Quote:
Originally Posted by wretched34
Was in Varadero in July, in regards to the money exchange situation it's a gong show.
At that time, if you went into a Cuban bank, or into a government store, they were offering an exchange of 18 pesos for 1 CAD. On the bus to the hotel they were offering 40 pesos for 1 CAD, and were very pushy about it. Once at the hotel we were getting 80-90 pesos for 1 CAD from the staff, and on our private tour into Havana our driver/guide exchanged with us at 100 pesos to 1 CAD. He told us he did this, as their currency has no value outside their borders, and for those who have a chance to get out, they want foreign currency to survive off of, so they're willing to pay for it.
As Locke mentioned as well, don't convert lots at any given time, but I suggest carrying both pesos and CAD as we found depending on where and what you were purchasing it was more advantageous to buy in one or the other, for instance restaurants was better to pay in pesos as their exchange was lower, while haggling with street vendors was always best in CAD.
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Yeah, definitely. We found it best to keep a decent mix of CDN, USD and Cuban Peso, again, fairly small amounts, but it gives you flexibility to pay with whatever gets you a better exchange in the moment.
These are considerably impoverished people, if you want to buy something thats 30 CCP but you've only got $20CDN they'll sell it to you for that and they probably 'dont have' change.