesos (0.08 USD)

We always spent in the market about 50 Cuban pesos (~2 USD) and got veggies for 2 people for 2 days.

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Sellers in the market sometimes offer beans for 6-10 pesos a pound (0.50-0.80 USD per kilogram) and rice for 3 pesos a pound. The pork in the market is sold for about 25 pesos a pound (2.3 USD per kilo).

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Milk products you will get in “chopis” (shops with CUC). 1 liter of milk or yoghurt costs here about 2 USD.

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There are 3 types of bread. The first one is a big white bread sold in bakeries of Cuban bread company. This bread has a very hard crust and is almost empty inside. It costs about 4 pesos (0.16 USD). Another type of white bread is mostly sold by sellers on bicycles wandering through the streets. This very small, tasty and fluffy bread, usually costs 1 peso (0.04 USD). We have also found a third type of bread. It is fluffy and long. Costs only 3 pesos – the most economic one.

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If you will be lazy to cook, ask locals where to find a cheap poor restaurant for Cubans in an abandoned street. Once we were brought to such restaurant by our local friend. For 8.4 pesos (0.34 USD) we got 3 plates of bouillon with noodles, 3 portions of rice and beans, and one plate of pork mincemeat.

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For 1-3 pesos (0.04-0.12 USD) one can buy delicious cookies and sweets on the street. Another tasty sweet thing – 1 liter white-blue plastic bag with soya yoghurt, which costs only 3 pesos (0.12 USD). In order to find the place where they sell it ask locals. It seems that this yoghurt is sold randomly, every day in different cafeterias (cafes).

Internet

Internet connection is offered in modern offices of Cuban telecommunication company ETECSA and it is probably the most expensive Internet service in the world – 6 USD per hour. You have to buy 1 hour scratch-card with password, which you can use multiple times until the 1h credit is finished.

Save your used Internet password-cards. Once you are in another city, check if the login screen has a different interface. If yes – maybe you will be able to use your old expired card for another hour! We tested this with computers in Baracoa and Trinidad/Cienfuegos, where they use different Internet-cafe software (login interface is different).

Telephone

Do not buy ETECSA plastic calling card for 5 CUC, unless you need to call abroad. For making local calls, use the coin public phones. 3 minutes of call in the same city costs only 5 cents of Cuban peso. In comparison, with plastic calling cards 1 minute same-city-call costs 0.10 USD, which is 144 times more expensive! To do intercity calls with coin-phone costs 1 peso per 2 minutes.

Calling abroad is very expensive. To North America – 2.00 USD during the day (6.00-18.00) and 1.60 USD during the night. Rates for Europe are, respectively, 4.00 and 3.60 USD.

Conclusion

In the end two low-budget backpackers might survive in Cuba for 15 USD a day, considering that they will not use much Internet, will sometimes sleep in a tent and will be travelling by the cheapest means of transport – trucks and “amarillos”.