Weekend Adventures

The past couple of weeks and weekends here in Havana have been great. We started and finished our course on Social Development which was very interesting. We learned about women in Cuban society, the structure of family, health and education. The work load has been pretty laid back and easy, we have about a 2-3 paged research paper each week about a topic of our choice within the theme of the week. After, we finished another two week course on Sustainable Development in Cuba. As of today, we're on our week off to travel and after have a month to write our thesis. It’s hard to believe how time is flying by!

Three weekends ago 9 of us went to a town outside the city called Las Terrazas. Las Terrazas is a government made national park that has activities for families and tourists to engage in. We arrived Saturday afternoon and when we got there we decided to spend the day in the next town over called Soroa which has waterfalls and natural springs. A really nice taxi driver offered to take us to Soroa,(where he lives) and help us find a place to stay for the night. When we couldn’t find a house to stay in, he offered us his home. We spent the day at the waterfalls and he came to pick us up at 7 and took us to his house were there was a feast waiting for us. It was unbelievable – chicken, pork, two varieties of rice, salads, fruits, water, juice, dessert – we felt so blessed. In the morning breakfast was beautiful as well – eggs, bread, fruit, coffee and juice. They were so amazing to us, and helped us with transportation, food and stay. After breakfast he took us back to Las Terrazas where we spent the day in the park. In the morning 6 of us rented two boats and had boat races. For lunch we found this amazing eco-restaurant with the most amazing menu I’ve seen. After lunch we walked to the waterfall that we could swim in. We were so happy to have a couple days outside of the city, with fresh air, and warm hearted Cubans.

Two weekends ago we went an hour out of the city in the opposite direction to a beach called Playa Jibacoa. After an adventure that involved cars, ferrys, trains and an 8k walk we finally made it to a camp site called Los Coco which is right on the beach. We spent Saturday on the beach and by the pool, eating, getting spray on tattoos, swimming, riding horses, and then spent the night at the bar/dance floor they have right next to the pool. It was a very fun, relaxed environment which was mostly young Cubans getting out of the city for the weekend – like us!

We’re all adjusting to life here and falling into daily routines. We have our frustrations with communication barriers, food, heat, inaccessibility to connect with family and friends in Canada, but we are all in agreement that we are having a good time while we’re here. Time is flying by and within the next couple weeks most of us have family coming to visit which is often the topic of conversation.

January in Havana

We are just finishing our fourth week here in Havana and so far, it’s been so amazing. We finished our two week Spanish courses and have moved on to our development classes. As of tomorrow we will have finished a two week course titled ‘Political Economy of Cuba’. In the class we studied the colonial, neocolonial, and Revolutionary, the Soviet Union collapse, and present day politics. It’s been hard for me to keep up with everything; our professor speaks very fast and his classes are very fast moving. It’s been great for my Spanish though!

Every week we go on some sort of field trip. Last week we went to the Museum of the Revolution. What I found the most interesting is that the museum is in the old presidential palace so there are still bullet holes in the walls from the fight to take over. Each room had a different theme or different time frame of the Revolution, along with lots of pictures and memorabilia. Outside there was also replicas of the tanks/jeeps/and boats they used. We all had to reflect our thoughts the next day in class and we all agreed that it was very one sided,  but that we had all learned a great deal.

I have had the chance to explore a bit of the most popular religion here called Santeria. When slaves were brought over from Africa during colonial times they wanted to continue worshiping their Gods but were not allowed. In order to make it look like they were worshiping their new Christian Saints – they paired each of their Gods up with one of the Christian Saints. This religion is now called Santeria, which is a mix of Christianity and Afro-religion traditions, practiced by more than 70% of Cubans. During our Spanish classes my class went to the museum in Old Havana that has replicas of each God and our tour guide explained what the significance of each one is. Also, every Sunday there is a dance/ceremony/party close to where we live where musicians perform and people dance these amazing dances that are a form of celebration to each of the Gods.

We’ve been to the beach a couple of times now. It’s about a 30 minute bus ride out of the city – but so worth it. It hasn’t been too touristy yet, but within a month I’m sure it will start to pick up. The water has been amazing, and the general vibe of the beach has been great. Musicians walk up and down the beach and play traditional and popular Cuban songs as well as a lot of Beatles to please the tourists.

We’ve been having a lot of fun going out in Havana. Some of the girls live with other Cubans around out age who have taken us out to the non-touristy places at night which has been fun. So far we’ve been to a big club called La Casa de La Musica (the house of music), which has a live band ever night and a huge dance floor; Turf, a reggae ton bar; and La Cecilia a huge outdoor bar with a big stage with dancers and huge screens projecting music videos. Other nights we have just spent hanging out along the Malecon.

This past Friday was the torch march for Jose Martí. Martí could be called the first revolutionary of Cuba. He was hugely involved in the war of Independence in the early 1900s. It was Martí’s work that Fidel based many of his revolutionary actions on. This night is to honor his work and legacy. Students started gathering at the steps on the University then after a ceremony they walk down San Lazaro, then turn the corner and walk down to the Malecon. We stood on the street and watched as the youth marched yelling ‘viva Fidel, viva Raul, viva Jose!’ with all of their lit torches. There was easily hundreds of youth. After about a quarter of the crowd passed us we ran around the corner to Andrea and Mariah’s house who live at the top of an apartment building – so we ran up to the roof and watched the majority of the rest of the youth come around the corner and continue down the street. Then we decided to join in! We didn’t have torches and most were already out by the time we joined, but it was still so amazing to see. The march ended at the Malecon and then all the youth spread themselves all over the wall and streets leading to the Malecon – I’ve never seen anything like it.

Life in Havana has been great so far. We’re all adjusting and getting into daily routines which make it easier. The lack of internet is hard for all of us since we are so used to being in daily contact with family and friends. Also the phone connection is bad and very expensive. A side from that, the food is amazing, the city life is exciting, and our families are all so welcoming and wonderful. It’s hard to believe it’s already been a month!

La Habana

So now I’m on to my next adventure: Havana for three months. I have been here close to two weeks and so far and I’m loving it! The city is so big – so much different from Halifax and Campeche. We spent our first 5 days here in a hotel until we picked which ‘casa particulares’ we wanted to stay in. Casa particulares are houses owned by families who have extra rooms and want to rent them out to tourists. Dalhousie has used the same houses for years so it was just a matter of going to see our choices and choosing which house/family/roommate we want to live with. Ana Maria, Ben and I chose to live with an amazing family who have an incredible house just two minutes away from the University of Havana. Marcia lives with her son Frank, and his wife Anabel who have a one year old daughter named Ana Paula. Included in our rent we get breakfast and dinner each day. So far the food has been amazing!

Last week and this week we have been in intensive Spanish classes before we start our development courses next week. We’re all in different levels determined by a test we took the first day. Classes are from 9am-12:30pm Monday to Friday, which gives us the rest of the day to explore the city (and siesta, of course!). We live in a great part of the city; there’s a park, movie theatre, supermarket, many restaurants and little shops all within walking distance – not to mention our university is a stone’s throw away. Also about a 10 minute walk away is the Malecon. So far we’ve spent an afternoon there reading and a night there socializing with other Cubans and foreigners our age. It’s a really great hang out spot!

They absolutely love pizza here. A lot of people have turned their homes into fast food restaurants; the majority only having pizza and spaghetti on their menus. The first week we were here we were having a pizza a day because we couldn’t find any other options! There’s actually a pretty good pizza place literally attached to the house we live in – so I’m trying to use all the will power I can to not go there a lot – it’s SO greasy! One time went to this crazy place called Sky Pizza. Most restaurants here are run out of people’s homes, but this family didn’t have a ground floor apartment. Their solution was to put stoves on the top of their roof and sell pizza from the roof while lowering a basket up and down with the pizza and money. It was such a funny experience – a bunch of people would stand on the road a yell their order up, then when it was ready he would lower the basket down and you took your pizza and put the money in the basket which he would then bring back up. The pizza wasn’t amazing, but for less than $.50 and having it come from the sky we will probably become regulars.

The program hires a student who has done this program in the past to spend the first two weeks with us; showing us around the city and the university. For the past three years it’s been Dustin. Dustin has shown us all the good places to eat and meet other students as well as taken care of a lot of the logistical things. It’s been great to have someone around who can show us all those things because it’s such a big city!

We have had the chance to go into Habana Vieja (Old Havana) a couple of times which has been so cool to see. The ‘White House’ called El Capitolio is just at the entrance of this old part of the city – which is a neighbourhood of incredibly old buildings and great little restaurants. Other than that we’ve walked around our part of the city a lot trying to get to know our way around. It’s been really wonderful so far – and we know it will just keep getting better! 

Thoughts about Mexico

After our trip to Oaxaca in Mexico, we spent the rest of our time in Campeche with our families and friends. We all finished and passed our courses with certification, and then took off for a couple more days on the beach in Playa del Carmen and Tulum before heading back home to Canada. I didn’t blog about any of this because once I was home I was so excited to be home, and felt being in the moment of Canada was the best for me at the time. Now that I’m back in that part of the world I can once again reflect on my time spent there.

To sum up a bit of Mexico I’m going to do my favorites…

Favorite trip: Oaxaca/Puerto Escondido. This trip was planned because we couldn’t go to Playa del Carmen, Cancun, Tulum and Isla Mujeres on our week off due to a hurricane. It was during Day of the Dead celebrations and there was so many amazing things going on in the cities and towns we were in. We spent the majority of our time on a beach trying to surf and eating amazing food!  This trip stood out by far.

Favorite adventure: Cenotes in Merida/ horseback riding in Oaxaca. Both these experiences were once in a lifetime, incredible adventures. Swimming in the bright blue water of the water holes was surreal. Horseback riding during sunset in the mountains of Oaxaca was terrifying, but a moment I will never forget.

Favorite food: churros, charritos, and pan de cazon. Churros are long deep fried sticks covered in cinnamon, and you can add vanilla or chocolate to the centre (much like donuts but in the form of a stick). Charritos are chips only made and sold in Campeche. There is no way in describing them, but they are amazing and different from any chip I have ever had – you’ll just have to go to Campeche to try them! And finally, Pan de Cazon is another dish typical to Campeche. You take a tortilla cover it in refried beans, then baby shark, then tomato sauce. You repeat this three or four times until you have a mound of tortilla, beans, baby shark and finally cover it all in more tomato sauce – delicious!

Favorite drink: horchata. This is a sort of rice/coconut milk, milkshake. It took me a while to like it, and it’s very typical in Campeche. But once we found an amazing restaurant called Portales that sold horchata to die for we were drinking it almost every night.

Favorite beach: Puerto Escondido. You just can’t compete with that beach. It’s not too touristy like all the beaches on the east coast (Cancun, Playa del Carmen, etc). It was completely worth the 30+ hour bus ride.

People to remember:

My amazing family. Addy, Enrique, Kike and Gely made me feel a part of the family. I will never forget their hospitality and their kindness. I feel so blessed to have met them and had the pleasure of staying in their beautiful home.

Ave, Kike’s girlfriend, and now my dear, dear friend. Ave took me under her wing and introduced me to all her friends, drove me around Campeche to help me get my bearings, and above all became a truly amazing friend to me. She would help me study Spanish and always had patience with me when I was struggling with communicating. I know our friendship will last a lifetime.

Irving, a friend we met along the way who lives in Campeche. Irving introduced us to all of his friends and took us out with him. It was so nice to have someone our age show us the good places to dance and eat. We had so much fun as a big group – so many memories and laughs. 

This experience was one I will never forget. I was so scared and nervous at the beginning of the trip, but it turned out to the best 3 months of my life. I missed my family and friends so much, but adding together all the experiences and all of the people I met within those three months I cannot think of an experience similar. I took lots of pictures and kept a diary of everything and everywhere we went so one day I can look back at these three months and remember all the small things that made this trip what it was – amazing.

Campech

Since our big trip to Oaxaca - not much has been going on. The girls and I have gotten into a routine of going to school, going home for the main meal of the day and a siesta, and then meeting up in the Centro at night to grab something to eat and meet up with some of our other friends. Some of the restaurants we've been going to have been amazing. There's one called Portales that sells amazing horchata which is a sort of rice milk- milkshake. It's really hard to describe but take my word for it - it's delicious! Another is called Potros - and they have amazing Hawiian tortillas (ham, bacon and cheese on top of flour tortillas) - riquisimo. Then there's the churros on the street (doughnuts in the shape of twirley sticks with cinnamon is the best way to describe them...) that are a regular staple in our night time diet now.

Last Friday the teachers at the school held a birthday party for me since I was in Oaxaca on my birthday. They had food, cake, and a pinata!! Apparently there's a tradition where the birthday person needs to take a bite out of the cake. I thought it was weird, but I don't agrue with Mexican traditions - but before I knew it my whole face was in the cake. Last time I fall for that one! All in all, we had a great afternoon breaking the pinata and eating all the great food.

Last Saturday Alysse, Andrea and I went to a beach club for the day called Club Nautico. We were all given four free passes to get in so we decided to use it on that hot day. We ended up being the only people there - since this weather is considered cold for a lot of Campechanos. So we spent a few hours hanging out by the pool all to ourselves.That night Maddy and I went to the local (and only...) bar called Chupis with some friends for what was a great night!

The following week was more of the same; school, siesta, centro, etc. Friday we went on a field trip with the school to a near by Mayan ruin city called Calakmul. We had to be at the school at 5am, and didn't get back until 9pm but it was so worth it. The experience was unbelievable. There are only a small number of ruins uncovered in Calakmul, but they are some of the tallest in Mexico. So naturally, we climbed the three highest ones! My legs are still killing me two days later, but again, so worth it for the amazing view at the top. We were literally over looking miles and miles of jungle and ruins. An experience of a lifetime.

Oaxaca

It's been a while since I've posted a blog for a couple reasons - the weeks leading up the November were spent much the same in Campeche; going to school, hanging out with the girls, making some friends around the city, etc. This past week we had off from school because of the Dia de los Muertos celebrations (Day of the Dead). These days are said to be those in the year that the living are closest to the dead. This holiday is practiced on the 1st and 2nd of November and celebrates the lives of those who are no longer with us. It is truly a beautiful holliday, filled with alters dedicated to loved ones with their favorite things, food, flowers, etc. Because we had a whole week off school we decided to go on a big trip - one we wouldn't have been able to do on a weekend. We originally wanted to go to the east coast to see Playa del Carmen, Tulum and Cozumel, but hurrican Rima posed some complications. So instead we made our way to the west coast to the state of Oaxaca.

We left Campeche Saturday morning and settled in for a 20+ hour bus ride to Oaxaca City. We arrived early Sunday morning, and after walking around the centre looking for a hostel with room for 4 we found a great place called Paulina. Before we even checked in the workers offered us breakfast and a moment of rest, which we all appreciated! After breakfast we walked around 'el centro' (the centre of the city) and the market, had an amazing siesta at the hostel, and went out for unbelievable sushi that night which we had all been craving! Sunday was the 31st - so Halloween parades were in full swing, and people were walking around the city with costumes on. The holliday is quiet different than in Canada, but it was fun to experience the Mexican style.

Monday we found a Canadian/American couple that offers horseback riding tours in the mountains surrounding the city. In the afternoon we rode out to the countryside to the ranch that they built and had a two hour ride in the mountiains. It was breathtakingly beautiful. The sun was hitting the mountains at just the right angle and the path allowed us to see for miles along the beautiful countryside. On our way back into the city we were dropped off in a town called Del Tule which is famous for having the biggest and one of the oldest trees in the world (2000+ years). After seeing the tree we had dinner at a restaurant that was recomended to us where we tried huge totillas with Oaxacan cheese, chicken, beans, and veggies - so delicious! After dinner we went back into the city and went to a cemetery that was open to tourists who wanted to see the practices of Dia de los Muertos. The cemetery was filled with lit candles and dedicated alters. It was so beautiful to see - hundreds of candles lit in memory of amazing people.
                                                   

Tuesday we took an afternoon bus to Puerto Escondido - a surfing town on the west coast of Mexico. The bus ride wasn't too long, but it was on the curvy mountain roads Latin America is famous for. We didn't get into Puerto until late Monday night, in which we settled right into our hostel, The Mayflower, and went to bed. Wednesday we woke up, and it was my birthday! We went for breakfast at a restaurant that was recomended to us by other Canadians called El Cafecito. We had a great view of the beach and the waves right from the patio of the restaurant - it was stunning. After breakfast we walked along the beach but we couldn't swim there becuase of the big waves, so we made our way to another beach 15 mins away. We had to walk down 100+ stairs to get the beach, but when we got there is was amazing - even at the top of the stars it was stunning - like no other beach I had been to before. We layed on the beach for the afternoon, getting something to eat at a restaurant on the beach, and later in the afternoon I took a surfing lesson. I'm terrible, but at least I tried! And it was lots of fun :). After the beach we went to the supermarket to buy food to make for dinner. We ended up making a great stirfry, with birthday cheesecake for dessert. We spent the night hanging out at the hostel with the other guests, and ended the night at a salsa bar just 5 minutes away called Congo. An amazing 21st birthday!

The next few days were again spent on the beach. On Friday we went to a beach way on the other side of the town called 'La Punta' - where again we were not able to swim, but we were able to watch the surfers catch some waves which was so cool to see. Kids as young as 8 were out there in big waves. And the nights were spent hanging out at the hostel meeting the other guests. Our last night there a group of us went down to the beach to a bar called Barfly - where we danced the night away. The bus ride back to Campeche was around 30 hours - but we all felt it was so worth it, for the amazing week that we had in both Oaxaca City and Puerto Escondido.

Thanksgiving dinner, poutine and pumpkin pie parties

One of the reasons we had to leave Merida early on Sunday was because we all needed to get back to Campeche in order to cook our contribution to the Thanksgiving dinner we would be having in school. Each year one of the teachers buys a chicken for class and the students are responsible to bring in other additions to make a Thanksgiving dinner. After we realised it was not going to be exactly like our mothers delicous dinners we stopped freaking out about what to bring. I made some garlic bread, Andrea made mashed potatos, Amber made a salad, Alysse made a garlic dip for the chicken and Madeline made pumkin pie. It wasn't as good as what we could have been enjoying back at home, but it was our Mexican Thanksgiving, to which we were all thankful for!

Later that day we went to meet two friends we had met at the hostel in Merida who had made their way to Campeche. The hostel they were staying in is right in the Parque Principal, and has an incredible roof top view of the park and the cathedral. We were hanging out up there and met a couple from Texas who were staying at the hostel as well. We got talking with them and before we knew it the topic of poutine came up and within minutes we had decided we were going to make poutine the next night. So sure enough the next day we all showed up at the hostel with potatos and cheese, and Matt (one of the Texans) was ready with the ingredients to make gravy. It was quiet the production, and we had so much fun through so much chaos. But in the end, the poutine was amazing and was exactly what some of us needed - comfort food from home!

Thursday class was canceled because of heavy rain, so we had a free day. The rain was pouring down hard all day, so we couldn't really go out and do anything. Most of us had 'poutine hangovers' anyway - we at so many potatos between all of us! That night though after the rain had stopped Madeline and Alysse came over to my house to make pumpkin pies from the left over pumpkin Maddy had bought for the Thanksgiving dinner. After some struggles and changes of recipes we ended up making 4 delicous pumpkin pies, and shared them with the whole family. In two of the pies we added creamcheese which was delicious! And the other two were just normal pumpkin pies, equally as delicious.

We had a great week filled with amazing food! But I think we're done cooking for a little while...