Fulano, the Miami Cubanaso, has all the know-how you second-generation Cubericans need to visit the motherland without (hopefully) getting disowned by your exiled grandparents or by your Bay of Pigs-veteran old man. Here's Part One: Crashing for the Night.
Bro, so you're totally Cuban, right? Pero you've never been to Cuba, so that idiot on the beach visiting from France said you were all confused, right? But he doesn't know shit because he doesn't know about Hialeah or Westchester.
Pero for real though, you want to see the island already, but your abuelos will disown you if you hand your money over to Castro like that. Bro, look, next time, tell them that you're gonna do it like this, so that the money goes to the people. And plus, this way you'll have like way more cash to get snatched out your pocket in Centro Habana.
Casa Particular
These are apartments where the people can rent out rooms, so you get to pay them directly. They gotta
pay extra taxes and shit, but whatever, at least they see some of
the cash, unlike hotels.
Buildings that have casas particulares have this little symbol over the
door that looks like some kind of crazy hieroglyphics or something.
We think it's so that, like the Espiritu Santo passes over those houses
as it goes around killing, like, the first-borns of capitalist
trouble-makers or some shit.
Trust me, inside, it's mad chill. You even get air conditioning. The government
makes it so that the room can't be all hood and shit. Sometimes you even
get a refrigerator.
Pero dog, don't let yourself get ducked out by those fake ones. Like, if
you're walking down the street and some come mierda sees you with your
bags and tries to drag you to his apartment and when you get
there, there's some old dude sitting there who the guy claims is his
abuelo, even though the guy's straight black and the old dude is white
with liver-spots.
You might get the room mad cheap, but the dude asks you to
keep the bedroom window closed so no one sees you staying
there. And then you find out that the toilet doesn't
work after like 10 p.m. Next thing you know a
water pipe busts in the building stairwell in the middle of the night
and you wake up to find the Amazon River rushing your bed and all your
things are soaked cause you left them on the floor.
What you've found is an
illegal casa. You could stay there and see how Cubans live for
real, but they can get busted bad, or the apartment can be a total
piece of shit. Plus, the guy who grabbed you on the street will usually
try to get you to cop them a bottle of rum or something for finding you
the place. Just look for the blue sign, bro. Then you know it's legit.
The casas particulares cost like anywhere from $10 to $30 a night, dog,
cheap as shit! In the pueblitos, it can be like, good luck finding one.
In Havana, bro, you know they're gonna charge you closer to $30. Also,
for a little more flow, they'll make you breakfast.
Next time I'll let you know where to eat for like a dollar, and
even if your old man calls you crazy, at least he can't bitch about
where the money goes.
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