cycling around Cuba

I spent 2months touring in Cuba in Feb/Mar this year. I took my own bike and cycled about 2300 kms, virtually cycling from end to end plus a southern loop.

I renewed my visa, you can do it in the principal town of any state. As ever in Cuba not completely straightforward as you first have to buy stamps for cash value of visa in a bank. This can involve hour(s) of queing. Then go to local immigration office. That bit only took about half an hour. Check with casa owner where locall immi off is as sometimes there are new ones that are nearer centre of town. You can extend once and get 30 more days. You need to show your health insurance which is mandatory in Cuba.

Why waste time learning Spanish in Havana, when you could be cycling. Learn before you go.

Away from the touristy towns ( Havana, Trinidad, etc) which were buzzing every night, I found the place pretty boring after a while. A couple of grotty restaurants and no live music except on Saturday night in most provincial towns.

For good up to date info I suggest you look at the Cuba branch of Thorn Tree. There is a lot of knowledge there and if you follow it for a month or so then you can get most of your non cycling questions answered. One thing to be aware of is that most of the posters are Cubaphiles and so you rarely get negative comments about the country.

For example no one tells you that petty crime is rife so make sure you lock your bike and take it into your house at night. Be careful of being ripped off by money changers and other people dealing with tourist.

Also, you will often hear people saying that Cuba is a cycling paradise, in my opinion there are too many downsides to make it a paradise. Nonetheless, it is a very interesting place to cycle and well worth going.

Roads are usually paved, but some have a poor surface or very annoying joins in the tarmac every 10 metres which make cycling a pain.

There is often a strong wind, usually NE, plan your route accordingly. I started a round island trip and got as far as Trinidad going east and then gave up because of the wind and caught bus to Baracoa, then cycled back.

Although traffic is light once out of town, many of the vehicles are very old and very smokey. Being passed by a smoke belching truck can leave a bad taste for some time. Urban cycling can also be a lung busting activity.

You can only stay in authorised accommodation, this means that your route will be dictated by where there is accom. A guidebook like The Lonely Planet lists all towns with accom. There are a few cheap hotels open to tourists, but you will mainly stay in as a Casa Particulares which are private houses renting rooms. I didn't need to book, because if one was full, they were always be able to find me another, however you will be there at peak time so you might have problems and need to book.Cost is about 25CUC per room, although I usually bargained down to 20. Most will also do food - breakfast for 3-4 CUC and dinner for about 8CUC.

The tourist busses take bikes no problem for a small charge (about 12% of fare). These are good for covering the boring bits or avoiding retracing your cycling.

There are 2 sorts of money, tourist CUC (1=1US$) and moneda nacional (MN or CUP). Both are sometimes called peso. I always treated MN as peso (as the local do) and CUC as CUC. Scammers may quote prices in peso to confuse when they want CUC. You have to pay in CUC for most tourist stuff, but can use pesos for local food, etc. Using pesos things are very cheap, but very low quality. Using CUC things are expensive and moderately low quality! There are 24 MN peso to the CUC.

You can use plastic, but not from US origin eg MasterCard. I used my VISA card in ATMs and also over the counter in the moneychangers (CADECAs). Cash is also good, but not US$. There are ATMs in most of the major towns.

Getting anything western is often impossible so take any bike bits you may need. There are CUC stores in most towns where you can buy limited imported goods including some foodstuffs and water. Otherwise it is queuing up with the locals in the peso stores. Some shops are reserved for locals who all have ration cards.

Food is pretty poor. At first you will think it is OK as a plate load is placed in front of you. There will be rice and beans, a large slab of meat, fish or lobster and a small bit of shredded cabbage (the salad). Good filling stuff. The trouble is that the meal will be the same the next day and the next day, etc. After a few weeks I was cravng something different. The best value were peso restaurants, but even these served up the same fare. There were some local food bars that did things like spaghetti, which were a real 'treat'. There are also a few CUC pizza and pasta places that made a good break.

Fresh fruit is hard to come by, except for the stuff given with the standard breakfast (fruit, coffee, milk, eggs, bread, yummy but always the same). Bananas can sometimes be found on the road, but little else. There are vast areas of uncultivated fields, particularly in the East, presumably left when sugar cultivation ceased. I think this is because the state can't work out how to farm it without letting the proletariate have some sort of control over their own business.

Peso food on the road will be pizza - flat bread with a scraping of tomatoe sauce and a sprinkling of cheese, or Viking (canned) ham in bread rolls, or maybe even an omlette in roll for about 5 - 10 pesos (ie very cheap).

I took a small travel kettle, which is apparently an illegal import???, but it saved me loads as bottled water is fairly expensive and I like my tea to hydrate after a ride and in the morning. I believe GPS are also illegal. Internet access is very limited, usually only in Telecom offices at 6CUC per hour. Forget WiFi except in a couple of Havana hotels.

Sorry if this all sounds a bit negative, but after a while I got bored with the country and also really fed up with the system and how it was limiting the oppurtunities for the masses that the Government say they represent/champion/fight for/are the purpose of revolution - or so I read on the innumerable billboards. Nonetheless, I think it is an interesting place to go to and see before it changes completely.

Go and enjoy.

Thanks for all that information Simon. That is about as thorough as I could have hoped for. I've been learning Spanish for a few months but it seems Cuban spanish needs a bit of getting used to. I might have to leave the gps at home then! I was just planning to kinda circumnavigate the island, I don't suppose you've got any recommendations on things or places not to miss or to definitely miss.
Thanks again, John

My main regret was not cycling west along the coast from Santiago. The road was destroyed by a hurricane and is slowly being rebuilt. Apparently pretty wild and very beautiful. I couldn't do it because I had a problem with my pump and I couldn't risk it without one. I couldn't buy any sort of pump - bike or car in Cuba's second city!

Instead I rode too far east to west in the central region. Dry boring landscape and one wasted town after another. After a while it got me down. Once I headed out towards Vinales scenery picked up a lot, fields cultivated and a lot more interesting. If I were you I would pick what I want to see rather than trying to 'do it all' as I did. Maybe spend more time in places like Baracoa, Trinidad, Vinales, etc and do day rides - much better than flogging on along the central highway. These towns will also be more interesting at night and have better food, music, etc.

I was also wondering if it might be worth taking lightweight sleeping bag and mat. You are not allowed to wild camp, but if careful you can get away with it. I would be a bit worried about accom being full during peak season and so a fallback may be useful.

I didn't have my stuff even looked at by Customs, but maybe it was XRayed before the baggage hall. I risked the kettle, it was only a tenner. Your GPS would be more and a pain if confiscated. In typical Cuban style, you can have GPS in a phone presumably cos they can't work out how to stop that. I was OK with a map, I used the RoughGuide plastic one, about 4 quid from Amazon.

Cuba does have a very different form of Spanish - almost another language/dialect. From what I hear it is very much a locals thing and rarely understood by outsiders. They have no problem understanding standard Spanish, preferably S American type rather than the harsher sort spoken in Spain (or so I am told).

Thanks again Simon, that is more information than I would have hoped for. It's really helpful for my trip