This year our class took a trip to a place in the world that I can confidently say not many classes have ever had the opportunity to go to. In fact, it took months just for our teachers to get approval and permission from the district just to allow us to go on this trip. Where could we possibly have gone that was so unique for a class trip? Well, if you took one glance at the title you would already know. Our class of PLP packed our bags for our final trip together and flew down to Cuba!
This trip was so amazing that I am sitting here, trying to write this post, and don’t even know where to begin. So, lets start from the very begging of this trip. Here was our day by day agenda of our time on the trip!
We landed in Havana early in the afternoon. From the second our planes wheels had connected with the ground, I could see that it was incredibly different there in Cuba from the western world. Looking out the small plane windows, I saw multiple planes virtually rotting away on the runway, some that had clearly not moved in decades. We walked into the airport where we got our photos taken, and given Visas. We then headed to the lobby of the airport, where we waited for our tour guide to show up. There was an ongoing joke between my friends and I that our tour guide didn’t exist, and that the entire trip was a scam. It began to appear that this may be a reality, as we waited there in the lobby of Cuba’s busy airport for twenty minutes before he had shown up. Allister appeared as a mythical creature from the midst of the people, with water bottles in hand to give us. He introduced us to himself, and at that time I was unaware of the fact that Allister was literally a walking Wikipedia, as he knew every single thing about Cuba, their history, politics, economy, and influence. We traveled to our accommodation in Havana, where we were staying with Cuban families in their homes. This gave me an authentic feeling to the travel, and was a great introduction to the trip. We knocked on our apartment, door, and was welcomed by a very friendly short old shirtless grandpa (his nickname for the rest of the trip was Shirtless Grandpa Man). Communicating wit this family was a challenge, as they knew no English and we knew no Spanish. Despite this, we made communication work every day through hand signaling and basic Spanish words. While in Havana we got to learn some amazing things through first hand experience. Cuba is a socialist country, ever since Fidel successfully took power in 1959 through his revolution, and this was apparent through their lifestyles. We saw hundreds of small tourists shops, since these are private businesses that have recently been legalized by Raul, Fidel’s brother. Taxis are abundant in Havana, as those are also a private business allowed by law. These private business pay more than any other job in Cuba, such as being a doctor or lawyer. Havana was amazing, here are some photos from our time in the city!
While on this trip in Cuba, our class was assigned to complete an inquiry driven project. We were assigned to make groups of two, so Nash and I grouped up as a team. As a group of twelve students going on the trip, we were creating a coffee table book about Cuba. Each group would be responsible to create a chapter, each chapter being something different about Cuba. Nash and I decided that our chapter would be about the embargo America had placed on Cuba, and how it was “the worst genocide in Cuban history”. We began our documentation and study for this project in Havana, as we both woke up very early in the morning to go to the American embassy. We awoke before anyone else, left quietly, and walked fifteen minutes from our room to the embassy. Here we got some great documentation of the outside of the embassy, and even got told to leave by the guards surrounding it.
We departed from Havana to continue our adventures through Cuba. The second stop of our travel was to visit The Bay of Pigs. This was an extremely important historical sight, as the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion occurred here. This was when, under JFK, CIA-backed Cuban exiles attempted to invade Cuba. One of the groups in our class wrote their chapter about this invasion if you desire more information. The invasion was a failure, and Fidel used this as a huge propaganda win against the US. This was an enormous embarrassment for the United States, as they lost to this small island ninety miles off their own coast. The Cuban exiles invaded as they were angered at their losses from the outcome of the revolution. When Fidel came to power, he nationalized all industry and introduced Cuba as a socialist state. Those who were wealthy fled, and were angered that they had been virtually robbed of all of their possessions. The death tole was high during the Bay of Pigs invasion, and Fidel himself operated a tank fighting the CIA-backed exiles. While we were here, we visited a museum and even got to swim in the bay where the invasion occurred!
We spent the next two days in Cienfuegos. Here we did walking tours, visited some amazing historical sites, and stayed in an amazing home stay. The home stay in Cienfuegos looked like a palace, with high roofs and marble stairs. Allister, our tour guide, had informed us that these magnificent home stays were once homes of wealthy Cubans. Once Fidel came to power, they either fled or had their large homes taken away to be turned into multiple homes. Some of these wealthy individuals homes had been turned into home stays, such as the one we stayed at. While in Cienfuegos, we visited some true communist places, such as the “Communist Pizza Hut”. Here, they refused to sell anything to us since they were closing soon, showing the little incentive they have to work. This is because it doesn’t mater to them how much they sell, they will get paid the same amount by the government. The stock of this store was also significantly low, with only a few drinks for sale. We went to an area that had internet, since in Cuba there is only internet at some places. We even visited a communist department store. Here, they sold one product made by one company for anything you wanted. If you wanted to buy a bender, there was one option. If you wanted to buy a toaster, there was one option. This was very interesting when comparing it to the multiple different alternatives for each product here in Canada. The internet is run by the government, and you must pay for the usage. These were some of the many unique experiences we had in this city.
Our next stop was Trinidad. After a long bus ride, we arrived in the beautiful town. The houses here were all so unique, vibrant in color, and filled with life. Trinidad is known best for its extraordinary night life, and I had a first hand experience of this! I was given a fake passport which said I was eighteen from our tour guide, and we went to a famous nightclub called Club Ayala. This was amazing, as it was inside of a huge cave. Here are some great reviews of the club to give you a better idea! We did some awesome things in Trinidad, like horse riding to a beautiful waterfall. This was awesome since it was my first time ever horse riding, and for some reason my horse just loved to gallop. Because of this, I was by far the fastest, even though I was kind of terrified the entire time. Trinidad had an awesome vibe, and our stay here was greatly enjoyable.
We stayed briefly in Trinidad, enjoying every moment of it. The family we stayed with was incredibly nice, and we even got to visit an amazing white sand beach where the water was as blue as the sky. The locals here were happy, and I was sad to leave this town. We packed our bags once again, and took off to a different small town called Santa Clara. The trip there was abundant with stops in historical places. We visited a very old area that had the ruins of a slave plantation. This is where sugar cane was once farmed by hundreds of slaves. This plantation had ruins which showed the enormous slave quarters, the house the owner had resided in, and some of the old technology they used to harvest the sugar cane. Slavery was abolished in Cuba by a Royal Decree on October 7th 1886. Black Cubans faced racial discrimination after the 1886 abolition of slavery, but became the backbone of the Cuban independence movement and its Liberation Army. On this day of travel, we also stopped by an old cane sugar mill. This sugar cane mill was once a privately owned business, owned by american investors. Once Fidel’s revolution ran successful in Cuba, all businesses were nationalized. The sugar mill we visited continued to operate for many years while under government control, but is now a destination for tourists and other who want to learn about Cuba’s history. On this day of travel, we had a surprising stop before reaching Santa Clara. Our tour guide knew a family who lived on a small local farm in the country side. I have no idea how Allister had a relation to these people, but he arranged for us to visit them at their local home. We went their and got to see, first hand, their tobacco plant. Here they planted, picked, and dried tobacco leaves. 95% of the tobacco they farm goes straight to the government, but the other five percent they can do with what they want to. The family even made us some coffee, with beans that were grown on their farm.
In Santa Clara we visited Che Guevara’s museum and memorial sight. Che was one of the guerrilla fighters who fought alongside Fidel for the revolution He was a true communist, who originated in a wealthy Argentinian family. After travelling through South America on his motor cycle, he had seen the despair and poverty of some. This is where his communist ideologies originated and grew. Che was very popular among Cubans, and there is an incredibly iconic photo of his face that has become the idol of Socialism.
The next stop of our trip was in a town called Vinales. Vinales had a large amount of tourists in it, and this was the first thing I had noticed when coming. The town was beautiful nonetheless, and we stayed two nights in this town. This town is where the fun went down. We began by zip lining through beautiful forested hills. It was my first time ever zip lining, and I was a bit terrified. This was very enjoyable, and after this event we drove to a cave that was in the mountains. This cave was darker than the night, and only a few of us were given headlamps (I was not one of them). We navigated through this enormous and dark cave with a few locals who had been in and out of that place hundreds of times. About ten minutes into the walk down the cave, we reached water. Our class took off our clothes, into our swimming suits, and started swimming. This was an incredibly awesome experience. We had to turn around when our guides feared that the batteries of our headlamps may fail. We finished that day by embarking on a two hour guided tour through Vinales forest. Here we learned about the wildlife, nature, and Cuba’s history all at once. Our guide was awesome, as he climbed up trees and grabbed fruits for us to taste. All of these fruits were indigenous to Cuba, and had some unique tastes. This is how we spent our last day in Vinales before heading 190 kilometers back to Havana. I was excited to see Shirtless Grandpa Man again.
We came back to Havana for one specific reason. This was to join millions of Cubans in marching for May Day. This was an experience of a life time. May Day is literally a festival celebrating socialism, and all of the Cubans seemed overjoyed on this day. Raul Castro and the new president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, were both present here. These last four days in Havana held some of the highlights of this trip. May Day was incredible, waking up at four in the morning to parade alongside millions of locals. We visited the former Soviet embassy in Havana, which looked like something straight out of a horror movie. On one night our class was scheduled to go to an art gallery that was extremely popular, yet was eighteen plus. Teva, Jayden, and I did not get let into the art gallery, and thus our teachers gave us sixty dollars and a phone, letting us free in Havana on a weekend night. This was a major highlight of the trip surprisingly. We had dinner and drinks in a very fancy rooftop restaurant, walked along the Malicom, and had some great memories. On these last four days we visited many socialist historic sights, such as a large statue of Lenin. Our time in Havana ended, and we departed to Veradero to spend the last three days of our trip in an all inclusive resort.
In Veradero I spent almost all of my time catching up on missed homework. One of the major pieces of work I worked on while there was my Cuba book project, mentioned earlier. With all said and done, here is our classes final daft of our coffee table book. Enjoy
Insert Book
This trip was amazing, and I greatly enjoyed spending time in Cuba. It was very eye opening to spend half of a month in a country with such a vastly differen political ideology. The difference was extremely apperant when compared to the Western world. It blows me away that Cuba is only ninety miles from the tip of Florida, as it feels like you are on the other side of the world. If your interest in my trip is still buzzing, here are journal entries I wrote about each day of my trip, and some more photos from my journey. Thank you for reading!
A little friend we I made one night in Vinales.
Late night jam session with Jayden in our hotel room in Veradero.
One day in Vinales, the plumbing in our home stay broke. Nash an I, who had no previous knowledge in plumbing, decided that 11:00pm was a perfect time to fix the plumbing! It only ended up taking almost two hours.
This video represents how every single laundry session went on the trip. A bar of soap, and a shower head was all that we needed!
100 year old Cuban Rum!
