Do and don't in Cuba

I do not currently live in Cuba, but I plan to one day and, over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to travel there quite a bit and spend my maximum 60 days on each trip several times a year (I am a U.S. citizen and therefore limited to two, 30 day visas per trip).  I have traveled the entire island over my 13 or 14 trips and have seen almost every major city and a lot of the smaller ones as well, even once making it over to Isla de la Juventud to experience one of the best dive trips in my 30 years of diving.  So, even though I do not live there full time, I feel like I know it pretty well and have even considered writing about my experiences.  So, your inquiry sparked my interest as I have always wanted to write about my observations.

First I want to set the record straight that I love Cuba and the Cubans in general.  Six years ago I was fortunate to meet a girl in a small fishing village called Pilon on my second trip (she now lives in Havana) and she and I are now planning to marry and buy an apartment in Havana where I will travel back and forth on a family visa that will allow me to stay in the apartment legally.  She wants to visit the U.S. but has no desire to move here permanently and my on-again off-again type of job works well for us.

She and I have traveled the entire island together, staying primarily in the casa particulars, and have made several really good lifelong friends as we always return to their houses when in town. 

I have found that I enjoy Havana for about the first week of each trip but after that I am ready to get away from it and get out to see the other part of Cuba most people never see (particularly the people that go to the all inclusive hotels and never leave the premises).  One reason we spend the first week in Havana is because we have very good friends that run a casa particular in Havana Vieja and have a nice, separate apartment that we rent and use as a base.  It is just a few blocks from calle Obispo so we can go there to listen to some music and grab some drinks.  That area used to be one of my favorites to visit but I have seen it change since I first started going there.  Because it is so popular with the tourist now, it has attracted some seedy people whose main focus is to make as much as they can, and now you have to be very careful to look over your bill, make sure there are no mistakes, and compare the prices on the bill to what is on the menu, and to check and see if they have already added the tip- something that is really starting to catch on.  We even went to one bar that we later discovered had two menus- one in the local currencies for Cubans and the other in overstated tourist CUC currencies where they tried to charge me 2.50 CUC for a 1 CUC bottle of water. (I know that doesn't sound like much, but it is the principle).  My rule of thumb- I always try to drink my beer where I see a lot of Cubans.  A Cuban will rarely pay more that 1 CUC for a local Cuban beer and they will not frequent the tourist bars that over charge.  While in Havana, always look at the menu prices first (even for a beer) before you order.

My do's and don't (And sorry if some are negative- these mostly apply to high tourist areas like Havana Vieja and Trinidad):

Don't buy anything off the street.  The cigars are fake and the alcohol bottles have been watered down, no matter what the story is they are spinning.

When someone walks up to you out of the blue and starts off with "Amigo- where are you from?" ... walk faster

There are really great, good-hearted people in Cuba and then there are hustlers (some of the best), whose only objective is to get the money that is in your pocket into his.  Size up the people carefully and if the topic in the first five minutes turns to money or buying them something, keep your distance.

Once you get out of Havana into the smaller cities, it is like an entirely different world.  The people are more genuine and are interested in getting to know you and learn about life outside of Cuba.  It is there that you will meet the people that will become your friends.

Hopefully I will make some more observations on this post in the future.