So Saturday I had already deliberate to activity to Vinales, a comely nature in the province of Pinar del Rio, 190 km west of Havana. I took the Viazul bus from the Havana station, which is a recent bus network enhanced or less for tourists and the one plan fare is US$12 (way further even for the locals, most of whom head up beguiling resident taxis or the cheaper and less reliable, extended senile Astro bus system).

A fresh Cuban workman sat down beside me in the bus terminal and tried to hit me accommodation in his private house in Pinar del Rio (one narration of the shadow economy which is centred on all sides of tourists).

After I told him I already had accommodation, he started to declamation to me approximately existence in Cuba and how packed it is and that is awfully hard to survive economically. He told me he by oneself makes US$24 a month, working for the national(ized) telecommunications company. He as well said that recently financial transfers from Cuban emigrants, especially from Miami, admit been incision back to US$100, which works away to CUC 92 (Cuban Convertible Pesos, which used to be 1:1 with the US Dollar) and that soon US$100 would exertion elsewhere to much 8% less. He basically good spilled over with unhappiness about the economic situation.

The journey to Vinales was about 3.25 hours great and along the system it started to rain. Vinales is accepted for its pretty limestone formations, the "Mogotes", box-like mountains that cultivate straight gone of a apartment lodgings dale floor with much vertical walls and hundreds of limestone caves.

Probably 30 or 40 humanity were waiting at the bus cease in Vinales, all owners of private bedstead and breakfasts (or "casas particulares") ready to pick up tourists staying with them. My hostess, Sandra, a admirable burgeoning woman of 28 years, was there besides with a note sayingЁ"Susanne - Canada" on it. It's a unusual innervation arriving in a non-native country, in a strange town, not clever anybody, and seeing your autograph printed on a message aboriginal item you arrive.

My hostess took me to their Casa Particular, a manageable colonial 2 bedroom house, with a brand-new bathroom for the guests, and an decrepit antique bathroom (without sink or toilet seat) for the owners. My hostess had to grindstone and I was too tired, and it was raining anyway, so I slept for a scarce hours until I received my home-cooked dinner directly in the private house.

In a analysis with the early woman I get going outside that she makes the equivalent of US$13 per month (and a incomplex span of Denims costs US$20!), so she supplements her mode with the bed and mid-morning lunch (another one of the hardly any private types of event allowed). The dark expenditure me US$20.00 and the dinner with drink was US$10.00 for a full dinner with chicken, arroz congri (rice with dusky beans) and salad. The bread was also facile and not expressly spicy or tasty.

We had a very interesting review and I create absent that women today, in spite of economic hardships, hold it a portion more advantageous owing to the revoluation. Cuba is a traditionally a kingdom with a piece of machismo, and the revolution has done a abundance for women. They these days collect educational opportunities and can get education and grind which was perfect backbreaking before. Manifold of the educated women attempt in ministries or universities and keep a quite decent criterion of living.

I received a sporadic explanations about the relations between men and women in Cuba (e.g. that new educated women no longer accpet those machista attitudes of Cuban men, however that there are much lousy with traditional boyish women without self-esteem or education that are amassed or less at the compassion of their boyfriends/husbands).

I further begin out that it is not allowed for a private bed and breakfast owner to engage a maid (due to their exploitation in the past), nevertheless that everybody does it anyway, by reason of citizens enjoy to drudge full-time to brew a living and don t gain clock to coerce the everyday chores of running a immature hospitality establishment in appendix to working out the house.

My hostess' common-law boyfriend told me about the medical method in Cuba, that he had a generous tumour in his tibia (after having been a governmental caliber rower and basketball player) and that he received an implant in his leg consisting of coral, from 2 of the most well-respected doctors in Cuba. His step was based on dissimilar surgical techniques from the US and on account of the development his entity is nearly normal, he walks completely normally, apart from he can no longer gallop or play basketball.

All Cubans I own met so far are inordinately content of their country's achievements in regular medicine, accepted education, literacy and opportunities for women and minorities (while at the corresponding bout some of them are considerably vocal about all the economic hardships and other restrictions imposed by the government).

Definitely some absorbing insights....