out of the beaten track

Hi,
I've planned to stay 7 weeks in Cuba this summer and I want to travel out of the beaten track, walking as much as possible, hitchhiking and eventually using the local buses. I think about starting my trip in the south west part of the island and then heading north. I just would like to know if you have some nice areas to recommend me in the south as well as in the north. I will also take my tent to be more independent but I don't know if it's possible to camp anywhere in the countryside. Thanks very much for your help. Bye, Nad

Please note your toursit visa will be good for 30 days only - with your date of arrival counting as day #1 and requiring ydeparture no later than on day #30 - do a board search for visa extension, which will give you the requirements for extending your first tourist visa, best done on day 25/26 fand the extension requires you to leave no later than 30th day from date of extension which counts as day#1.

Just so you know buddy..

Travel in Cuba---directionally speaking---is usually described as east/west as opposed to north/south. Unless you are flying on a charter flight out of Canada you will probably be arriving in Havana which is on the northern coast in the western half of the island. From Havana people will usually visit the Vinales area to the west and/or then head east towards Santiago de Cuba, which is the largest city in the eastern part of the island. There are a number of places between Havana and Santiago in the central provinces which are popular such as Trinidad, Camaguey, Cienfuegos, Santa Clara, Holguin and Bayamo. There is also a city on the NE coast of Cuba---Baracoa-- that many people visit. I suggest you look at a map that includes the major highways and roads to be a better handle on the geography.

You need to do a lot more research on the transportation options. Your plan to hitchike,walk and use local buses may not be practical for a number of reasons. Accomodation in rural areas is somewhat limited for one thing and camping is at best problematic. You also need to be aware that you can only stay legally in Cuba on the tourist card for 30 days (unless you are Canadian) although that can be extended. There is a recent thread that describes the process of extending the tourist card.

As some posters have been known to say---you need to do a lot more research and planning before you set out on this trip. You can start by reading the FAQs which will give you an overview of travel related issues in Cuba. A good guide book will also be invaluable. This forum is a good source of information on specific details, but you need to do a little more background work and then come back with specific questions.

Really off the beaten track with some good landscape and sparse population that would love to see you are the following:
- Guanahacabibes...don't get lost, there's not much help around
- Isla de la Juventud: anything outside the capital and especially the southern part is the definition of off the beaten track. You do need a permit to enter the southern part of the island by car, but i am not sure if that's true for walkers. Ask at Ecotur, they are VERY helpful, if somewhat chaotic. Cocodrilo is a true revelation.
- Mountainous or farming areas around the Oriente, like in Granma region or even campo Camaguey

Expect to face tremendous heat in the summer. Even in autumn (my favourite time for traveling around Cuba) temperatures can be frightening for hikers, especially in the Oriente. You will need loads and loads of water. As always, pack as light as possible.

Bring your tent along (a light one), but you will find out that more often than not you will be invited to homes by local families, especially since you are a female and a rather young one I suppose. Unlike other parts of Cuba, in very provincial areas, some people seem to be offended if you leave them money for letting you spend the night at their home. Nevertheless, buying the materials for a good dinner, or leaving something useful back (in my case it was razors and books... Cubans love books, too bad they weigh so much) is a fantastic idea to pay them back for putting up with you (I had families of 4 people sharing 2 beds so that I can sleep on their bed and they wouldn't take a word about it).

7 weeks is a great space of time, but as fabbris suggests, you will need to renew your visa. You will have enough time to see both highlights and the true Cuba. Bring a hat (very useful for hitchhiking), don't forget to make a big stash of CUPs in Havana (very useful in the villages and CADECAS are unheard of in some places) and polish your Spanish becausqe you will need it. I have never read Cycling in Cuba, but it may be more useful than any other guidebook in your case, even if you don't cycle. Look for any hiking guides, especially in Spanish. The Guide Routard general guidebook is better than LP (haven't read their latest one, though) in my opinion.

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<hr>Bring your tent along (a light one), but you will find out that more often than not you will be invited to homes by local families. . . . . Unlike other parts of Cuba, in very provincial areas, some people seem to be offended if you leave them money for letting you spend the night at their home.<hr></blockquote>
Yorgos---Are you saying that in el campo Cubans will allow foreign backpackers to camp out on their property or that they will invite backpackers inside to spend the night? I have read ttjpdo posts where she says she has done the camping out part, but I don't know that I have ever seen someone say that camposinos routinely offer free (or for a small donation) accomodation for backpackers in transit. At the least, offering accomodations under any circumstances would raise some legal issues.

You certainly have more experience touring the country than I do, but what the OP wants to do (hitchiking, camping out, local buses) sounds a little more difficult than you seem to imply in your post.

Nad,
I cannot remember if it was you but I wrote a pm to someone a few days ago about me being in Cuba, checking out the unbeaten track as well.
I will be in Cuba in August & a little bit of July & Septembre where I continue to Mexico
If you feel like it we could look at the situation together?
When we will you be there?

Hang on, i will write you a message instead

yeeha

NAD: I prefer to offer people advice on what they want to do, rather than suggest that they do something else entirely, but in your case...I recommend that rather than start in the southwest corner of Cuba, you start in the northeast, at the town of BARACOA.

Why not the southwest? Well, if it's Isla de la Juventud or the Guanahacabibes Peninsula you're thinking of, virtually the whole of the Guanahacabibes Penninsula, and about half of Isla de la Juventud it is forbidden to enter without a guide. I have cycled and camped in both areas. Each of them affords at least one truly gorgeous beach, but the scarcity of drinking water and the distance you would have to travel to find any makes camping difficult. You not only have to buy and carry with you what you need by way of food, water, and camping equipment, but also all that for your guide. Transportation likewise. If you go there by bike, you need to rent a bike for your guide. If you go there by foot, can you get a guide to accompany you on foot? Well, maybe. Their rate is about 10 CUC/day--or was last I heard. But how far do you want to walk carrying all that food and water and camping gear? In, what I might add, is a blazing hot, very dry part of the country. Few people live in these two areas, primarly due to the fact that their water has to be trucked in. What little water comes from the ground in those areas is often contaminated by salt water to the point that it is undrinkable. This is even true at the resort of Maria la Gorda, which is about the only place on the Guanahacabibes Peninsula that foreigners are allowed to go without a guide.

If you were not thinking of Guanahacabibes Peninsula or Isla de la Juventud, but are considering the southwest coast of mainland Cuba, I can tell you from direct experience that there are precious few nice beaches on Cuba's southwest coast, due to three factors: (1) large rivers flowing into the sea muddy the water for miles around; (2) bad hurricanes have totally removed many beaches, leaving behind a rubble of stones and smashed seawalls; and (3) nowhere in Cuba are the biting black gnats WORSE than along that coast.

By contrast, the northeast part of the island is tropical and beautiful, with countless little cove beaches where one can camp, sometimes with fresh water nearby, and always with trees for shade and tie-down. There is also a whole mountain which also offers good hiking and camping. Plus, in the very, very northeast corner of the island, a high plateau where Cuba's best coffee is grown, which sees virtually no foreigners (except the odd Haitian refugee who fetches up there on a raft, is soon apprehended, and shipped back to Haiti.) The best place to start exploration of this area is the pleasant little town of BARACOA, which you can reach in a 1-hour flight from Havana or in about 24 hours by bus. From there, along the beach in both directions, and up into the mountains, is great. Ditto the coast to the west of Santiago, and the Sierra Maestra mountain range, too.

Hitchhiking in Cuba is possible but not easy, for the simple reason that it is flatly illegal for anyone who is not licenced to transport a foreigner to transport you, and because there are so many Cubans already on the road looking for rides. Most drivers, both Cuban and foreign, would prefer to pick up a Cuban hitchhiker than a foreigner. Hitching is not made any easier by the fact that in the southwest areas mentioned earlier, there is precious little traffic. However, in the far EASTERN part of the island, it is not so difficult. Or I should say, it's usually possible to get a lift in a truck, tractor-drawn cart, horse and buggy, or something like that. (Always for payment of a few CUC, of course).

I would suggest that you carry the lightest possible tent, with plenty of cord for tie-down, because Cuban beaches are terrifically windy at night!, and when you come to a campismo (there are close to 100 of these scattered around the coast and up in the mountains) see if you will be allowed to rent a campismo cottage there. In out-of-the-way places they usually run 5 CUC/night. Each cottage has a bunk bed, flush toilet, and cold-water shower (no soap, towel, or TP). Since they lack screens to keep out mosquitoes, I often pitched my little tent inside a cottage, and used it in leiu of a mosquito net, which I did not have.

However, do be aware that not all campismos will allow a foreigner to stay there, either in a cottage or in their own tent. I did have a few turn me away, at most inconvenient times (like on rainy, exhausted days). But usually, after chatting with the managers a bit, and convincing them that I was not going to whine because the facilities were so basic, they'd let me stay, at a cost of 5 CUC or less. Often they turn foreigners away because they know from experience that most foreigners expect such things as soap and toilet paper, which they don't have--and they don't want to be made to feel ashamed. So if you show yourself to be self-sufficient, respectful, and understanding, usually they will be, too.

Pretty much the same thing applies to camping anywhere in Cuba. One poster recommends "stealth camping," but I always found that it worked better to speak respectfully to someone local--the head of the vigiliante committee if there was one nearby--and ask permission. It was always granted, and I was never hassled; sometimes though, shown to a different (better) campsite than the one I had chosen.

ALTAHABANA: re your #4 post and Yorgos' #3 post, he is basically correct in all details; people far out en el campo will often invite a traveler to stay and share what little they have. But not always or in every place. I passed two very sick days in an area in southwest Cuba where I could have used shelter (or more to the point, a close-at-hand toilet), and was never invited. In many other places I WAS invited, but did not accept because of the risk it might have posed to them, their casas not being licenced to host foreigners. Anyway, I preferred my tent, and never was denied a place to pitch it.

NAD: I did regularly eat in the homes of rural people, sometimes being invited, and sometimes inviting myself (watching for chickens around the house as a means of determining where I might find a good breakfast). A most memorable meal was prepared for me in a dirt-floored home build of driftwood and other debris just after a hurricane had passed through and left the village in shambles (this also on the south coast, a little to the west of Surgidero de Batabano.) Somewhere along that same coast I was also allowed to put up in the ruins of a hurricane-destroyed campismo. As was often the case, the person in charge did not even want to accept payment--but in my view, any foreigner who accepts hospitality from people in such economically-stressed circumstances should, as Yorgos suggests, leave something. Money is easy. The trick is to carry something to leave (not too heavy for you and which will be of value to them), when they don't want to accept money. I often resorted to leaving the money somewhere (like under a pot in the kitchen) where it would be found only after I'd gone on my way, thus expressing my gratitude while saving (I hope) their pride.

Altahabana,

yes, my experience is that the more isolated a place is, the more chances you have to be invited to sleep at someone's place or front yard. Let me add that by "off the beaten track" I mean really off the beaten track. I am not insinuating that anyone arriving at Ciego or Camaguey will be hosted by local volunteers. Legal repercussions did not seem to be an object for our hosts in several isolated communities and even in one not so isolated one, but not really touristy (Jaguey Grande). In some places the nearest house is not even visible and io Isla de los Pinos our hosts even invited as many neighbours as they could to meet us. CDRs do not seem to care there and jealousy from non existent legal casa owners or neighbours is probably not as apparent as in other places.

In some occasions we were given directions to other relatives of our hosts who would be happy to host us, too. I think one factor that contributed was that we didn't have a tent and Cubans semed to be astonished that someone would simply sleep on a beach (jejenes can be a real pain, btw), the fact that we both spoke Spanish from well to very very fluently and my friend's ability to make instant portrait sketches and give them as a present to kids, farmers and old women was a plus. I even interviewed a series of people for my thesis and although the tape recorder was not always well received, in most cases it posed no probs.

Regarding local buses, I do not think there is anything difficult in that, provided you do not expect comfort or speed. Using Astro is something I would not recommend for various reasons, but I have never had any problems getting on a camion with the help of los amarillos; i jst registered like anyone else. CUP buses between neighbouring cities (like between Trinidad and Sancti Espiritus) were easy to use too, and their frequency even allows some space.

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<hr>but what the OP wants to do (hitchiking, camping out, local buses) sounds a little more difficult than you seem to imply in your post. <hr></blockquote>
I do not know much about the OP, but I supposed (perhaps immaturely) that the poster is an experienced hiker who has done this before. As she has time in her hands, I think all of the above activities are safe to do in Cuba (having in mind the usual precautions that apply everywhere) and much easier than in other places. Time is the thing you need and with 7 weeks I think she has more than enough and certainly more than we did. Everything is easier and clearer after your first week of rough travel in Cuba and from some point on it's like a chain, things just go smoothly. Nevertheless, this mode of traveling is not for everyone, but this can be said about anything related to travel.

I think traveling this way (slowly, walking, accepting hospitality when it comes by and spending time in places that are not recommended in any guidebook) is the best way to get to know Cuba. Let me add that we had absolutely zero hasslingwhile visiting villages. We once left a few CUCs in someone's bathtub to thank for letting us sleep in her son's room and for the greatest "caldo" I've ever had in Cuba. I only opened my guidebook a couple of days later to find our money was put in there (she had probably used the toilet in the night), with a note saying that we shouldn't have done this and that she would be happy to have us home again. I hold these incidents to be more representantive of Cubans than the jinetero crap and that's why I often react to generelasing comments like "ALL Cubans wil see you like walking ATMs", "Cuba has 11 million hustlers" etc.

Perhaps I have idealized such gestures and shaped the opinion that they are the rule and not the exception, but this Cuba exists, it's out there and I hope the OP will have a great experience of it, offering us a report in the end. I really envy her for having 7 weeks and the physical conditions and will to do this.

yorgos

p.s: regarding which campismos accept foreigners, you can actually ask at the campismo headquarters, on Paseo right after the North Korean embassy. However, I understand that you are not likely to find too much availability in summer.

p.s 2: I hope my posts do not give the impression I am remotely as knowledgable as ttjpdo on the subject; i am not.

I'd say you are as knowledgable, Yorgos--probably because of that speaking Spanish "very, very fluently."

I too become tired of the repetition of some posters here who characterize all Cubans as hustlers and "walking ATMS." I know it may have felt like that to them, but to me it reveals only the (very limited) places they have circulated within Cuba.

We all know that a huge number of Cubans still live entirely outside the CUC economy--and there was that thread a while back in which all the posters, without exception, admitted that they had NEVER been ripped off by someone when the transaction was in CUP. Or put another way, by the vast majority of Cubans.

All your good experiences with Cuban generousity and hospitality bring to mind many of my own. I concur that the further off the beaten path the better; at the same time, I remember a Cuban lady on vacation in an apartment overlooking the beach in Guardalavaca who came calling at my tent down the beach and insisted I move it up under her balcony where we would not be molsted, as camping on the beach (in the hotel zone, as this was) was not allowed. In actual fact, I don't have ANY bad camping stories, anywhere in Cuba. Not from people anyway; the loud music some places, and the jejenes everywhere (OP--those are the biting black gnats I mentioned before, so prevalant along the southwest coast and Guanachabibes Peninsula as to make that camping there a real hassle, since they are tiny enough to get through the mesh of most tents, and nothing, but nothing, will keep them off except a DEET insect repellant; best 30%, applied every few hours--and at that I promise they'll find the spots you miss.)