Summer in the city
Trip Start
Nov 03, 2004
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56
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Trip End
Nov 23, 2006
Havana,
Cuba
Monday, September 5, 2005
Habana to make our own arrangements. Luis and Maribel's room was
occupied for two more days but they found us somewhere to tide us
over. Our first day with them they had the family around to share a
bottle of rum with us and talk about Cuba. Our Spanish
notwithstanding it was a fascinating morning. They were open about
their lives, their frustrations, how things were before, what
worked, what didn't. I asked Maribel's mother if life was better
than before Fidel
Ancient cool cars 1
. Her voice quivered and her eyes filled when sheexplained how much better it was. Maribel's brother explained that,
because Luis had the cash paying job (running the casa), the whole
extended family turned to him if something was needed. In order to
rent out our room (for $30 a night) Luis pays $300 a month to the
government, their teenage daughter shares a room with her
grandmother and Luis and Maribel sleep in the lounge. Supply is a
flood/drought situation. People had told us to take cosmetic soaps
to give people because that was what they all asked for. When we
got there they had plenty of toilet soap and "Happy Birthday" paper
napkins but we never saw cereal. Government department stores
proudly window dress with two aluminium saucepans and a threadbare
tee-shirt
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. David explained that yes, outside Cuba people did earnlarge sums of money, but then proceeded to dispel some illusions by
explaining about mortgages and petrol costs.
The first night the air conditioning was out (we don't hold out much
hope of it being resurrected). We had three electric fans (which,
bizarrely, Cubans remove the "to prevent slicing fingers off" grills
from) and they succeeded only in making the rivers of sweat trickle
more quickly across your torso.
We quickly discovered one activity a day is all that is achievable -
and there is so much to do. Our undertaking for the day was tackled
in the morning, lunch about 1:00pm before retiring to our air
conditioned (now operational except during power cuts) haven until
the evening made another, food and/or drink related, activity
bearable
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. Some mornings you had to be quite flexible and determinedto get your event for the day achieved. Museo del Artes
Decrotivo: "We don't open until 10:00am", "It's 10:30", "Come back
tomorrow"; Museo del Automóvil: "We're closed", "The doors are open
and it says here you're open 9:00am to 4:00pm, it's 11:00am", "No.
Closed." [Translation: The girl who takes admissions is at lunch and
my job is sitting here making sure tourists don't touch anything.
Fortunately there are no tourists at the moment because the girl who
takes admissions is at lunch. I don't take admissions.]; Museo
Nacional de Bellas Artes (a magnificent facility of which we had a
tantalising glimpse): "$10.00 please" ... [15 minutes
later] ... "There has been a power cut. You will need to leave.
You may return when power is restored." [Yeah, that was at midnight
and you can bet there was no offer of a refund if you didn't want to
wait!].
Habana is a beautiful, beautiful town, parts of which have
definitely seen better days
Che is everywhere
. You could wander for days (althoughnot in August) just marveling at the gracious mansions, some
restored, some sliding gracefully and poignantly into decay, some
just giving up the fight and semi-collapsed. The habour is guarded
by Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña, a fortress so immense and
expensive that Carlos III of Spain declared he should have been able
to see it from Madrid. Habana has been so well defended over the
years that street bollards are made from surplus cannon sunk muzzle
end into the road or from stacked cannon balls. The streets are
dotted with statues, usual selection of man on horse with sword or
man at desk with pen, but also commemorating local characters and
folk figures (surprisingly no Fidel but Che everywhere). Shady
parks and colourful markets abound where handicrafts and art can be
purchased for a pittance
Don Quixote
. You can stroll the Malecón and watch theboys playing dodge with the waves breaking over the seawall, relax
over a mojito at the gracious, old world, Hotel Nacional or collapse
calling for water and recharge as cocos and bicytaxis whiz by. The
streets team with people, tourists and locals, taking photos or
plying their unofficial trades - everything from box brownie trick
photos of you with Fidel to Santeria tarot to cigar puffing, turban
wrapped, sun withered women offering you the classic Cuban photo
(for a price). It's hot, the drains are ancient, music is
everywhere, rubbish collection is erratic, antique cars rattle and
belch past - it's wonderful and hot and frustrating.
The Museo de la Revolución is housed in the former presidential
palace, built in 1913 with interiors by Tiffany's. Unfortunately,
to house the revolutionary museum this magnificent build has been
redecorated. Rooms with museum displays (including Fidel's sunnies,
flour sack sandbags and tributes to individuals who gave their life
savings and lives for their ideal) have had the intricate ceilings
covered in acoustic tiles and the walls painted in that peculiar
shade of pink only seen in state schools and mental institutions.
The chapel has been gutted simply because revolutionary governments
don't go in for that sort of thing. The Hall of Mirrors has been
allowed to retain its dramatic white and gold wall treatments with
monstrous mirrors and ceiling frescoes. Frankly, given the
disrespect the rest of the building had been treated with, I was
surprised they weren't storing the pieces of the U-2 spy rocket in
here.
In contrast the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales has been
magnificently restored to house the Museo de la Cuidad (or grand
loot store). Some of the ushers have quite the comedy routine
going, sneaking you behind the velvet ropes to cop a feel of the
marble bath tubs or to sit in the throne room (for a tip, of course).
We toured the fascinating, aromatic, Museo del Ron. We were able to
play with the massive, intricate train set detailing late 19th
century rum production from plantation to bar top, stick our heads
in a vat of fermenting sugarcane and sample the product. We retired
to the dark wood paneled and gleaming brass in-house bar to work our
way through some of the vintages. The idea of rum so smooth you
actually want to drink it straight is somewhat foreign coming from
the land of Coruba, but the $10-a-nip Havana Club Gran Reserva has
the depth and smoothness of a good single malt. We visited Real
Fábrica de Tabacos La Corona and watched nicotine stained fingers
rolling the most sought after cigars in the world. The roller makes
$15 a month and the cigars are sold in a crystal chandelier lit room
featuring a complementary bar and humidors starting at USD500.00.
But the real fun in Habana is at night.
First there are the clubs where music, music, music is the fare.
Everything from huge women with even bigger voices belting out the
blues to ancient, lived in faces, thrumming double basses and
shuffling on the maracas to updated salsa with reverb. There are
cabarets. Because you really had to, we spent an evening at Club
Tropicana "under the stars" (but fortunately not actually under the
stars since it was pouring). Incidentally, the drinks are most
definitely not free - well, except for the quarter bottle of rum and
one can of mixer included in the ticket price. The music is raunchy
salsa, the dancers are scantily attired (perhaps lycra jumpsuits for
men may not catch on) and athletic, far too many chickens gave their
lives for those costumes and dancing with an illuminated candelabra
on your head while basically naked is probably not in the dance
school curriculum.
Then there is the theatre - an unending parade of ballet, jazz,
flamenco at the tasteful Grand Theatre. We chose flamenco. Girls.
Tight, disciplined, smouldering, aggressive, sexy, modern with
wailing, ululating vocals. The only performance we've ever been to
where the performers were so caught up in the dance that the encore
was improvised and musicians were drawn into the dance.
Then there is the food - or rather the places to eat the food.
Cuban fare is relatively simple, pan-fried pork served with salad
and moros y christianos (black beans and rice) and sometimes with
patacones (fried plantain chips). Restaurants are government owned
and have some concessions to encourage you to eat there - things
like shrimps which can only be served in government establishments.
The service is often as friendly and useful as that of museum ushers
and it is amazing how often you will run down the menu and be
defeated by the availability of five or six items. So every meal
you consume in a restaurant the shadow of Fidel hovers not far from
your shoulder. The other alternative are the paladores. These are
private homes that are licensed to seat up to 12 patrons at any one
time. Some of them are really like eating on a friend's deck on a
summer's evening. The menus can be more limited than in the
restaurants, but not if you take into account the availability of
restaurant menu items. Some of them are an altogether different
experience - they are dressed up in old fashioned finery rescued
from before the revolution. In one place in Trinidad we dined
beside a life sized statue of a crucified Christ being cradled by
his mother under crystal chandeliers. El Hercho in Habana was
marble floored, parlour palmed and felt like TriBeCa in Parnell.
One evening we dined at a table where none of cutlery, china or
glassware matched, but since the cutlery was solid silver, the china
Limoges and custom-made Rosenthal and the glassware Stewart and
Baccarat crystal, it enhanced rather than detracted from the
experience.
Cuba has been endlessly fascinating and endlessly frustrating.
Parts of it are stereotypically communist (black economy, department
store windows with three things in them, shortages of A and
surpluses of B), but the friendliness of the people (both those who
want something from you and those who don't), the colour, and the
music are as uncommunist as you could imagine. And the system seems
to be working for them. If you had wholesale quantities of drive
and ambition, it would be an impossible place to live, but many of
those people have left - for the majority those who have chosen to
stay, life is better than it would be under a capitalist system. If
Cuba were capitalist, it wouldn't be the US, it would be a Latin
country with a single-crop agricultural economy and a tourism boom,
i.e. Peru or Ecuador. And for the poorer part of the Ecuadorian or
Peruvian populace, healthcare, education, and a decent diet are a
pipedream, and this is certainly the first place we've been where
the peasants work the fields with tractors (albeit ancient ones)
rather than their backs.
We've traveled all around Latin America expecting to encounter
delays, unhelpfulness, lack of maintenance, dishonesty, and
bureaucratic pettiness. Up to now we have been surprised how little
that has actually been the case - Cuba made up for it in spades.
Ultimately we were defeated by the heat and the Cubanness of it all,
and were ready to leave by the time the plane rolled around, but
we're glad we came, and you should go - just not in August.
