Cuba buy snow

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Cuba buy snow

Since the holiday season would be busy, we made our reservations three months in advance. For many years, it was tricky for U. South of the U. The application process was arduous, but it was easy to obtain a license through group travel, which was expensive but, nominally at least, tied to one of the specified purposes. However, many North Americans, upon entering Cuba through a third country, avoided having their passports stamped by cooperative Cuban customs officials, and therefore were not subject to prosecution when returning to the U. Even before the opening of relations, it was common for U. A few stories circulated of massive fines levied on people illegally returning from Cuba, but those examples were rare. Beginning last year, travelers who fit into any of the twelve legal categories are automatically granted a general license to visit Cuba, with no application required. One of the categories is journalism, so I figured I was covered. My traveling companion could, perhaps, qualify as my research assistant. A friend said she was not required to answer these questions when she made her plane reservation last March. It turned out our Cuba travel guide published by Moon in March indicated that foreign journalists are regarded with suspicion in Cuba and are followed around — just one of many statements from the book that proved to be incorrect. But I awoke several mornings at 3 a. Next we booked our lodging. In the good old days, I always traveled by whim, deciding my itinerary day by day, finding a hotel room when I hit town — but now we had only two weeks, and they were the busiest weeks of the year. The friend who had visited Cuba in March gave us the email address of a casa particular in Havana. As Ana Perera, the owner, later explained to us, the government began to allow people to rent out rooms in their homes during the Special Period of the s, when the fall of the Soviet Union deprived Cuba of many trade resources. With income slowed to a trickle, Ana turned her home into a casa particular. It was illegal for private citizens to possess foreign currency, so she asked her guests to go to government-owned shops and buy food for her family in lieu of paying rent. Although Internet is sparse and expensive in Cuba, many owners of these casas can now afford to communicate by email in order to book clients. National pesos are valued at 25 pesos per CUC, and we occasionally saw signs in this currency but never actually handled it. Airbnb has been active in Cuba since last April, and we did try to book a room through the website for one night near the airport on our way back to Mexico City. The booking failed because of that same questionnaire about legality that had appeared with the flight reservation, except that this time, Lynn also had to answer the questions. For some reason, her answer was not received by Airbnb, and the booking was canceled, with repeat reservation blocked. But like most problems in Cuba, there was a workaround. The letter arrived a week later with a Miami postmark — a traveling friend had mailed it for her. All mail service between Cuba and the U. Airbnb came through instantly for our three nights in Mexico City, and then we were all booked. Language came next. I already knew a little Spanish, but I wanted to be able to converse, so I listened to lesson tapes in my car every day for three and a half months. I recommend the Pimsleur system, supplemented by the free Internet site Duolingo. A few times, I provided lunch for Spanish-speaking friends who helped me practice. With so much misinformation available, we were grateful that we could rely on the casa owners for help negotiating our stay. They arranged taxis, told us how much the fares would be, explained where to change money, and offered reasonably priced meals cooked by their employees, especially helpful in Havana, where we were staying in a residential neighborhood with almost no restaurants. The few we saw were holes in the wall, usually devoted to a single dish — pizza or chicken. Ana spoke excellent English, but Alexis, our Trinidad casa owner, did not. He and his employee, Rosa, had just enough words to get by, so it was really helpful to know some Spanish, as fluent English is not widespread, even in the tourist industry. Havana is huge, and in three days, we toured only a few areas, including Calle Obispo, the glitzy main drag of Old Havana, where massive colonial buildings, restored to elegance, and restaurants with live music give tourists chances to take photos and spend money. A block from Obispo are the tired streets that are more typical of Havana, which made me think of a frowsy middle-aged woman who lounges around in a plush but tattered robe, hair frizzed out, eyes bleary, yet with a grace that makes you always conscious of her faded beauty. On many streets, drivers zigzag around giant potholes or piles of construction debris, while crumbling sidewalks present constant peril to pedestrians. Maybe five percent of the buildings glow with fresh coats of brilliant paint — royal blue, sea green, sandy yellow, warm pink — and sport balconies with curvy white pillars. The vast majority of houses are a muddy, mottled tan, with courtyard walls cobbled together from tin sheets and wire fencing, doors sagging on their hinges, broken chairs out front under scrubby trees. The temperature, up in the 80s by midday, was unseasonably hot for December, according to residents. In the cool of the evening, I paced the streets near our casa , watching people mingle and lounge on the sidewalks. Kids played stickball in the street in front of a high-rise apartment building, and two boys bounced around on car tires. In a small park, a pair of girls hunched over a computer tablet. Timba music — the Cuban version of salsa — boomed through doorways. No one spoke to me as I walked, soaking up the vitality that shone through the decay. In contrast, Trinidad, a year-old hill town near the southern coast, is considerably more tidy. Magnificent colonial buildings hold sway around the historic Plaza Mayor, but even outside the tourist district, many of the houses have been spruced up. Tall windows with metal grilles face the street and often stand open so cooling breezes can pass through the houses. As we walked by in the evenings, we peeked through the grilles into living rooms where people sat talking or watching TV, sometimes in heavy dark wooden chairs beside lace-covered tables. The sidewalks in Trinidad are only about three feet wide, forcing pedestrians to constantly step back and forth between the sidewalk and the street to make way for oncoming passersby, bicycles, cars, horse-drawn carts, bicycle taxis, and the occasional cowboy on horseback. A second day can be filled by a horseback ride into the nearby mountains and a trip to the beach at Ancon, where the silty water and wimpy waves are much inferior to the bracing surf at Amagansett. We watched a series of guests leave after spending two days at our casa , and I wondered why we had booked ourselves in for a week. We walked the two blocks to her spartan little home, the two front rooms each lit by a single fluorescent tube, the dining room dominated by a framed poster of flowers, cake, and wine, in faded blue. I stared at the carefully formed script. A couple dozen studio photos showed the teenager in movie star poses, hair styled, in full make-up, wearing a series of ball gowns of various time periods, from the colonial era to the present. We drank red wine and ate from a table laden with pork, salad, rice mixed with beans, flan. But the warmth of Rosa and her family were the high point of our stay in Trinidad. The restrictions on traveling to Cuba come from the U. We met lots of Europeans there, and Ana said there have been many more Americans visiting over the past year. As we prepared to fly home, I realized that on previous trips, U. But what about Lynn, who was perhaps not quite so legal? I spent much of the flight from Mexico City to Dallas worrying maybe I ought to lie on her behalf and pretend we had spent two weeks in Mexico, hoping our passport stamps would be overlooked. But then if they noticed my Cuban exit stamp, could I go to jail? In Dallas, we were directed to computer kiosks that scanned the ID page of each passport and took photos of us that were printed out on a scrap of paper. Customs officials compared the printouts with our passport photos, glanced in our faces, and waved us through without checking our passport stamps or asking us a single question. We were giddy with relief. One thing is for sure — whether relations between our countries keep improving or a new Republican president reverses the trend, changes will continue to happen, month by month. Your casa owner will take care of you. And learn some Spanish. Conversing with Cubans was the best part of the trip. An excerpt from her historical novel, To March or to Marry, has appeared in the feminist journal Minerva Rising. She lives in Phoenicia and is currently working with horses, living out her childhood dream. Subscribe now. Snow in Cuba: A sparkling faded beauty by Violet Snow. April 18, A residential area of Havana. Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive. Related Posts. Civic activism is on the rise in Hurley October 21, Briefly noted across the Region October 19, Briefly noted in Woodstock October 18, Briefly noted in Saugerties October 18, Next Post. Please login to join discussion. Kingston, NY. Tue Wed Thu.

Snow in Cuba: A sparkling faded beauty

Cuba buy snow

Cuba is a Caribbean island with a Caribbean subtropical climate, but there are also mountains in Cuba. So, does it snow in Cuba in the mountains? I have regularly traveled to Cuba since and have even been based in Havana for a couple of years, and I can not even imagine snow ever falling on this Caribbean island. But there are a few mountains here, and as you know, some countries can have summer temperatures by the sea, while high up in the mountains not far away, there is still snow! So what about Cuba? Does it ever snow there? The short answer to that question is no; it does not snow in Cuba. But it did snow in Cuba once, on one marvelous occasion! According to weather records, it snowed in Cuba on March 12, , years ago! Snow in Cuba was not recorded before that and has not been recorded since. This once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon happened in the municipality of Cardenas, around 72 miles km from the capital, Havana. As a Scandinavian, I am not able to agree that it ever gets cold in Cuba , but — it certainly happens that the temperatures in Cuba behave out of the ordinary. The last particularly cold period in Cuba was in when the temperatures at the Havana weather station were reported to be as low as 13 degrees Celcius, which is 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest winter period is from January to March, and the average temperature is normally This cool season, which overlaps with the November through March dry season, lasts for around four months, from November 15 to March 9. But there is still A LOT of weather in Cuba; being in the hurricane belt , the summer storms can be fierce. Having lived in Havana for over two years and traveled there for over four, I have experienced my fair share of Cuban weather. When storms hit during the wet season, which normally lasts from June through October every year, the winds and rain can be quite dramatic. Cuba has only two seasons: wet and dry. The wet season lasts from May through October, while the dry, cool season lasts from November through March. Quite remarkably, the weather changes significantly the moment we enter June each year. Rain showers arrive regularly in the afternoon, more fiercely, sometimes several times a day, and they start and stop suddenly. Americans can choose a reason for Cuba travel among 12 pre-approved reasons for traveling to Cuba , determined by the US Government. American citizens still need to buy a tourist card , also called a tourist visa, to enter Cuba. You can read about the 12 pre-approved reasons to travel to Cuba for US citizens here. There is no paperwork or application process connected to this; you just choose your reason and state that reason if anyone asks. Nothing happens if a US citizen travels to Cuba, apart from hopefully, the US citizen will have a fabulous holiday and encounter with Cuban culture. US citizens need to choose one of the pre-approved reasons to travel to Cuba and need to buy the PINK Cuban tourist card , also called a tourist visa. You can buy a tourist card online from Easy Tourist Card , or from the Cuban embassy in your country. You might also be able to buy a Cuban tourist card from your airline or at the airport prior to departure. Hege Jacobsen is a solo female traveler and the founder of Epic Nomad Life. She is also a former military officer, veteran and Master of Political Science. She has traveled solo all her life, the last four years as a full time digital nomad. The closest beach to the Costa Rican capital is a few hours away from the city, and San Jose…. That is exactly how I felt walking around Cartagena when I traveled solo in Colombia for over a month—I…. Then, you might need to know how to extend your tourist card for Cuba when you are in the country! I have been based in Havana for over two years, staying for long periods of…. Incredibly chill. Well, yes, I say it is. Known for its crystal-clear calm waters and stunning beaches, Florida is home to some of the most breathtaking coral reefs…. Or is it a suburb? Well, no, Fort Lauderdale is technically not in Miami, the city of…. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Skip to content. Table of Contents. Previous Previous. Next Continue. Similar Posts Save. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Home Toggle child menu Expand. Destinations Toggle child menu Expand. My Services Toggle child menu Expand. Share via. X Twitter. Copy Link. Copy link. Copy Copied.

Cuba buy snow