9 December 2024, Havana
La Mansion del Centro €25 (R495)

This morning, Charl, tasked with finding us something to eat before we assembled the bikes, returned clutching two small burgers in his bare hand. Again, no packaging supplied. A sign of the obvious poverty. In future, we will carry a plastic bag with us.
Returning from his food forage, Charl did not recognise our unobtrusive hostel door and tried opening the wrong door further up our street. A neighbour set him right!
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Getting our heads around the exchange rate and therefore what things do / should cost, is proving an early challenge. Accommodation and tourist restaurants and bars quote in hard currency - so far mainly in USD, though our Havana hostel prefers Euro. The official ie government exchange rate is 120 pesos to $1. The black market rate is a considerable improvement on this, substantially reducing costs. But here’s the complication: it varies from place to place. Our hostel host offered us 300 pesos to the Euro, which we accepted, but we have heard that, in theory at least, you can get 350 pesos to the USD.
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On our late-afternoon / early-evening stroll, we saw dollar prices ranging from 320 to 350 to 400 pesos per $. In a tourist street to which we were lured by a couple who assured us that they were not seeking money for their “services”, that Cuba is all about salsa, mojitos and cigars, but then asked for a $5 beer, we paid $2 at 400 pesos per dollar ie 800 pesos, for a softdrink. Later, at a local place with loud music and chairs secured to the floor in the outdoor seating area, we got two beers and a softdrink for 700 pesos. In a restaurant, the menu had prices in USD, but the waiter helpfully explained with the use of a calculator that if we wanted to pay in pesos, they required 320 per USD.
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Bottom line: avoid the government rate; know that tourists pay considerably more than the going rate; seek out places where the peso price is clearly advertised.