Another travel vlog to Cuba

[ha_banos]

This is a recent series from Indigo Traveller to Cuba. I like this guy's presentation. Been following for a few years now on and off. I've not seen this series yet. Should be a decent on the ground cover.

[Dorsetman]

Eye opening - thanks!

[jerryr]

Eye opening, things appear to have deteriorated considerably in the 10 years since I last visited. Havana was always a run down city living on its faded grandeur. But we never saw this sort of deprivation


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[ha_banos]

They recently had their 4th complete country wide electricity blackout. Sorry 5th

Millions lose power as Cuba hit by fifth blackout in less than a year | Energy News | Al Jazeera https://share.google/KGYq3sj4MCoZS3xUc

They've been hit by two more hurricanes.

Prisoners are rolling cigars

Habanos S.A. Confirms Prison Laborers Are Rolling Cuban Cigars | halfwheel https://share.google/ub90YvktYRr7d3fX9

But the likes of Kirby and Usman are posting like there's no issues there and their footage looks pristine.

[jerryr]

They recently had their 4th complete country wide electricity blackout. Sorry 5th

Millions lose power as Cuba hit by fifth blackout in less than a year | Energy News | Al Jazeera https://share.google/KGYq3sj4MCoZS3xUc

They've been hit by two more hurricanes.

Prisoners are rolling cigars

Habanos S.A. Confirms Prison Laborers Are Rolling Cuban Cigars | halfwheel https://share.google/ub90YvktYRr7d3fX9

But the likes of Kirby and Usman are posting like there's no issues there and their footage looks pristine.

Prisoners rolling cigars? What happened to them being rolled on the thighs of young Cuban women?


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[SonicStag]

Prisoners rolling cigars? What happened to them being rolled on the thighs of young Cuban women?


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They've all left Cuba for better places or grown old

[OtELos]

They recently had their 4th complete country wide electricity blackout. Sorry 5th

Millions lose power as Cuba hit by fifth blackout in less than a year | Energy News | Al Jazeera https://share.google/KGYq3sj4MCoZS3xUc

They've been hit by two more hurricanes.

Prisoners are rolling cigars

Habanos S.A. Confirms Prison Laborers Are Rolling Cuban Cigars | halfwheel https://share.google/ub90YvktYRr7d3fX9

But the likes of Kirby and Usman are posting like there's no issues there and their footage looks pristine.

May AI help them 🤣


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[Ryan]

I've been to Cuba about 10 times since Covid. About 30 times since 2010. Most recently in June and going again next month.
Things are pretty grim for the most part.
I took my family and sister-in-law in June, We walked around Habana Vieja one day, down Calle Obispo from the Floridita, lunch, then back by Calle O'Reilly to the Partagas shop. We saw 4 other tourists. In the past that stretch would have been wall to wall tourists. June is low season for tourism, but still.

1,600% inflation (25 pesos:$1 USD in Jan 21, now 400 to 1) since they restructured the currency in January 2021.
Power cuts in Havana aren't too bad. 4-6 hours per day and often none at all near hotels or hospitals.
In the countryside, 16-18 hours per day power cuts. I have meetings in Viñales and Pinar del Rio with farmers and agriculture representatives, they have to be held outside so we can see each other.
Mosquitos have got worse, along with Dengue and Chikungunya. I haven't seen fumigation efforts in years. Pre-2020 house and neighbourhood fumigation was normal. For that reason Zika never really came to Cuba, I'd hate to see what would happen now.

There have been some positive changes. The government has licensed more private businesses (Mipymes, stands for something like micro, small to medium enterprises).
Lots of people have opened little storefronts in their houses/businesses. I'm seeing quite well-run privately owned supermarkets. Prices are outside the reach of many Cubans, but still for an emergency, things like cooking oil, soap, rice, are more readily available than before. For tourists, bottled water, beer, rum much easier to find now than pre-2020.
More private restaurants, bars and nightclubs too. Many with foreign investment. Some new ones with world class standards (Look up Bleco bar or Bar Club 23 or Yarini or Costa Vino restaurant on Instagram and you'll see. All new since just before or after Covid)

More than ever I'm seeing a class/social divide. Those who work in private industry and access to hard currency and those who work for the state or are retired.
I'd imagine that this state of affairs should be worrying.
I see more beggars, homeless and people eating from bins than I ever saw before.

More people than ever are looking for a way out. Just about everybody aged 20-50 wants out. The people who want to work or take a risk with a new business or situation. I've raised this in Cuba, the very people required if things are to turn around. People who can and want to work. I know because we had a similar situation in Ireland. In the 1950s 10% of the population left Ireland, conservatively 20-30% of the working age population, many to the UK (Thanks! seriously). Ireland stayed poor until 1995.
Brazil and Spain are popular destinations for Cubans now that the US has become less friendly to migrants. The Brazil route is is particularly awful and expensive. Indirect flight from Havana to Guyana, then a 3 day bus ride to Sao Paulo. With all kinds of risks, from officialdom and otherwise for a young green Cuban.

Estimates are 2 - 3 million people (out of 11 million) have left since Covid and other changes in 2020.
It's visible, streets are quiet or empty. La Rampa (Calle 23 from the Malecon up to the Habana Libre Hotel, in Vedado, near the Hotel Nacional) used to look like carnival / festival every Friday and Saturday night from 9 pm to 3 am, people just hanging out and having fun, some rum, beers, music etc. Now it's empty except for one or two bars, and they're often empty too.

It's a real shame. I see hungry people in Havana every day, actually hungry, haven't eaten in 2 days hungry. Then I see fruit, vegetables and various carbohydrate crops rotting on farms because there's nobody left to harvest them, no fuel to transport them and an opaque bureaucracy, with questionable interests, making it difficult to sell it in different provinces.

Honestly not trying to blow my own horn, but part of what I'm trying to do, in a small way, with the coffee farm is create viable jobs in the countryside. We have gone from 2 workers last November to 16 as of June and aiming at 25. The local community has 800 people, those jobs make a difference. I spent a couple of days on the farm with them in June, they do actually seem happy. They make a living wage for that part of the world, 3 times what other state workers make. My wife and I gave speeches to the local primary and secondary schools in June, she has started art projects in the schools in an effort to instill a sense of community. It's actually really nice. But I know most of those kids will leave if things don't change soon. Soon, I'll be raising funds to create community / social centres in the towns and villages. Simple affairs but somewhere, maybe with a coffee cart, where people can meet up together out of the sun and rain, the young can play, teenagers can date and old people play dominoes. My family comes from rural Ireland and I saw village after village die when the last pub and shop closed. There is still a sense of community in Cuba, more than I see in other countries. People look out for each other. And generally, when people see efforts to improve their situation they take part and take care of it. It's a nice thing, one of the things that has me going back.

Anyway, my 2 cents, I could go on all day.

[ha_banos]

Power cuts in Havana aren't too bad. 4-6 hours per day

Stockholm syndrome! Food can still go bad in this time.

[Ryan]

Stockholm syndrome! Food can still go bad in this time.

While I don't get the Stockholm syndrome reference, yes, food can still go bad in that time, 100%. People use their freezers to store their food. I've bought top loading chest freezers for the farm for the workers to store their lunch. They freeze blocks of ice at the bottom of it and that stays cold. My wife thought I was crazy buying freezers to store lunches but fridges are pointless. Having been there now she gets it. Everyone of them needs a surge protector too. They blow when the power comes back on.
It's the 2-3 day power cuts that hurt. People lose all their stored food. No insurance of course and almost everybody needs to store food in Cuba.
The worst aspect of those multiple day power cuts is lack of water. Most people in Havana need water pumped to rooftop tanks. No power, no pump, no water, no flushing toilets. They all agree, we can live without power for a while, not without water. It's easy to forget.

[moteyi]

Stockholm syndrome! Food can still go bad in this time.

Having lived in rural Congo, with a maximum of 3 hours electricity a day, life continues - you just have to adapt. I suspect that the majority of the world's population don't have access to their own fridge or freezer - what's a shame is that Cuba like other 'developing' countries is going backwards.

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[moteyi]

Thanks Ryan for your very insightful post.

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[SonicStag]

I've been to Cuba about 10 times since Covid. About 30 times since 2010. Most recently in June and going again next month.
Things are pretty grim for the most part.
I took my family and sister-in-law in June, We walked around Habana Vieja one day, down Calle Obispo from the Floridita, lunch, then back by Calle O'Reilly to the Partagas shop. We saw 4 other tourists. In the past that stretch would have been wall to wall tourists. June is low season for tourism, but still.

1,600% inflation (25 pesos:$1 USD in Jan 21, now 400 to 1) since they restructured the currency in January 2021.
Power cuts in Havana aren't too bad. 4-6 hours per day and often none at all near hotels or hospitals.
In the countryside, 16-18 hours per day power cuts. I have meetings in Viñales and Pinar del Rio with farmers and agriculture representatives, they have to be held outside so we can see each other.
Mosquitos have got worse, along with Dengue and Chikungunya. I haven't seen fumigation efforts in years. Pre-2020 house and neighbourhood fumigation was normal. For that reason Zika never really came to Cuba, I'd hate to see what would happen now.

There have been some positive changes. The government has licensed more private businesses (Mipymes, stands for something like micro, small to medium enterprises).
Lots of people have opened little storefronts in their houses/businesses. I'm seeing quite well-run privately owned supermarkets. Prices are outside the reach of many Cubans, but still for an emergency, things like cooking oil, soap, rice, are more readily available than before. For tourists, bottled water, beer, rum much easier to find now than pre-2020.
More private restaurants, bars and nightclubs too. Many with foreign investment. Some new ones with world class standards (Look up Bleco bar or Bar Club 23 or Yarini or Costa Vino restaurant on Instagram and you'll see. All new since just before or after Covid)

More than ever I'm seeing a class/social divide. Those who work in private industry and access to hard currency and those who work for the state or are retired.
I'd imagine that this state of affairs should be worrying.
I see more beggars, homeless and people eating from bins than I ever saw before.

More people than ever are looking for a way out. Just about everybody aged 20-50 wants out. The people who want to work or take a risk with a new business or situation. I've raised this in Cuba, the very people required if things are to turn around. People who can and want to work. I know because we had a similar situation in Ireland. In the 1950s 10% of the population left Ireland, conservatively 20-30% of the working age population, many to the UK (Thanks! seriously). Ireland stayed poor until 1995.
Brazil and Spain are popular destinations for Cubans now that the US has become less friendly to migrants. The Brazil route is is particularly awful and expensive. Indirect flight from Havana to Guyana, then a 3 day bus ride to Sao Paulo. With all kinds of risks, from officialdom and otherwise for a young green Cuban.

Estimates are 2 - 3 million people (out of 11 million) have left since Covid and other changes in 2020.
It's visible, streets are quiet or empty. La Rampa (Calle 23 from the Malecon up to the Habana Libre Hotel, in Vedado, near the Hotel Nacional) used to look like carnival / festival every Friday and Saturday night from 9 pm to 3 am, people just hanging out and having fun, some rum, beers, music etc. Now it's empty except for one or two bars, and they're often empty too.

It's a real shame. I see hungry people in Havana every day, actually hungry, haven't eaten in 2 days hungry. Then I see fruit, vegetables and various carbohydrate crops rotting on farms because there's nobody left to harvest them, no fuel to transport them and an opaque bureaucracy, with questionable interests, making it difficult to sell it in different provinces.

Honestly not trying to blow my own horn, but part of what I'm trying to do, in a small way, with the coffee farm is create viable jobs in the countryside. We have gone from 2 workers last November to 16 as of June and aiming at 25. The local community has 800 people, those jobs make a difference. I spent a couple of days on the farm with them in June, they do actually seem happy. They make a living wage for that part of the world, 3 times what other state workers make. My wife and I gave speeches to the local primary and secondary schools in June, she has started art projects in the schools in an effort to instill a sense of community. It's actually really nice. But I know most of those kids will leave if things don't change soon. Soon, I'll be raising funds to create community / social centres in the towns and villages. Simple affairs but somewhere, maybe with a coffee cart, where people can meet up together out of the sun and rain, the young can play, teenagers can date and old people play dominoes. My family comes from rural Ireland and I saw village after village die when the last pub and shop closed. There is still a sense of community in Cuba, more than I see in other countries. People look out for each other. And generally, when people see efforts to improve their situation they take part and take care of it. It's a nice thing, one of the things that has me going back.

Anyway, my 2 cents, I could go on all day.

where can your coffee be purchased?

[Ryan]

where can your coffee be purchased?

Thanks for the interest! I honestly didn't mean my post as a sales pitch.
The first batch was loaded into a container in Mariel Port in the last few days. It'll be on a ship very soon. I hope to have sample bags for potential distributors in November. There is interest from the UK. I update when it's available.

WhatsApp Image 2025-09-25 at 17.42.19_18691f4e.jpg

[SonicStag]

Thanks for the interest! I honestly didn't mean my post as a sales pitch.
The first batch was loaded into a container in Mariel Port in the last few days. It'll be on a ship very soon. I hope to have sample bags for potential distributors in November. There is interest from the UK. I update when it's available.

WhatsApp Image 2025-09-25 at 17.42.19_18691f4e.jpg

I’ve yet to find a decent whole bean coffee apart from Jamaican Blue Mountain