<p><img src="https://i2.wp.com/www.flightlesskiwis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_3402.jpg?zoom=2&w=1461&h=974&crop&ssl=1"/></p>

<p>We soon realised that if someone spoke English in Havana Vieja there was a 99% chance we didn’t want to talk to them. In fact, there was a 99% chance we didn’t want to talk to anyone in the area. </p>

<p>To add to the challenge, things were expensive. Buying water to drink would eliminate our budget for one of the day’s meals. Buying another meal would eliminate several day’s food budget. Despite this fact, we allowed ourselves a few splurges, like a visit to a craft beer bar.</p>

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<p>As a bonus this place had plenty of lively entertainment. Once the band got going the locals were up and dancing in the square. Every time. Without fail. If we had spent our entire time in Havana Vieja at this very bar, we would have loved the place.</p>

<p>We also spent a lot of our cash on museums and historic forts</p>

<p><img src="https://i2.wp.com/www.flightlesskiwis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_3702.jpg?zoom=2&w=1461&h=974&crop&ssl=1"/></p>

<p><img src="https://i2.wp.com/www.flightlesskiwis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_3713.jpg?zoom=2&w=1461&h=974&crop&ssl=1"/></p>

<p>There were also plenty of historic forts to visit. These forts had plenty of canons. This seemed like money well spent.<p>

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<p><img src="https://i0.wp.com/www.flightlesskiwis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_3383.jpg?zoom=2&w=1047&h=698&crop&ssl=1"/></p>

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<p><img src="https://i2.wp.com/www.flightlesskiwis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_3402.jpg?zoom=2&w=1461&h=974&crop&ssl=1"/></p>

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<p><img src="https://www.flightlesskiwis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_3692.jpg"/></p>

<p><i>A visit to the Camera Oscura was a novel way to spy on the city below.
But sometimes we just wanted to find cheap food.</i> </p>

<p>Once this ended badly in some ‘pizza’ that turned out to be slices of dry bread dripping in liquid cheese and some kind of watered down ketchup. Neither would adhere to the bread long enough to eat it. You just ended up with two dry triangles of bread and a napkin full of liquid goo. Both inedible. Somehow this still cost over $4 USD for a slice each. We wish we had taken a photo of this, it was a special kind of terrible.</p>

<p>The confusing thing about spending money in Cuba is it’s dual currency system. In general the idea is that tourists will spend in the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), while locals will use the Cuban Peso (CUP) usually known as Moneda Nacional (MN).</p>

<p>Once we got our hands on some Moneda Nacional, cheap food was easier to come by. More people in the small shops outside of the tourist area were willing to accept this currency.</p>

<p>Believe it or not, the single 10 peso note (worth $10USD) on the left, is worth more than the whole stack on the right. (Less than $10 USD worth because we’d already spent some on pizza and flan).</p>

<p><img src="https://www.flightlesskiwis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_4604.jpg"/></p>
<p><i>CUC (Cuban Convertible Pesos)—the tourist pesos on the left and MN (Moneda Nacional) (or CUP) —the local currency on the right.</i></p>

<p>There was often a lack of clarity as to which currency a price list was in. With 1 peso in CUC’s equalling 24 in Moneda Nacional, you think it would be easy to tell. But it wasn’t. Consistent pricing is not a feature of Cuban retail.</p>

<p>A single slice of pizza in one location might cost $7 CUCs (That would be $168 if it was listed in MN) But then a whole pizza might only cost $20MN at another retailer (That would be less than $1 CUC if it were priced that way.)</p>

<p>Coffee could be $3.50 CUCs ($84 MN) for a cup of rubbish instant, then down the road it could be $5 MN ($0.2 CUC) for a cup of freshly brewed “more caffeine than you can handle” “wake you up for the next 15 days” local brew.</p>

<p>A set menu full dinner in one location might set you back $20 CUCs with a charge of $5 CUCs for each small glass of beer, down the road $20 MN would get you a feast with the beer costing $7 MN a pint.</p>

<p>Confused?</p>

<p>We were.</p>

<p>Moral of the story, it pays to shop around and carry both currencies. </p>

<p>One of the culinary highlights? Flan in a can. </p>

<p><img src="https://www.flightlesskiwis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_4469.jpg"/></p>
<p><i>Flan in a can, 6MN and worth every cent.</i></p>

<p>This one was the last one in the fridge at a small shop just down the road from where were staying in Havana Centro. When we bought it one of the other customers said, “They are so good, they are my favourite, I eat five in one sitting”. He’s right, they were good, I would have eaten five if they had been available.</p>

<p>Shopping for essentials proved to be a challenge. Like a replacement tube of toothpaste for the one that Mexico confiscated when we left (Can’t smuggle 110grams of toothpaste on a plane out of Cancun, those guys are sharp).</p>

<p><img src="https://www.flightlesskiwis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_4696.jpg"/></p>

<p><i>Nope. No toothpaste here…</i></p>
<p>A walk into any shop gave you an appreciation for the shortages that the people of Cuba face. Sure, there was no shortage of designer clothing, expensive cellphones and nice cars rolling around the streets of Havana. But if you wanted a tube of toothpaste it appeared that you still had to find the right shop and ask someone to pass it out to you from behind a locked glass cabinet. </p>

<p>Some of these shops were happy to serve us, although you would have to wait in a queue for 20 minutes behind a guy who would be thoroughly testing all the features of a hairdryer before committing to the purchase.</p>

<p><img src="https://www.flightlesskiwis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_4651.jpg"/></p>

<p><i>Here’s the queue at the compulsory bag check window at a Cuban department store. Proving that shopping for the essentials in Havana is a serious business.</i></p>

<p>Others simply chose to not only not serve us, but to actually pretend that we didn’t exist. “Buenos dias” I called out to the woman behind the counter, she turned, looked at me and then turned back to her colleague and started having a yarn to her. I guess she’ll come over in a second.</p>

<p>Next thing another woman is poking me in the arm with a snot-covered baby. “Look, look at my beautiful baby, I need five dollars for my baby.” Anyone who knows me, knows poking me in the arm with an ooze-covered mucus factory is not a winning way to engage my charitable side. But a simple “Sorry, but no” wouldn’t cut it. The arm poking continued. “Look, look, do you want to hold her?” Oh, my god, no, that is the last thing I want to do in the entire universe. Walking into a nest of angry hornets currently ranks higher.</p>

<p>Finally the assistant walked over, looked past us and asked how she could help the person who had just walked in the door. Poke. Poke in the arm from a booger infested slime beast. Screw it. We’ll clean our teeth with beer. This isn’t worth it. Walking out the door “Three dollars I just need three dollars”. </p>

<p><img src="https://www.flightlesskiwis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_3821.jpg"/></p>

<p><i>Nope. Let’s go investigate that bees nest instead.</i></p>

<p>Before you decide that we are complete monsters for not giving money to the mother and her goo-encased screech-beast, hear us out. We understand that money is short for many in Cuba. We do understand that. We understand that Pokey McArmington grew up without any of the advantages that we had at home. We understand that a couple of weeks of our meagre travel budget would make a huge difference. But it seems that every scammer, beggar and hopeful has moved in on the tourist areas of Havana.</p>

<p>We’re confident that spending our tourist dollar on these scammers and beggars would not improve the lives of 99% of the Cubans who could really do with the money, it would just encourage more scammers, beggars and scumbags to up their demands and harass more tourists. If we really wanted to help, we’d donate to a school, a charity, we’d shop at small local businesses.</p>

<p>But to be honest, after four days in Havana, we didn’t want to help. We wanted the hell out of dodge. It was time to see if we could find some peace and quiet. </p>