Mike appeared from around the corner as I hopped out of my taxi, back in Havana. The two of us were united and Dickie, the final member of the gang, would arrive tomorrow. Then we three would begin consumption. The plan is to ingest Cuban food and drink continuously, gaining mass and becoming The Round Trio, a name we fell into while planning the trip:
But until tomorrow, Mike and I explore Cuba alone.
A quick note about money in Cuba: There is a 10% government-imposed fee when converting USD to Cuban CUC ("kook"). Therefore, it's best to convert USD to something like Euros or Canadian Dollars at home, then convert those to CUC at an exchange in the Havana airport (exchanges outside the airport are tough to come by, especially without internet to help find them). Mike kindly volunteered to be in charge of exchanging money for the three of us for the weekend, but unfortunately understood just one stage of the two-stage conversion process.
"WHATSUPMAN!", he shouted as I hopped out of my taxi. "WHATSUPMAN!" I hollered back. I asked to divvy up the CUC he got us and he proudly flashed several hundred Euros with a smile that said "I bet you thought I wouldn't come through", unaware that he hadn't come through. Smh.
Luckily, I had a few remaining CUC from my solo stint, so with that we went looking for lunch and now a currency exchange. We stopped by a convenience store to buy water. A quick note about money in Cuba: There are two separate currencies here. There is the CUC, used by tourists and pegged 1:1 to the USD. Then there is the CUP, used by locals, and valued at 25 CUP: 1 USD. Stores will sometimes display prices in both CUC and CUP, but never in Euros, the currency that Mike brought, because Euros are used mostly in Europe which is several thousand miles away from the store we were standing in.
No mention of Euros unfortunately.
We got lunch at El Aljibe, known for their delicious, Cuban-style, all-you-can-eat chicken -- a great opportunity to gain some mass. We emerged from Aljibe rounder than when we had entered.
It was the early evening and friendly strangers told us the currency exchanges were now all closed except for one in the Hotel Nacional, the premier hotel on the island. The banking services were technically for guests only but we were told they would be happy to exchange currency for anyone. Welp, not us. They curtly refused. I was upset at first but then noticed everyone else in the lobby was dressed to the nines and looking great. We, on the other hand, had spent the afternoon tacking on mass and taking pictures with trash and looked like this:
Back at the Airbnb, warnings about Zika and Dengue Fever plastered the walls of the apartment complex. But just shuttering the many doors and windows to outside wasn't enough to keep us safe from the mosquitoes. Holes in the apartment wall needed a pluggin' as well. Luckily Mike had some old black socks that, after a day's wearing, had become impenetrable
With the apartment locked down we hit the town. The first place we tried, a softly-lit bar with a balcony overlooking the city, denied us entry. We were rejected next door too. Out of other options, we went into a nightclub for which we were under-dressed.
"Two of your biggest beers please," I asked at the patio bar. The bartender complied. We walked inside with hilariously large bottles, and I was glad the darkness hid the fact that we were under-dressed.
"At least here they can't refuse us service because we look like we've been taking pictures with trash all day" I thought, as the black lights came on. I looked down. Splotches on my jeans glowed ominously under the UV lighting. I sipped my beer and sighed.
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