Mr. Mogote Wall from Cuba Libre, © Fernando Nuñez
Cuba is a major tourist destination and there are many excellent travel guidebooks available including Bradt, Eyewitness, Fodors, Footprint, Insight, Lonely Planet and Rough. Our recommendation is the Cuba Moon Handbook.
For background reading, we recommend two outstanding books by knowledgeable, evenhanded authors, who also can genuinely write. Christopher Baker has written an outlandish, yet revealing and thought-provoking adventure book on Cuba, Mi Moto Fidel, about his 3-month exploration of the island on a 1000cc, Paris-Dakar BMW motorcycle. In The Boys from Dolores, Patrick Symmes follows the tales of the students from the prestigious Jesuit school in eastern Cuba attended by Fidel and Raul Castro to write an evocative history of modern Cuba. As the NYT Book Review stated, “Symmes digs like a reporter and writes like a novelist.” For more on Cuba from Patrick Symmes, see his site.
2009 saw the publication of the first ever climbing guidebook, Cuba Climbing. After ten years, the guidebook is out of print. The guidebook is still available as a handy, inexpensive e-Book. The very last few original Cuba Climbing guidebooks, signed, pricy but valued as a keepsake or for collectors, are for sale in Viñales. Ask here.
Laura Rodriguez, El Morro Fortress, 1999
The young Cuban climbers in Viñales once created a useful website, escaladaencuba.com that was a great source for new routes and last minute news. The website was abandoned for a decade after the site was labelled “counterrevolutionary.” An effort is again being made to make it current.
Facebook also host several pages on climbing in Cuba, including discussions, finding partners, and up to date route information: Cuba Climbing, and Bouldering in Cuba.
Phone and Communications
ETECSA is Cuba’s sole telecommunication provider (landline and cell phones, internet (ISP) and wifi distributor, and probably the equivalent scooper to the NSA). For internet access you must buy a card at an ETECSA office or kiosk.
It also now sells temporary (30-days) phone lines called CubacelTur. 6GB of use is $25 USD.
The website does not say if the usual $4 per minute rate for calling outside Cuba is discounted. There are many services that sell time calling to and from Cuba below 70 cents/minute. The real benefit for the independent traveler is having own phone for calls within Cuba; confirming casa reservations, taxis, etc. CubacelTur says the package include SMS messaging but in reality texts to or from U.S. don’t work.
