Day 1: Arriving in Cuba

It was early Thursday morning when we left our little apartment and made our way to the Toronto International Airport as a start to our trip to Cuba. Now, before the trip I had done a little research on various things about Cuba. One thing that surprised me was that in all the conversations that I had had prior to my trip no one had made mention of the fact that there are two different currencies used in Cuba; the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC) and the Cuban Peso (CUP). Convertible Pesos are used by tourists and the exchange rate is pretty much on par with the US Dollar. The CUP is worth considerably less than the Canadian dollar and is used by the locals to purchase everyday items such as groceries and toothpaste. Since tourists don't generally spend this kind of peso I would assume that most people either don't know about it or didn't bother to mention it for this reason, however it is good to know the difference, ESPECIALLY when getting change.

For CUC Notes (or bills) they will actually have the words "Convertible Peso" written on them. As for coins, CUC coins have national landmarks on them whereas CUP coins have people on them.

Once we arrived at the Havana airport we exchanged some money for a taxi and we were off to the Parque Central hotel, about 20 minutes away.