Cuba - Lonely Planet [133]
Shopping
Photo Service (Hotel Tropicoco btwn Avs del Sur & de las Terrazas) This place will satisfy most of your film and camera needs.
Getting There & Away
BUS & TAXI
The Havana Bus Tour (Click here) runs a regular (hourly) service from Parque Central out to Playa Santa María stopping at Villa Bacuranao, Tarará, Club Mégano, Hotel Tropicoco, Club Atlántico and Hotel Blau Arenal Club. It doesn’t go as far as Guanabo. All day tickets cost CUC$5.
Bus 400 to Guanabo leaves every hour or so from Calle Agramonte in Centro Habana and stops near the central train station in Habana Vieja. Going the other way, it stops all along Av 5, but it’s best to catch it as far east as possible. Bus 405 runs between Guanabacoa and Guanabo.
A tourist taxi using Taxis OK ( 796-6666) from Playas del Este to Havana will cost around CUC$20.
TRAIN
One of the most novel ways to get to Guanabo is on the Hershey Train, which leaves five times a day from either Casablanca train station or from Matanzas. The train will drop you at Guanabo station (little more than a hut in a field), approximately 2km from the far eastern end of Guanabo. It’s a pleasant walk along a quiet road to the beaches.
Getting Around
A large guarded parking area is off Calle 7, between Av de las Terrazas and Av del Sur, near Hotel Tropicoco (CUC$1 a day from 8am to 7pm). Several other paid parking areas are along Playa Santa María del Mar.
Cubacar (Club Atlántico 797-1650; Hotel Blau Club Arenal 797-1272; Guanabo 796-6997; cnr Calle 478 & Av 9) rents average-sized cars for far from average prices – bank on CUC$70 a day with insurance.
Both Servi-Cupet gas stations (Guanabo 96-38-58; cnr Av 5 & Calle 464; west of Bacuranao Vía Blanca) have snack bars and are open 24 hours. The gas station west of Bacuranao is opposite the military academy.
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Havana Province
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PLAYA JIBACOA AREA
JARUCO
SURGIDERO DE BATABANÓ
SAN ANTONIO DE LOS BAÑOS
BEJUCAL
ARTEMISA
MARIEL
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Other provinces have their swanky resorts and their historically compelling colonial cities. Havana province, on the other hand, has…er…well, yes, that’s the problem: Havana province doesn’t really have a lot. In actual fact, it doesn’t even have Havana!
So what can a poor boy/girl do? It all depends on your expectations and, to a lesser extent, your pace. If Cuba, for you, is an unending diet of flamboyant cabaret shows and hulking all-inclusive resorts, head east through Havana province to Varadero and don’t get out of the car. But, if you want a warts-and-all insight into the capital’s very real rural hinterland where the sight of a tourist is about as rare as a snow shower, then ease your foot off the accelerator and come to a grinding halt.
In fact, you might not even need a car at all. Havana province hosts one of Cuba’s greatest rural journeys, the slow jolting Hershey train that stutters and clangs its way to Matanzas through a series of dusty hamlets and cheerful one-horse villages that would have long been swallowed up by sprawling suburbia in any other country.
Geographically speaking, the countryside surrounding Havana is the city’s giant vegetable garden. Within easy reach of the capital, a huge variety of crops are grown on the province’s fertile and predominantly flat terrain; everything from tobacco and citrus fruit, to sugarcane and grapes for wine (yes, wine!).
Of its numerous small hardworking towns, San Antonio de los Baños is easily the most interesting; a laid-back, quirky place that boasts a world-class film school patronized by Columbian author Gabriel García Márquez, and is the home of what must be Cuba’s most esoteric museum; the sardonic Museo del Humor. Havana province boring? You’re having a laugh.
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HIGHLIGHTS
When Sugar Was King Admire the iron skeleton of a once great sugar mill at Central Camilo Cienfuegos
Campismo Culture See how the Cubans vacation and book a cabin at the beachside Campismo Los Cocos
Train Trek Escape the tourist trails on the