When is it best to visit cuba
CUBA! Here's What Surprised Us Most: Safety, Food, Money, Cigars, Cars
it is our last day in Cuba and we find
no means claim to be experts on this
crazy unique complicated beautiful
country though we have learned a lot so
in today's video as we spend our last
day here wandering around the vanna we
want to share with you all the things
that have surprised us most about this
country we originally came to Cuba we
came here with a lot of misconceptions
and one of the biggest ones for me was
how prevalent the cigar culture was here
I'd spected show up in the country and
everybody who's gonna be walking around
smoking cigars but it turns out that's
not the case at least anymore and that's
because we learned from one of our
guides that most of the locals here
actually consider cigars a luxury so
unless somebody is actually working in
the tobacco industry and they can get
them at a very reduced price you're not
gonna see a lot of locals walking around
smoking cigars it turns out it's mainly
for the tourists
when I pictured the style in cube I've
always pictured fedoras and white
clothes and it turns out it's true there
are a ton of people wearing the
traditional fedoras and a lot of people
wearing white clothes too but it's not
what you think the white clothes
actually stem back to a religion called
afro-cuban which is the most prevalent
religion to this day in Cuba and when
you're entering into it for the very
first year you have to wear all white so
that's why a lot of Tours when they come
here think that white is just the style
and you're like they need to wear white
man
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can you super cheese so everyone knows
that Cuba is full of these really old
cool American cars so what most people
don't realize is that for every old
American car there's one of these old
rushing carts I appeal ideas right here
I think they're just not as well-known
because the other cars are much more
popular on Instagram humans spend a lot
of time waiting in line
whether you're waiting in line for a
Wi-Fi card like we are now or whether
you're going to the bank or a store for
some reason they only put a few people
into each location at once and so there
isn't being this really long line
outside of many of the stores even
though it looks like a big jumbled mess
behind me it actually turns out that
there's a really good system so
important that when somebody new walks
out to get in the line they ask who's
last and if your last wish was to raise
your hand
everybody kind of knows where they stand
in line that way you don't have to wait
in this perfectly little single-file
line everybody can just kind of hang out
where they're comfortable but everybody
knows exactly for this game
let's talk about a few minutes we know
so much about the food culture here in
Cuba because we went on a food tour and
we're social kids about why that is down
it's really in ingredients to promote
Italian food it's very accessible here
and very affordable
there's pizza and pasta everywhere
which we love Street pizza has got to be
our favorite that would cut here so far
and they fold it like a taco so became
the Cuba and you only ate at the
touristy restaurants you would probably
leave thinking that the food here is
really expensive you just have to know
where to go where they look like
[Applause]
and it's really one of the most
mind-blowing things that we've learned
since being in Cuba is that Cuban
sandwiches aren't Cuban apparently to
ban Americans are actually the ones that
created the Cuban sandwich but so many
people have come here looking for a
Cuban sandwich that the Cubans have
actually started serving in
before he came to Cuba and heard that
doctors here make less than 100 dollars
per month I had such a hard time
believing that until we stayed with our
first host whose brother was a
neurosurgeon and when I asked him his
brother makes $80 per month that's it
and it's amazing to me that anyone here
in Cuba is still motivated to become a
doctor after being here for a week from
what we've observed the people who work
in the tourism industry are the most
well-off which means a lot of them are
way overqualified for what they're doing
for example our hosts in Vinny Ollis was
a physics professor but made more money
opening up his home to tourists then
teaching then the guy who showed us
around the coffee plantation was a
computer science engineer but I think
the craziest thing of all is that you
can make more money driving a taxi than
being a neurosurgeon in Cuba
one thing this super you need to keep I
don't think we've experienced that
anywhere else in the world is that they
actually have two different currencies
they have the local Cuban peso and then
they have the tourist money this is CEP
this is C you see I thought before he
came that I was gonna need to get my
hands on the local pesos and I was gonna
be able to save all kinds of money with
it but it turns out they're pretty much
used interchangeably here the locals are
using the tourist money just as much as
we are so you don't have to worry about
getting your hands on the local pesos it
might save you a little bit of money and
street food but for the most part if
you're using the tourist money you're
not gonna beer at the office okay I know
this is a little weird but we're
planning this trip we read that there
was like no toilet paper in Cuba bring
your own toilet paper and I've been
carrying it around but there's been
doing paper everywhere we haven't been
without it a single time some places you
do have to pay for it like a few cents
but there has not been a single back
there with that toilet paper in it so
don't worry you don't have to bring your
own clothes paper when we very first
stepped foot in Cuba one of the first
things that we noticed is how many
people were just outside kids were
playing outside the yard people who are
sitting on the side of the road just
having conversations with each other
when we will go into a restaurant whoo
that's real people will be having
conversations and not sitting on their
phone
that is because Wi-Fi in Cuba is pretty
new and very restrictive if you want to
get connected to Wi-Fi you have to wait
and a really long line and get one of
these cards one card equals 1 hour of
internet you can only use them in
certain Wi-Fi zones such as these Wi-Fi
parts they're very easy to spot there
are lots throughout the city and it's
just a bunch of people sitting on
benches nose-down in their phone making
the most of the Wi-Fi said they paid for
him and we had heard before we came to
Cuba that it wasn't even worth spending
the time to get one of these because
Wi-Fi was really slow you could even do
anything but we have not found that to
be the case at all we think it's
actually pretty fast we even watched
YouTube video being without internet for
a whole week has been the craziest
experience breath we've bought Wi-Fi
cards like twice to check in on some
things but for the most part we have
been internet free and it has been so
interesting it's led to some very unique
conversations like the other night over
dinner I found myself explaining the
carrot house sugar cane turns into sugar
things that we never would have talked
about before we both just paused after
that conversation we're like how did we
get here you get to places in
conversations that you could only get to
if you aren't able to like look down
your phone and do something more
interesting there definitely pros and
cons - it's been fun like trying to
figure out how to get places about maps
that we heavily rely on but there are
other times where we're wondering
something and we're like gosh if we
could just google it we wouldn't have to
wonder anymore
more like fact check ourselves for these
videos I'm pretty sure I'm saying this
right normally I'd look at the internet
make sure it's a fun change of pace
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we typically don't take our expensive
camera gear out at night because we
don't really that's a very wise thing to
do in any big city in the world but
that's another thing that you really
surprised us about the bana is just how
safe everyone's told us that it is from
reading stuff on the internet and from
talking to our hosts apparently the city
is super safe even at night our host
told us it was no problem to take our
camera out but it just feels so wrong
like honestly the streets here at night
look sketchy it feels like a place that
should be unsafe and so when we're
toting our gear around I'm still feeling
like a little uncomfortable don't take
this as a director I can additionally go
flaunting all of your expensive stuff
like in Cuba but it's just interesting
to note and so far nothing's happened to
make us feel unsafe our time in Cuba is
officially coming to an end
such an eye-opening trip for the both of
us
we have even scratch the surface of
everything we've learned from there but
we hope you enjoyed this different style
of video there's so much more to see and
do in Cuba we're very sad to be leaving
but tomorrow we're going
[Music]
it's
it says it on here somewhere
sorry I'm not ready
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