Cuba

September 14th, Day 39 – Well, after 4 days of everything being closed and consistently eating horrible (and expensive) food, we decided to leave Cuba weak and defeated. Not really much to say here except this place is very poor yet very expensive for foreigners. The diet is… something else to say the least. In our preparations for the hurricane, we filled the fridge with some disgusting pizzas. In the end, we ate imported cookies 90 percent of the time. To close this food commentary, we were paying $20 - $25 a meal for what could be on par with homeless shelter cuisine! Done.

We did get to know a few Cubans that we stayed with who were very nice and accommodating people. However, when they tried to show us the town, everything was closed. We also had an interesting experience with the police. It seems they don’t like foreigners hanging with the locals since we may be journalists. After a brief security check, we were back in the deserted streets of Havana.

Back to Guatemala City!

September 10th, Day 35 – We arrived in Cuba on the same day that Hurricane Ivan was supposed to arrive. Truth is, never did. It did rain… lightly… but that didn’t keep everyone here from declaring a state of emergency and closing everything down.