Whats been happening
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2005
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47
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Trip End
Dec 04, 2006
Havana, Santa Clara, Sancti Spiritus,
Cuba
Friday, December 23, 2005
01 Bienvenido Habana
. Lifeless blocks and cruising towards our destination in the cover of darkness, I felt like an illegal immigrant being smuggled in by an underground network. We were in Habana Centro and it reminded me of Gotham or Dark City minus the fictional Penguin and his goons.Three doors, Two flights of stairs and an old couple later we entered a well maintained respectable apartment and was shown our room with bathroom, dresser, wardrobe and TV (although we later found out that there was only one channel on air), it was just like home, I guess that was the point. We were also offered breakfast and/or dinner at a surcharge by our casa Mum and Dad. Both of whom served in the military, she as a file clerk and he as a tank driver, an interesting and lovely couple. We ended up an afternoon later spending a couple of hours tinkering with his stereo, drinking the local rum and dancing salsa with our partners in the loungeroom. They drink like fish here as half the glass is usually filled with rum. The rum was not too bad either considering it was not that much more expensive than water. This did the job, by the way Havana Club retails at only 3USD.
Our days in Habana was spent wandering aimlessly through the polluted streets and hustle and bustle of a big city. Centro Habana, in desperate need of repair, consisted of buildings on the verge of crumbling and plots of land where they used to exist, but life went on with the Cubans who went about their daily duties that were assigned to them by the government, being a socialist country and all. But due to the lack of resources and the trade block imposed by the United States, Cuba had little resources for its people although to their credit they have an excellent health and educational programs and no body goes hungry as rations are avaliable which was more evident when we visited the local towns. With a minimum wage of 9USD a month (apparently Fidel pays himself 40USD), it is used for luxuries....it doesn`t seem like such a bad deal when most Cubans hardly even work half the week and all your basic needs are provided for
02 Capitol Hill
. Such things as phone calls, bus fares, OJ, local cigars all cost 5 cents; 5 scoops of Coppelia icecream 35 cents and movies 10 cents. But however when you want anything else, that will cost you an arm and a leg which has to be paid in another currency, called the Convertible which is abit stronger than the USD. However there are definitely a fair few people who are cheating or beating the system as there are still signs of extreme wealth. By the way a waiter working in a tourist restaraunt will earn more money than a doctor because of tips....that´s insane!Anyhow walking around Habana was abit like stepping back in time with all the big old American cars of the ´60s and ´70s still cruising the streets, Chevy´s and Pontiacs to name a few.
During the nights, we combed the streets for food but we limited our diets to Peso Pizza, individual serves of pizza, eaten in a sidestreet standing up with 20 like minded others with cardboard as tissue. One thing about the Cubans that stood out was their respect for who was next in line aka "Quien es ultimo?". This phrase was belted our to the crowd everytime there was a new person joining the que and the torch was passed on. People huddled up around this tiny window and there was no malice or pushing in. Respect was paid and acknowledgement of your spot in the que even if you went for a walk and came back in 15 minutes.
03
One night looking for another hip and happening pizza window we stumbled onto a musical gala in an old theatre called the Astral, looking for food we got invited in for a peek and then a seat at no charge. The whole place was going off! The crowd mainly in their 30s were having a rocking time dancing around to the live solo artists, big bands and samba kings. We still don´t know what it was for but since when did you ever need an excuse to party.
An interesting museum that we saw in Habana was the Museo De Revolucions which displayed Cubas history concentrating more on the era that the Sociliast party came into power. There were photos with very funny remarks, all anti-US. In Santa Clara I was able to visit another museum/memorial dedicated to the late and some would say immortal Ernesto "Che" Guverara. After his remains were found in Bolivia, they were sent to Habana for commemeration and mourning and finally were laid rest in this compound. Driven here by "Michael Schumacher the cabbie" it took us 3 hours with an average speed of 120kms, a median speed of 140kms and a top of 155kms!
Santa Clara being a small town had only a horse and carriage ride on offer so we wanted to make our way to Trinidad but public transport is abit of a nightmare with only one bus that leaves daily and of course we had missed it by an hour
04
. So with the choice of staying another night in small-boring-town or see Sancti Spiritus we opted for the latter. We also managed to convince another traveller, R*, to only bother with the Che memorial and come with us. On further conversations R* told us that he had originally planned this holiday with his girlfriend who days before the flight decided to break it off, ouch! Still with the ticket in his hand he decided to go on without her even though she was the one in the relationship fluent in spanish. Sancti Spiritus was similar and was craving for tourists, an advantage according to the Lonely Planet, but it was so quiet that we could not find accomodation after an hour of walking around. So we got on our horse and carriage and rode the taxi back to the terminal and jumped into the green Chevy who had done more miles than a Dakar Rally car and made our way to Trinidad. The first and friendliest Cuban we had met was happened to be our cab driver. Full of information and cheerful he ended up helping us find accomodation "sin interest" but it wasn´t that hard anyhow as in Trinidad 1 in 5 houses are casa particulars.
Trinidad had it all live bands, crazy parties, cuban salsa kings, gourmet food, cobbled streets, carribean seas and a chess club. This will have to wait till the next entry.
