Coins From My Trip To Cuba

About a month ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Cuba for a week on a study abroad trip. There were a lot of things to get used to, but one of the strangest things was learning how their money system worked. Cuba actually has 2 currencies, and you can only get them in Cuba. CUC is given to tourists and visitors, while CUP is used by locals. CUC is worth considerable more, so it is a common scam to give CUP back as change when paying in CUC. To make things even more confusing, USD can be exchanged for CUC, but you won't get nearly as much as you would if you used Euros.

Overall, spending a week in Cuba was one of the best experiences of my life. I would not hesitate to go back and its a shame that it is so hard for Americans to visit.

This is what the CUC pesos look like. For some reason, I really liked the 3 peso denomination and I brought this one back to use as a pocket piece. I also included some other stuff I brought back



All of their coins look like this, and are made of nickel and steel. Because of this, they are quite hard to photograph. Denominations range from 1 centavo to 1 peso.