Our Magic Man in Havana

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Our Magic Man in Havana

Mon 19/05 - Wed 21/05/08

I leave the Chicago hostel in Quito at 4.45am, sharing a cab to the airport with an American woman. I pay the disgracefully high departure tax ($40 - pure financial rape. Any country that employs these taxes should be picketed and imposed with sanctions. Seriously, if everyone refused to pay, what would they do? The airports would be thrown into chaos and immigration would have a nightmare. They'd be forced to throw out this fascist practice and show some fucking humility. I mean, if you went round to a friends house, and after dinner they tell you you have to pay them £20 just so you can leave, would you put up with that nonsense?), and then run the gauntlet of souvenir shops that line the zig-zagging corridor that leads to the departure lounge.

Getting out of Ecuador is not as complicated or painful as getting in was. I just have two short flights - one to Panama, and the second to Havana, Cuba. Cuba has long been the grail at the end of my journey. The only reason I arranged to go there was so I could attend the wedding of one of my friends in the resort of Varadero. In all of my dark, dark hours, flashes of soft white sands and clear blue waters dance before my eyes. Mojito's. Cigars. A country full of dirty commie bastards, just like myself. What better place to blow out and stage one last revolution before the journey back to reality?

First things first. Before I can to taste the rum, I need to deal with my bank. In Panama, I buy a phone card and call the credit card company. The shame and embarrassment of the Mindo incident is still hanging over me like a death shroud. I need to vent a little.

I dial the emergency lost and stolen contact number. As befits an emergency, I spend the first four minutes of the call negotiating with an automated response. This is the kind of shit that really pisses me off. Firstly, these numbers aren't free. I'm not sure if that's something the bank can control, but if it is, they should, because when you lose your card, or can't access your money, there's a fair chance you won't actually be able to afford an international phone call. Presuming you can, you really don't want to then have to sit through a machine telling you about your account information and your balance. I know how much fucking money I have. I want to know why it is you won't let me have it.

When I do eventually get through to a human being, I explain the situation - you've fucked me again, I don't have much time to talk about it, I want you to fix the problem, explain why it happened, tell me you're sorry and ensure that it never happens again. When I get my explanation, I'm even more angry. It turns out my card was blocked because Barclaycard had returned mail from my address.

This is a fucking stupid reason to block my access to funds. For one thing, I've informed them more than once that I'm abroad travelling, most recently whilst I was in New Zealand less than a month ago. Why would a person who is out of the country change their address back home? How exactly do you move house when you're thousands of miles away? For another, I know that nobody at my house would have sent mail back to Barclays, so what must have happened it a couple of statements were delivered to my old house before I updated my details, and then sent back by the new residents. Therefore, anybody with half a brain would have seen the old address on the statements, and worked out what has gone on. Instead of using rationale thought, they employ the intellect of a lobotomised monkey and fuck me deep and hard.

I put these points across to my friend on the other end of the phone, explaining that I essentially stole from my hotel as a result of their screw up. My card restored to full working order, I then press on, my new mission to exchange my American dollars for Euros before I get to Cuba. Due to somewhat frosty relations with the United States, exchanging dollars for Cuban currency incurs a 10% charge. In order to get to a bank, I need to go through immigration. This isn't easy, as the guy at the desk doesn't understand why I'm going out into the main airport when I'm catching a connecting flight. I eventually negotiate my way through, and get a bonus stamp in my passport.

When I get to the bank, I'm told it's not possible to exchange my dollars - they only buy euros, they don't sell them. I'm confused, because this is a bank situated in a airport, and currency exchange is a service you'd expect to be offered. Not in Panama, apparently. Fuck it. I'll exchange my dollars in Cuab, and take the hit.

I arrive in Havana around 2.30pm. I haven't booked anywhere to stay, but I've got the names and addresses of a couple of cheap hostels. I take a taxi to the first. Along the way, we cruise down dusty roads, lined with billboards depicting George Bush as demonic, terrorist-sponsoring hoodlum. I get dropped in a district of central Havana. I'm met at the hostel gates by an enthusiastic Cuban called Oscar. Bare chested, pot-bellied, bald and moustached with reams of thick body hair, he's the quintessential image of a middle aged Latin man. His casa is an large old building, with high ceilings and a cracked, rusty colonial feel.

I'm show up a precariously narrow spiral staircase to the guest room at the top. The room is huge, and comes complete with a small kitchen, and a roof top patio outside. Oscar's face spreads in a wild grin, and he slaps me on the back. "Huh, huh? You like, yes?" I agree that it's a fine room, especially for the price. We step outside onto the patio, and Oscar lights up a cigar. He points out over the rooftops, and gives me directions to Habana Vieja, the old part of the city where most of the tourist attractions lie.

I walk into town in the late afternoon. I'm in a fairly rough looking neighbourhood, but I've heard Cuba is a very safe place, so I'm not too worried. Alongside the classic cars, beautiful women and the aroma of cigar smoke, another common feature of Havana and Cuba in general is the "Jineterismo" phenomenon. Jineteros (male) and Jineteras (female) are the people that approach tourists in the street and try to strike up a relationship, the aim being to gain financial reward.

Although I don't stick out as obviously as most of the other foreigners, I still get a fair bit of attention from these folk, most of them just trying to offload dodgy cigars, and a few women trying to offload a bit more. You get people like this most places where there's a tourist industry, and I've always found the best policy is to be polite but firm, or to just ignore them altogether. Whenever I here a "pisst" or "Hey, Amigo", I just keep my head down and walk on and they give up soon enough. The tricky ones are the guys who pop up in front of you and hold out a hand for you to shake. It's pretty hard to be rude and blank them, so I just mumble and adopt my worst social skills to try and scare them off.

I make my way past historic buildings like the Capitolio and into the old streets of Habana Veija. I need to get to a bank and take out some cash. I know my maestro card won't work, so I have to rely on my Visa. I find an ATM, and insert my newly unblocked card. I type in the PIN, select the amount...and get another vicious, crushing rejection. Fuck me.

I walk away shell shocked, stumbling through the heat and dust of Havana like a fugitive from a disaster movie. I get back to the hostel around 10pm, and lie awake in bed, wondering what the fuck has gone wrong now. I'm tired, stressed and strung out, fresh arrived in another country and faced with another problem. Sleep doesn't come easy, and the dreams are anything but sweet.


Let there be light. I wake and the morning sun warms my brain and delivers the solution to the problem. Sometimes, I can be really dumb. There's nothing wrong with my card. I've just been using the wrong PIN. I get my shit together, and after suffering my way through the breakfast Oscar's wife makes for me, I make for the bank once again.

Havana is hot as hell, a dry county full of concrete, petrol fumes and choking dust. I walk along the street in centro Habana, which leads into Prado and then Vieja. Ahead of me, I see the Church of the Sacred Heart, a spiky Gothic construction that reaches up into the sky like the knotted trunk of an ancient tree. I briefly stop to take pictures. My head feels heavy and muddied, like my brain has been dipped in concrete. Too many long flights, too many sleepless nights. I'm definitely not functioning at full capacity, which is why it took me so long to work out I was using my debit card number to try to get money with my credit card. It might also explain why I'm picking myself up off the floor, and turning to see the prostrate motorbike that has just run me over. How the fuck did that happen?

I look around me. I'm in the middle of the road. The biker is picking up his ride and shouting at me furiously in Spanish. I realise what has happened. I've attempted to cross a busy main road, a task I'm normally fairly accomplished at. Today, however, I neglected to follow my green cross code, and didn't look to the left. I'm apologising to the biker, who dusts himself off and then rides away. I inspect myself for injury. Considering I've just been hit head on by a fairly hefty piece of machinery, I've got off lightly. My wrist hurts a little, and my white top stained by the tarmac, but otherwise, nothing. I cross to the pavement, and look out back into the road. If one of the many lumbering Chevies had hit me instead of the bike, I'd be a lot worse off. Where the hell were Kevin Keegan and that fucking monkey-cat thing when I needed them?

A group of Cuban women who saw the collision are all standing, looking at me with shocked expressions. As I walk past, I shrug my shoulders and smile. Morning, ladies. And isn't it a lovely morning? What? Oh, that? Don't worry, ladies - that kind of shit happens to me all the time. Strut, baby - Saturday night fever blares out in my head as I walk away.

Although I'm not overly concerned about the actuality of what just happened, since I'm unharmed, it has pulled things into shape focus; clearly, I have become a danger to myself, and to others. I'm low on batteries and brain power, and mistakes are being made. Wrong PINs, lack of due care and attention when crossing busy roads - a pattern is forming. Sooner or later, my stupidity will cost me. I need to get somewhere safe.

I'm not due to get to Varadero for the wedding until the 22nd, but I decide to bring the schedule forward. Barney and Leanne are tying the knot in an ultra-inclusive, 5 star hotel. This is exactly the kind of place I need to be; self-contained, safe, full of reasonably responsible adults who can keep me from harm. I need to relax. I need some fucking down time. I need the sea. I need swimming pools. I need a fucking cocktail. Mind made up - back on the road.

Before I leave Havana, there's just enough time for a little more weirdness. I get back to Oscar's place around 9pm that night, having unsuccessfully tried to ring the Paradisus Varadero to get word to my friends that I'm coming. Oscar's old mother and father are sitting on a bench outside. I've met them several times, shuffling about the house, often engaging me in strange conversation. They seem like nice people, but they're clearly very, very old, and their faculties have dimmed.

The front gate is always locked, so I wait for one of the couple to get up and let me in. I wave and say good evening. There is no response. They seem to be staring straight at me, but they're obvious in no hurry to get up and let me in. Eventually, I ring the bell. As Oscar comes out, shaking his head, his mother gets up and peers out into the evening gloom. Now I understand. They weren't staring at me - despite being less than ten yards away, they couldn't see or hear me. "Oh, my mother," Oscar bemoans.

I sit upstairs out on the balcony, smoking a cigar and sipping a beer, looking out over the Havana night. One more day in the melting pot and I think I'd be finished. I just hope the bad luck won't ride with me. This is a wedding, after all. If a hurricane blows into town hot on my heels, or the hotel should burn to the ground in a freak accident, it'll be time to put me away in a box for good. Fingers crossed, Barney - with a bit of luck I'll see you soon.

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