Exploring and Living in Cuba

Travel to Cuba

Monday, 08 February 2021 11:33

Cuba to offer vaccine to arriving tourists

Tourists will be given the option, if they want, to be vaccinated in Cuba as well TODAY CUBA – Cuban doctors have been hailed across Africa and Latin America for providing the “backbone” of numerous nations’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the US government has attacked the medical brigades, claiming they are engaging in human trafficking and has encouraged nations such as Brazil and Bolivia to expel them. Tourists arriving in Cuba will be offered the chance to be vaccinated against COVID-19 if they so choose, a leading Cuban doctor recently said. The country is developing four vaccines for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and has plans to rapidly vaccinate the entire population. “Would you travel to Cuba to get vaccinated?” asks a recent video produced by TeleSUR. In the video, Vicente Vérez, the director of Havana’s Finlay Institute medical research center, says the country intends to produce 100 million doses of the Soberana 02 vaccine this year and to vaccinate the entire Cuban population of 11.3 million people. The country will also offer the vaccine to Iran, Venezuela, Vietnam, and India. “Tourists will be given the option, if they want, to be vaccinated in Cuba as well,”…
In this article you will find useful tips not only to spend less money in your next trip to Cuba, but also to do things more intelligently and, sure, to make many things easier. The final goal of this writing is to help you to make your life in Cuba more handy. These tips are not suitable for a completely inexperienced traveler. If you will visit Cuba for the first time, this article is probably not for you, even if you can still apply some tips. But in this case, you should better first familiarize yourself with the country and the place, then begin consider to make things better. But let's go to the tips!
Friday, 10 June 2016 08:48

Our real man in Havana

Our Man In Havana (1958) is a famous novel set in Cuba by the British author Graham Greene. He makes fun of intelligence services, especially the British MI6, and their willingness to believe reports from their local informants. The book predates the Cuban Missile Crisis, but certain aspects of the plot, notably the role of missile installations, appear to anticipate the events of 1962. The book is a black comedy set in Havana during the regime of Cuban dictator and Castro’s predecessor, Fulgencio Batista. Briefly, James Wormold, a vacuum cleaner retailer, is approached and offered a job working for the British secret service.Because Wormold has no information to send to London, he fakes his reports using information found in newspapers and invents a fictitious network of agents which later leads to many complications. The book was adapted for a film with the same name and takes the action of the novel and gives it a more comedic touch. Well, our real man in Havana really has nothing to do with the novel or movie by the same name. He is our Cuban contact or facilitator. His name is Eddie “G” and here lives in the neighborhood of Vedado. The latter…
Monday, 07 September 2015 14:41

Cuba Preparing For Biggest U.S. Invasion Ever

Cubans Ready To Welcome Influx Of American Visitors. TODAY CUBA – It will be the largest number of American tourists to arrive in Cuba since the 1959 Revolution. The increase is expected to exceed the 50% of visitors who have already made their bookings. While authorizations for all kinds of travel and transportation companies are multiplying in the U.S., moving beyond the tourist blockade of the island, Cuba is declaring that the last quarter of 2015 could beat all records in U.S. tourism since the Revolution given that so far and despite visa restrictions American tourist presence has increased by 50%. An absolutely clear signal is that hotel chains have started to work out agreements with the almost 20,000 privaterooms that provide cheap accommodation in Cuba, by hiring beds to which tourists will be redirected when they have no space. These agreements are quite unprecedented since private rooms for rent are – at least in theory – illegal and up to this point the big chains had never dealt with the issue except to criticize these accommodations where necessary. 70% of these unofficial rooms are located in Havana. The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has already approved the lifting of the…
Despite the travel limitations imposed by the U.S. government, there has been a 54 percent increase in the number of visitors from the United States during the first six months of this year. A lot of people have skirted the travel restrictions by first going to countries like Mexico, Costa Rica, the Bahamas or Jamaica, and then on to Cuba. According to the Ministry of Cuban Tourism 88,996 Americans visited Cuba between January 1, 2015 and July 26, 2015. This is without counting the 164,368 Cuban Americans who traveled to the island during the same period of time. In 2014 only 57,768 visitors came from the U.S. It is predicted that by the end of 2015 almost four million tourists will have visited Cuba with around 150, 000 coming from the U.S. Indeed the country is becoming more and more popular due the improved relations with the U.S. and the fact that it is safe for Americans to travel there. Furthermore, it is widely believed that many of the tourists who traditionally visit Cancún, the Mayan Riviera, the Dominical Republic or the Bahamas will now visit Cuba instead. Tourism is one of the mainstays of the Cuban economy and it…
Tuesday, 28 July 2015 12:54

The Daiquiri has a new king

The famous Havana Bar El Floridita, one of the favorite watering holes of Ernest Hemingway, chose the new "King of the Daiquiri" (El Rey del Daiquiri) in a new international competition that began this year. Bartenders from the US, Argentina, Canada and Puerto Rico participated in this event for the first time. The 12 contestants were given five minutes to make their version of the classic daiquiri that consists of lemon juice, frappé ice and rum. Pedro Iván Rodríguez, who is Cuban and works in Havana's El Ajibe restaurant, won first place in the competition. Cubanbartenders also finished in second and third place. The winner, señor Rodriguez, was previously named the best bartender in the city of Havana in the year 2013 and said that it was an honor to compete at one of of the ten most famous bars in the world, El Floridita. The contest marked the first time in 60 years that a bartender from the United States was allowed to prepare a daiquiri due to the improved relationship between Cuba and the United States. In conjunction with the daiquiri contest another interesting event happened in Havana. The grave of the barman who served drinks for writer…
Saturday, 06 June 2015 18:15

Is it safe to travel to Cuba?

This is one of the first questions people from the U.S. will ask when they think about traveling to Cuba. When Cuba comes to mind many have an image of a sinister communist state where you can be detained for just looking at someone the wrong way. Well, that is not the case. The country and its people beckon tourists form the U.S. and will do to everything to make them feel at home. When the embargo is dropped visitors have more access to the country and be even more welcome. Many Americans have a general fear of Latin America due to the way the region has been depicted in movies and by the media. They think Latin America is a place of constant turmoil, full of bandidos and revolution after revolution. Granted there are certain pockets of Mexico, Northern Central America (El Salvador and Honduras), Venezuela and Colombia which are dangerous, but Cuba is probably the safest country in Latin America for tourists. For example, if a tourist is robbed or assaulted in Cuba the person committing the crime is subject to a double jail sentence. So if robbery carries a five year term, a person caught perpetrating a…
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