- Speaker #0
Welcome to the Winging It Travel podcast with me, James Hammond. Every Monday I'll be joined by guests to talk about their travel stories, travel tips, backpacking advice and so much more. Are you a backpacker, gap year student or simply someone who loves to travel? Then this is the podcast for you, designed to inspire you to travel. There'll be stories to tell, tips to share and experiences to inspire. Welcome to the show.
- Speaker #1
All right.
- Speaker #0
Hi. I'm Alvarez. Welcome to the Wiganet Travel Podcast. How are you doing?
- Speaker #1
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for getting me on. This is the first time I've been on a travel podcast.
- Speaker #0
Okay. And you're a traveler though, aren't you?
- Speaker #1
Heck yeah. I've been traveling since I... I don't think I've gone a single year without being on a plane in my life.
- Speaker #0
I'm just making sure because this is a travel podcast. I haven't got a random politics podcaster here. You are a traveler. I am. That's fine. Cool. We're in. We're in. So today we're going to talk about Cuba because you're Cuban-American and you have a podcast about Cuba. Yes, I do. But before we get stuck into that, I'd like to ask the guest a bit of history. So growing up, was there any travel in your history? And where did you grow up as well?
- Speaker #1
Well, yes, there was a lot of travel. So I am what's considered a military kid or military brat, as they're often known. My dad was in the military, in the Navy, and then the Air Force. Long story. But we traveled a lot. In the first year and a half of my life. I moved. I was born in Alameda, California, and just moved almost every, at least every, or at minimum, or at maximum, every four years of my life. So I was in four high schools in four years. And in my formative years, I traveled. We lived in Italy, Argentina, and Bolivia. Bolivia. Bolivia is wonderful. And so I got to... be exposed to uh Europe while we were in Italy obviously and Latin America a lot um and also my uh not only am I Cuban-American my mom's Canadian so oh hello we were crossing a border into Canada long road trip from Florida to Canada I will say that is a heck of a journey with three kids yeah no that's a lot it's a lot it
- Speaker #0
was interesting I interview a lot of people on my podcast who have maybe traveled before in their childhood and it actually puts them off a little bit until later in life so maybe like what I'm saying is between ages of 10 to 20 they travel a lot because of family like you just said and then 20 to 30 they're like no I've traveled too much already I just want to stay down for a little bit and then it comes back around so when you left your childhood phase into adulthood were you still thinking travel is what I want to do or were you going more the career yeah I definitely was traveling a lot as even as an adult it's it's interesting because
- Speaker #1
I have two other samplings. They have a different relationship with travel than I do. Okay. One is like, I don't really like international travel. Another is also very much international travel, but actually even her work now pays her to travel a lot. So she has a different relationship there. For me, I've always been a solo traveler type person. I've loved it. So when I was actually in undergraduate school, I did a internship. with the U.S. mission to the U.N. agencies in Rome. So I was in Rome for a while by myself too, right, working, as well as I decided at the very, like, tail end of my trip, while I was there, I did a lot of travel within Italy too, like solo and with maybe a couple people I knew. But I did a solo backpacking trip for two weeks in Ireland, Scotland, and the U.K. So
- Speaker #0
I think in Italy. From there.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. I loved it. It was great. You know, a lot of people may consider like, ah, that wasn't too like risky as someone who's gone, gone traveling in other places outside of it. But I really loved it. And it was a very fulfilling trip, too. I am someone who loves to travel with other people, but I also really love traveling by myself. And I'm very, very comfortable doing so.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. What's interesting about what you said there is when I interview people as well and ask them if they've got any advice, a lot of US listeners, right? and notoriously us people don't travel that much especially for leisure they might travel for business and i asked like which i'm gonna ask you at the end so it's a bit of a heads up like what one or two sentences do you give just at least get out there and try something different and what i normally say is if you're american for example why not just hop to ireland it's not going to be completely off the grid it's going to be fairly similar but there are some nuances there and if you can make it across the uk and it's a little bit different as well but you're english-speaking it's a nice way into travel right is that what you felt when you're solo backpacking around for two weeks it must be at least
- Speaker #1
a tiny bit of pressure off you're not like in the middle of the Kazakhstan's or the Stalin's play and I think especially as someone who is you know assigned female at birth I get I definitely understand a lot of the fears around some solo female travelers and people who are marginalized identities and for me it really comes down to discernment in travel and you know, understanding your personal comfort level. Um, uh, but it also comes down to making sure that you have enough planning ahead of time to, that you know what to expect, you know, where you're going, you read up on other travel blogs or, or listen to travel podcasts with places where you're listening to potentially even travel by. That's, that's, that's something that, um, I know, at least for me, maybe it's, I definitely understand. I have the privilege of, uh, my comfort level is based off of my long-term even like formative year experience traveling solo traveling to other countries places where I don't speak the language so my comfort level is definitely different and I don't I don't I would never expect somebody who does not have that experience to have that same level of comfort and confidence and what's interesting about your childhood growing up is you've got lots of things going on so my next question is going to be you've got
- Speaker #0
Canadian and Cuban parents yes and you're American as well. So where is the awareness of your family history coming into it? Like what were you told growing up? Because I can imagine you get a lot of information coming in.
- Speaker #1
For sure. So it's interesting because, you know, we often joke in America as Canada is America Junior, which I disagree heavily with that because it is different culturally in a way. Obviously, the language is similar, but. One of the things that growing up, we obviously traveling and meeting and hanging out with my cute Canadian cousins, we would make fun of each other's accents, like relative accents. We would make fun of the fact that Canadians have bagged milk and stuff like that. Like it, it, there is, you know, there's a kind of a lighthearted culture clash, but treated in a way that is pretty, you know, especially with family. It's family, right? Yeah. you know, you take the mickey out of the way, you play around with each other's cultural differences. And I think that also exposed me a lot to understanding this fluidity of identity and cultural experience. In my Cuban side of my family, it's definitely stronger because the differences are stronger because of the language barrier. Growing up, I actually was not I was not taught Spanish by my father, which A lot. I did eventually learn. I'm not fluent, but I did eventually learn Spanish while living in Latin America. But my Cuban family, like, you know, music, food, we like my grandparents lived in Miami. So the cultural con, I was able to shift between, you know, regular America. I grew up in, you know, various places in Florida and Virginia when I was in the United States. But the cultural differences between Cubans in Miami, which is very intense and saturated, Canada, and my family was in Ontario. So there is a very, again, very Canadian. For me, I've always felt my identity and my experience with my family has been always very fluid. And I see my own identity as quite fluid in that, in, I guess, reaction.
- Speaker #0
Okay. I've got an interesting story about Miami. I dipped in there once for a night because I had to connect from Hawaii down to Rio for the World Cup in 2014. And I went to the airport and wanted to go and get a cup of tea. And I've been British. I need a cup of tea. And first of all, what shocked me, even though I was traveling for quite a bit, no English was spoken. And she said, no, we don't have tea. And I was like, hang on. So I can't ask for a cup of tea in English in America. Like this is, this blew my mind. So I had to get a coffee at a time. I didn't really drink coffee. Um, but it made me laugh. I was like, okay, so there is like a big spanish-speaking population here so when you're growing up like canada is obviously fine you can go to canada but like obviously going to cuba as an american is obviously very complicated yes so what were you told in terms of the opportunities maybe to go to cuba before we get stuck into that oh for sure well there was no opportunity while i was growing up because of the embargo and you know there were no flights from u.s soil to cuba
- Speaker #1
yeah unless they were illegal or uncharted you know whatever it's like I there was really the the understanding for me is that there was no way back to Cuba. And this is something I talk a little bit about on on my own podcast and that I'm hoping to kind of discuss further in the coming months is this idea that. the memory of Cuba as an island with my family and with the culture in Miami is kind of frozen in time, is frozen in that like pre-revolutionary period. And what was brought from Cuba into Miami was that snapshot in time. And I feel like the potential ability to go to Cuba was, there was also a of course, the political side of things, too, that it was just like, you know, Cuba is a communist country. You don't want to go there. It's impoverished, which, I mean, there's a lot of, you know, there's always a lot of truth in some of these things. But there's also bias and, you know, there's a reason why these preconceptions within Miami Cubans are around in terms of the very anti-communist thread in their politics. So I have a degree in international affairs. So I I you know, now that I'm older, I'm thinking also of through the lens of not just my personal family experience, but also that political, international, historical context.
- Speaker #0
Got so much to unpack. And there's a whole podcast in itself. But going into, let's talk about the journey going into Cuba, because after all you mentioned there, you have obviously been to Cuba. So what's the, when was the first time you went and how did it come about? And what era was that? I'm assuming Obama, but I might be wrong.
- Speaker #1
So for historical context, in 2017, President Obama reopened the embassy in Cuba. Or no, was it 2015? I'm sorry. I'm probably mixing up my days.
- Speaker #0
In the Obama era.
- Speaker #1
It was actually late into his presidency. It was one of the last big things that he did was normalize relations with Cuba. The gates opened. And there was initially, I had thought of like... I want to go. I want to take my chance to go. My family was still like, I don't know. I don't know if we want to go. And I had initially a thought of I wanted to go with my family to go to Cuba. And a few years went by, Trump is now in office, and he closes down a lot of flights to Cuba. So there's this, and at least for me, and it's funny, I actually thought that he had closed all flights to Cuba. I thought he reversed all of the things that Obama had done. But in fact, I only learned recently that he didn't. There were still flights going in, a couple of flights going into Havana during Trump's presidency. And of course, then Biden came into office. He's kind of reopened stuff. But then the pandemic happened. So, right, there's there's the pandemic happened. And so there wasn't Cuba itself had shut down as well. There really was no flight still because of the pandemic. And so for me, my journey to Cuba, I had always wanted to wanted to go knowing that things had been normalized. And I in December 2022, I sat down and I wanted to look and find a place to do a little bit of a writing retreat, because at the time I was writing my other my audio drama, Havana Syndrome, which comes out in November. I was currently writing and I wanted to like, you know, I had a week free. a single week free in December. So I was looking at my awards map. I had some airline points that I could use. I was looking at my awards map, seeing like where I could apply my points. And I didn't have a whole lot of points. It was pretty restricted. I wanted to also consider like how much hotels would be in whatever places, but I see a pin in Cuba and I'm like, do I actually have enough points to fly to Cuba in three days? This is three days ahead. This is a very short term, like, I want to go. I want to travel somewhere. Yeah,
- Speaker #0
I love it. Yeah.
- Speaker #1
See a pin in Cuba. And I'm like, maybe. No, no. I mean, it's Cuba. Like, I can't go to Cuba in three days with no other note, with no previous notice or no previous research. I see that I do, in fact, have enough points to get to Cuba.
- Speaker #0
Very interesting. Yeah.
- Speaker #1
I then like, OK, all right, this is getting weird. I open up. Airbnb because I because as an American I cannot um uh I cannot get hotels um that especially like like government-run hotels I have to focus on anything that is not government purchase because of the embargo embargo okay um a government run because of the embargo yeah uh so I was on Airbnb looking for uh casa particulares or is the term for like uh private citizen run got it yeah right yeah And I saw one, I saw a few that I had saved the previous year. And I saw that they had slashed prices for the exact week I wanted to go. Something like 75%. Wow. So I'm like, is this a sign from the universe that I need to go to Cuba in three days? So you got to understand, this is like, you know, 60 years of history. Yeah. That I'm like, that are all coming to the forefront in three days. Yeah. And so I text my husband and say like, haha, wouldn't it be funny if I just like randomly went to Cuba? And he told me like, just. Text it back. Do it.
- Speaker #0
Deadpan, just do it. Just do it. Just do it. Love it.
- Speaker #1
And I'm getting emotional now thinking about it, actually, because it was a very emotional moment, right? Because it was all that history coming forward. And it was something I've always wanted to do. And it felt like my universe was telling me, here you go. You can go. Don't worry about it. Just do it.
- Speaker #0
That's basically the mantra of the podcast. you got that in early just do it um so my next question is going to be you're going to Havana I imagine uh interestingly it's on my list I've not been and the one thing I was very surprised that is the Airbnbs are super cheap so we were looking at one Christmas one time like we can just go to like $15 book a nice apartment in Havana so it's still on my mind so why are you just thinking I'll just get to Havana I'll check into the Airbnb and just almost wing it as per the podcast is that what you're thinking
- Speaker #1
Yeah, for the most part, yes. I did because I had three days and I like when I really like, you know, I booked the flight, I booked the Airbnb and then I'm like, OK, well, my first priority was figuring out how I'm going to get there without, you know, TSA stopping me at the border saying what the hell I'm doing. Because that was on a spirit. At that time, there was no travel blogs that were updated since since the pandemic. Yes. In 2022. the uh the border or um cuba reopened tourism um in in the beginning of 2022 so there had only been a few months yeah yeah um so there was not a lot of like clear information of what i could even do there uh so i was planning on winging it i did on airbnb there are the experiences tab and primarily a lot of cuban tourists uh tour companies um or experiences go through airbnb so they can get you paid uh because of the weird financial situation it is better that you actually pay for if you want to do stuff yeah that you pay for things ahead of time because they get american dollars rather than when you're there with um the currency situation is also well we can talk about that come into currency yeah very uh very complicated so um i did look at a couple things and like you mentioned i was i was kind of gonna wing it there's like i wanted to do two specific things that i saw really interesting um one was a um it was a afro-cuban cultural exchange that was an experience where we actually went to a majority black afro-cuban neighborhood and that historically um cuban neighbor afro-cuban neighborhood uh and it got to experience um one of the sacred sites there which is a temple um regular you know de la Ocha or as is commonly known Santaria. So we got to meet Baba Lau, head of their spiritual community. And it was a very beautiful, it was a very beautiful experience. But we did that I decided I really wanted to do that. I was like, that's like something that's very meaningful for me spiritually. But I also wanted to do a tour with a sociologist to get kind of like the true story of what's going on right now in Havana. So those are the two things that like, popped out into my mind but because like I said I wanted to do this as a writing retreat of course oh yeah I wanted to have a lot more time to just explore and experience so
- Speaker #0
I want to touch on both those things you mentioned the the organized stuff and the writing retreat can you talk about maybe the stuff about just winging it a little bit so yes outside of those tours what were you thinking in terms of Havana you think about just walking around you got certain areas maybe certain foods coffees what are you thinking well old Havana you
- Speaker #1
Havana Vieja is the kind of quintessential Havana that you look at in seeing movies or people talk about it or like, you know, how Hemingway talks about it. All of his like old haunts are in old Havana. So I wanted to walk around there. The Malecon was also a big place to walk. That seawall, it's also an iconic seawall along Havana. And I just wanted to, like you said, just. walk around i didn't have any particular spots but i definitely wanted to walk around old havana and walk along the seawall uh just just listen Yes.
- Speaker #0
No headphones on. No headphones.
- Speaker #1
Listen and absorb and just feel what things were going on. There was one place that my grandfather wanted me to visit to see if it was still there. Yeah. So that was one place in the neighborhood of Vedado, which is, there's a lot of old houses, like standalone, like single family homes and like mansions. That's where kind of the wealthy Cubans were pre-revolution. Yeah. So that was another place like... I knew I wanted to kind of walk around and look and see. But because I was just going to be in Havana, I wanted to focus on Old Havana, which is actually quite a large chunk of Havana. And to go not just in the tourist areas, too. That was my big thing. I wanted to. And again, some people have a different level of comfort. I speak Spanish, so I'm pretty okay. And Cuban Spanish, too. um but i wanted to make sure that i could also see how a majority of people in havana were living life not just in the tourist areas and were you sort of dipping into the local establishments like for for lunch or for dinner or for coffee or drink was i i didn't have any restaurant reservations brilliant love that yes kind of like I every once in a while look on Google Maps, seeing like what's nearby, where I'm walking around. The one thing, too, again, because I'm an American, I have to apparently pay attention to which restaurants are privately run versus government run.
- Speaker #0
How would you even know?
- Speaker #1
That's the thing I didn't know.
- Speaker #0
So you got away with it.
- Speaker #1
The other thing, I'm using cash the entire time. Like I can't use a debit or credit card. all my banks, I can't connect.
- Speaker #0
We're coming to that,
- Speaker #1
yeah.
- Speaker #0
Hey, yeah, just a quick one. I just want to say there are many ways to support this podcast. You can buy me a coffee and help support the podcast with $5, or you can go to my merch store with the affiliate link with TeePublic where there's plenty of merch available to buy, such as T-shirts, jumpers, hoodies, and also some children's clothing. Thirdly, which is free, you can also rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Chaser. or good pods. Also, you can find me on social media on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok, simply just search for Winging It Travel Podcast, and you'll find me displaying all my social media content for traveling, podcasts, and other stuff. Thank you. And talk to us about the tours that you booked as well.
- Speaker #1
So the Afro-Cuban Cultural Exchange Tour is run by this really amazing center called Beyond Roots. And they are a salon actually dedicated to black hair and curly hair products.
- Speaker #0
Okay.
- Speaker #1
Right. And essentially hair care. Yeah. As well as clothing and fashion from local, primarily. women run businesses. So I highly recommend if you ever go to Cuba, they are absolutely fantastic, warm, welcoming people. Very, very educated in terms of the history. And so they're able to give you a lot of information that's not really known or not really shared and you know, you can't just go to like Wikipedia to learn something.
- Speaker #0
Got it. Yeah.
- Speaker #1
So that was absolutely wonderful to go to. Also, one of their spiritual centers centers their temple which was publicly accessible um it was essentially someone's house that was converted into a spiritual center there's a massive tree in the courtyard um a seba tree which is considered a sacred tree in uh in cuban uh african traditional religion yeah uh and it was it was just very it was very calming centering and i felt connected as someone who also you has an affinity for those types of spiritualities, I felt very happy and connected. And again, because I felt like the universe had called me to be there.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Speaker #1
Spiritual experience too. And of course, being able to have that cultural context that's very specific, because a lot of what we know of Cuban culture comes from Afro-Cuban traditions. So the food is very West African influenced. Drumming. right oh yeah very African the music 100 love music love the music I'm a huge fan of Celia Cruz like I I'm hoping to to get some of her estate can allow me to use her music in my well see um but that's uh that was such a wonderful experience and what was even better is that um there was only one other person on the tour with me um and she was a woman from California and her father was also had was cuban yeah and uh she was also the first person in her family to go back to cuba and when we like connected and like just started chatting she started to cry and i started to cry and our tour guide started to cry and it was very cuban we're very very emotional people so it was it was there was also an emotional component to that and that was actually this that was the second day I got to Cuba. So like that was straight in. I wanted to have that. And then the next tour that I did was with a sociologist from University of Havana. And this was a really kind of frank tour about modern Havana. For those who are listening, a little background of when this was, this was right after there was a currency change in the policy in Cuba. which caused what was considered the biggest round of protests and riots in Cuba in decades.
- Speaker #0
Decades, must have been, yeah.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. So this was a very intense moment politically in Cuba as well, because this was right after the crackdown on those protests. Yeah. Only months after. So this was the summer. That was the summer I was there in December. And. It's interesting, a lot of people talk about how Cuba, like the Cubans, they don't talk about politics. They don't have freedom of speech. My experience was very different. They were very willing to talk.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, we talked the same night, right, about there's the official line. And then if you get comfortable, there's the, I guess, the unofficial real line at the bottom.
- Speaker #1
And I think at the point when I was entering in is that official line was way blurrier because people were already kind of trying to talk about it. Yeah. And this is, this is. this was also very interesting and i this was right after the day after that other tour so i kind of like did um you know the first day i just sat like you know saturated myself and like sat on the malecon and cried um but i'm a crier and i don't know don't worry about it like that's that's just who i am um the second day was um that cultural exchange tour and then the third day was very and this this sociologist tour was just like an hour oh wow so it was very short um or no i was maybe an hour and a half it was not very long in the afternoon and it was just focused on the non-tourist area of havana dream and it was So she took me and one other person to, these are also very small tourists. There's not a lot of tourists around when I was there, which was also, you could tell the stress of a town that is relying on tourism post-pandemic. It was stressful, but I was able to benefit it from having that very kind of closer knit experience with the people who were leading the tours. So the sociologist brought us into some of the poorer. um areas in havana and some of the big things were like if you ever go into old havana and if you ever just wander around by yourself don't walk on the sidewalks oh because there uh are dangers that those old buildings yeah the terrorists the terraces are um liable to fall oh because they're okay right it's not the infrastructure is starting to crumble and you can see it you can see that there's there's an issue good tip um so that's so She was pointing out that, that especially the non-tourist areas are very neglected in terms of the infrastructure. And with regards to the people, one of the very eye-opening parts, there's stuff that I knew, things like bread lines and things like, I always forget the name. It's like the coupons that you use for ration coupons. Like she pointed out stuff like that. And I had seen those when I was walking by myself in those areas. But, you know, it was good to kind of have those pointed out. One of the other things that she pointed out was the bread lines. There was like clearly, you know, like maybe like, you know, 10 people outside one of the places. But and I actually have a photo of this. She told us to kind of look around the block. And there were just people kind of almost completely evenly spaced out. It looked like they were kind of on their own, just hanging out. But they're evenly spaced out around the entire block. And according to her. This was because the Cuban government gets people to do this. So it doesn't appear that there's a bread line all going all the way down the block.
- Speaker #0
Right. I'm trying to get my head around this. So in my in my eyes, it sounds like it's longer because it's spaced out. Yes, it is. Surely you want to be more closed in together to make sure it doesn't look as long.
- Speaker #1
But you actually if it's people are far enough space about it looks actually just like people are hanging out. oh got it it's okay it's it's it's it's quite it's quite interesting it's interesting yeah yeah to see it and and it um some so a lot of this tour was really focused on and from a cuban perspective which i think is really honest right um uh is the the struggles that cuban people are facing um and one of the other things was it was a very frank discussion about the protests that had just happened as well um we went into um one of the places that uh they went their offices and had a cafecito uh which is you i don't drink coffee either i'm a primary tea drinker oh i'm a coffee drinker now yeah well i i don't like coffee i will only accept coffee from a cuban and a cafe specifically a cafecito so what's this place cafe so it wasn't it wasn't a cafe it was an office office okay this was just like one-on-one she made coffee for for us and we're like we're going to talk about the protests that had okay yeah And she had pointed out earlier, there's graffiti. And it was on a couple of blocks that I had seen. It was two plus two equals five.
- Speaker #0
Oh, right ahead. Right. If you know them. Yes.
- Speaker #1
But it was something that was posted after the or during the graffiti specifically tied to the protest with this idea of misinformation and government censorship, things like that. Right. And we talked about how. the cuban people because i i asked them i asked her specifically uh you know what are some of the things in terms of how cubans right now see the us involvement in political involvement like who are they blaming for this situation and to be quite honest they're like primarily we're focused on holding our government accountable but we've always felt that the us also has a hand in this so for me though when i asked like well what do you think people like me you know average citizens who come what can we do to support cubans that are trying to hold their government accountable and hold our government accountable and one of the things multiple people i had asked this question in cuba said was get americans to come to cuba like they need to visit they need to see this for themselves they need to talk to us themselves and not just have you a filter of what's going on from our government, from the Cuban government, or Miami Cubans who've never been to Cuba.
- Speaker #0
Interesting. Yeah, because I think that's the big group. That's an interesting group for me. I don't know too much about it. the Miami Cubans who obviously moved to Miami for various reasons. I do wonder if they went back just to see for themselves what their, yeah, what their opinion would be as a whole.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. I actually have family who, who have family by marriage, who are also Cubans who more recently came to Cuba. I have an aunt who came from Cuba in the early two thousands and had gone, actually went back right after. with my uncle actually right after I went and um it's kind of a similar conversation of like you know there's it's about the poverty it's about like the lack of food and food accessibility and medical accessibility um so from what I understand from people who have left there is still a connection to to the place um and to the people but The entire conversation is about how impoverished people are and how people are struggling, which I think is a very important thing. But what for me is more important and I think more impactful and I can actually potentially hopefully address this problem is the relationships with the people on the ground, with the people that I met in cafes and on the street, in art galleries that were there. There's a great like independent art gallery. I can't remember. apologize i do not have the name of it but it is in old havana um and it's a artist collective and i bought a couple of piece of art pieces so talking with people like creative people um and with the the tour guides like it was very fulfilling people in the i also went to the beach um oh yeah outside right outside havana there i just took a bus uh local bus yeah yep to um i believe it's called saint mary like it's like um maria santa um beach i don't know i can't remember exactly the name of the beach but it's right outside there's a there's a major kind of more tourist beach a couple hours away from havana but i just went to the local beach yeah um uh and so talking people there too like it was for me my experience was yes acknowledging the history and the the real struggle that people and stress people were under um but also for me it was building relationship with the island yeah and with the people
- Speaker #0
Yeah, that's the most key point. Okay. I want to go to some like quickfire travel questions about Cuba because people might want to know some certain things on how to do it. So let's do money. We talked on cash earlier. Yes. What is the situation with Cuba with money? How do we, like, I don't even know. I would take U.S. dollars, but then you can't obviously, I don't know.
- Speaker #1
Oh, yes. Okay. So I will say for Americans, it's different, period. Right. Pretty much everywhere else, everyone else, it's. You can bring your visa, your MasterCard, your debit or credit card.
- Speaker #0
And like euros and Canadian dollars would be fine? Oh,
- Speaker #1
they're all accepted. It's American dollars that are in an interesting place. And American banking, which is in an interesting place. So currently, with the current currency situation, there is one Cuban peso. There used to be one that was aligned with the dollar. They got rid of that, and that was what caused the... protests yeah but just to kind of understand what the situation is now um there is the cuban essentially the cuban peso um and then there is the uh everyone everything else there's the street money right oh yeah this sounds like argentina argentina is the same as the street money on the black market yeah and what i was told very frequently is like i had for me as an american i had to bring all the cash i was going to use for the five days so i'd be very conscious about what cash is that then american I had to bring all US dollars.
- Speaker #0
So you're bringing American cash.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. I'm able to exchange money in official locations like at the airport. And I did just to get a little bit of cash.
- Speaker #0
To get going.
- Speaker #1
Just to get going. But one thing I was told is that you want American dollars because most of the people on the street want American dollars, euros. Those are the kind of the two biggest kind of. And the exchange rate on the street is way different than it is at the airport. So. What I would recommend to people, regardless of whether or not you're American or you're European or anywhere else, is that you bring, I would say, bring American dollars if you're able to take out American dollars before you come or euros. And then on this, maybe like change a little bit if you have to pay for a taxi. Some of the taxis are like, I can only take it right now because it's official. But some taxi, most taxis will also be like, you can just, I prefer. dollars or euros. And for me, it was kind of day to day where I would have I would have a, I would say a split for my like daily budget, I would have about like 75% dollars and 25% pesos. That's kind of that was kind of my plan. And if I needed to convert more, yeah, I would try to convert more. I did run into the problem of having a too big of a of a of a dollar like or a big um bill i had like a 50 bill oh and uh yeah there was it was it was it was a but i managed to find some very gracious taxi drivers that like took me to and you know this goes back to safety i felt very safe too i was coming to that yeah um and i let them there's like they take me to like a little corner shop where they like gave them my 50 i was talking to them about the world cup at the time and They took my $50 bill. They changed it for, or they broke it into dollars for me. Yes. So like not even just pesos, like dollars. And then I gave them whatever dollars to get a little bit of pesos back and then paid them in dollars for the service and to drive me back to my Airbnb.
- Speaker #0
Okay. And you mentioned budget. Yes. What is a nice, healthy sort of budget as in cheap or mid-range budget per day, do you think?
- Speaker #1
Okay. So while I was there, I'm good. granted this is 2022 inflation all that jazz um i budgeted a hundred dollars a day okay um i would say now if you want to be comfortable with and this is just like day-to-day getting food um drinks as well no not accommodation okay so so and maybe i'm thinking about this because accommodations i booked ahead of time i paid for and the tours ahead of time yeah So for me, I was thinking like, you know, walking around money, $100 a day. I would budget when it comes to stays. Like you said, there's some really, really cheap stays. You can stay for like $10 to $20 a night, which is really great. But even the like higher end, you're not spending any more than $100 a night. Yeah. So I would budget, you know, no less than $100 or no more than $100 a night. Got it. If you're planning to go to some of the really nicer hotels that are government run because you are not American, you can go to those hotels. I'm not entirely sure how much,
- Speaker #0
but I think those are probably not just those hotels. Yeah. OK, what about I was going to ask because we've got about eight minutes left. Yes. I want to get to your stuff as well. It's a quick fire. Give us a dish that we should try locally.
- Speaker #1
A dish. I will not say a dish. Drink.
- Speaker #0
Oh, liquid food.
- Speaker #1
Yes. No, no. Mojito. OK, I will also do the dish. But like. The mojitos and the daiquiris has like coconut in it. So it's like great. They know how to do their alcohol. Obviously with food, croquetas. So croquetas are little fried rolls with usually ham and cheese. I will say the meat is not readily available. The most meat that you're probably going to find is going to be chicken. You're not really going to see any other meat in restaurants. You'll see fish. But I would say the biggest meat that you'll find is chicken.
- Speaker #0
Okay. And you mentioned public transport before. Yes. So getting around maybe Havana, even probably going further into Cuba. Local buses are fine. Taxis are fine. Yes. Yeah. No problems with safety or getting ripped off.
- Speaker #1
No, no. I would absolutely say that, like, especially if you're carrying around dollars. Like, you can look online now to see what kind of the going rate is for getting in and around Havana. I don't know. On the top of my head. You figure out. pretty quickly what the standard is to get around certain neighborhoods.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And what about needing to speak Spanish?
- Speaker #1
That is a pretty high demand. There's definitely, if you're not with a tour group or have a translator with you, the taxi drivers, a lot of them will speak Spanish, especially if they're kind of, if I know a lot of people go to Cuba who actually just get a taxi driver the whole time they're there. That taxi driver will just take them to places and be their translator, essentially.
- Speaker #0
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Okay, and then walking around Havana, interacting with locals, you'd obviously recommend that highly. Oh, yes. I guess that's just in the cafes and the bars and the restaurants, right? Yes. I can imagine they're welcoming people. Oh,
- Speaker #1
for sure. And, you know, it's interesting because while I was there, there was definitely still that stress. And I feel people weren't as willing to talk. But once I was willing to talk, they warmed, they were like, oh, this is more friendly and like hanging, kind of like hanging out. And it was definitely like at bars, at shops as well, of course. Like, you know, if you wanted, like. when I went to this art gallery like artist collective like we sat around and chatted for like an hour so there's definitely a willingness to talk and in Cuba is there any place that you wish you went maybe if you went next time yes you're going there that's maybe not havana there is actually a space in havana that i'm going to go to it is a it's an it's an arts and music uh like it's very very famous um they do a lot there's a lot of concerts there there's a lot um kind of art galleries um modern art experiences there i wish i had gone i didn't it was a kind of like further out of oh out in a way where i was staying and havana um uh but i highly i would definitely want to go I also do want to do the kind of traditional horseback riding and tobacco farm tours. That was one place. The other places I would love to go, and my family has a list of places of where my family used to live. And I wasn't able to go because that's further up. So a couple of those places are outside of Havana.
- Speaker #0
Okay, Lissa, we've got five minutes left. Yes. Tell us about you and where you've gone. You've got four minutes. It's going to be The last minute is going to be why someone should travel. So get thinking about that. Great. So tell us about your podcast coming up, what you've got now, and also where people can find you on social media and website.
- Speaker #1
All right. Well, the great thing is, is I've been practicing all podcast movement with this pitch. So let's go. All right. So I run Stormfire Productions. We're a fiction podcast production company. Our newest shows coming out is Once Upon a Time in Havana, which actually details a lot of my story in the context of U.S.-Cuba history and geopolitics. Um, I'm really excited for this cause it's ongoing. It's going to be weekly through October. The first two episodes are out. I was a little late to this recording cause I was finishing the second episode. Um, uh, but I'm really excited for that. Um, the, this is all leading up to, um, my biggest project that I have ever done, which is called Havana syndrome, which is based off of the conspiracy theory around, uh, the strange sounds that diplomats spies. and military officials have been hearing since the reopening of the embassy in Havana. And I am going into this with the fictional story. The fictional, I don't know anything about a conspiracy, what the real conspiracy is about, or do I?
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
Havana Syndrome is about a sibling, a sister who goes AWOL from the CIA, trying to find the source of this sound and her siblings'journey to try to find her.
- Speaker #0
Oh, and... social medias and websites?
- Speaker #1
Social medias and websites is you can find us at stormfireproductions.com. Both the podcasts I just mentioned are going to be on HavanaSyndromePodcast.com. You can find us on social media, on Instagram at Stormfire Productions, on TikTok at Stormfire.audio. And sign up for our newsletter. We'll keep everybody updated on all the journeys and international intrigue that we're going to be exploring and my hopefully future travels.
- Speaker #0
amazing and we're gonna well i'm gonna put the show notes um sorry i'll put links in the show notes of the two tours that you mentioned yes and all the stuff you just mentioned as well so people can find you we've got three minutes and normally my my feature end of the podcast is quickfire travel questions not exclusively related to cuba this is worldwide travels with the last question bit why so much of travel all right so the first one is it's travel question time give us top three countries that your favorites that you travel to top three countries cambodia japan you
- Speaker #1
And Italy. I just love Italy. Okay.
- Speaker #0
That's a popular answer.
- Speaker #1
I lived there. Yeah, I love Italy.
- Speaker #0
Okay. Three countries you've not been to that's next on your hit list.
- Speaker #1
Kenya, China, and I've been to Mexico, but I've always wanted to go to Mexico City. And that's actually one of the places that Havana Syndrome is going to be set in.
- Speaker #0
Oh, I'm going there in November. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And top three favorite cuisines worldwide.
- Speaker #1
Japanese food, Mexican food and Cuban food.
- Speaker #0
Okay. Are you a sunrise or sunset person?
- Speaker #1
Oh, that's hard because I am a morning person. So I would say sunrise, but gosh, I love a beautiful sunset. So I don't know. That's hard. I can't say it, but I am notoriously a morning person.
- Speaker #0
That's great. Okay. If you could live somewhere tomorrow for a year, where are you going to live that's not?
- Speaker #1
point i'm gonna rule out cuba i'm gonna rule out usa um japan i just visited japan okay in this past november and it was funny because it was like oh my god the metro oh my god or the the the just transit system is so amazing and um
- Speaker #0
i could totally we were there my husband and i were there for three weeks like yeah a whole year okay if you could sit somewhere for an afternoon with a cup of tea or drink and just watch the world go by where are you going to sit i would sit
- Speaker #1
There's the, they call it the cat ruins in Rome. It's where supposedly Caesar was stabbed to death. But it's like there's cat, there's it's just like a little forum that's like all like all set aside in Rome and it's just full of cats. And I have actually sat there and watched the world go by before.
- Speaker #0
Okay. And the last question in the podcast, if someone's nervous right now about traveling, give two or three sentences as to why they should go and make the leap to go and travel and expand their horizons.
- Speaker #1
I think one of the most important. parts of our human experience is experiencing other people's stories and the best way to truly experience what it's like understanding and hearing other people's stories is by traveling to a culture a language a religion any ethnic group our nation that is completely outside of your experience and i think it makes us more human by expanding those boundaries and beyond those borders amazing answer that's that thanks for coming on to the podcast i've learned so much about cuba it's now my list proper list next year
- Speaker #0
thank you for tuning in today yeah you've been inspired by today's chat and want to book some travel if you head to the show notes you'll see some affiliate links below which helps support this podcast you'll find skyscanner to book your flight you'll find booking.com to book that accommodation want to stay in a super cool hostel you'll see hostel world down there too you'll find revolut to get your travel card sorted click the gig sky link to get your e-sim ready for your trip and more importantly you'll find safety wing insurance to get that travel insurance for your trip. There are many more to check out. So when you click that link and book your product, a small commission goes towards me and the Wiganet Travel Podcast. Thank you in advance and enjoy your travels.
