Cuba: Son, Mojitos and Viva Revolution

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Question: Where in the world can you visit a beautiful early 19th Century Italian styled theatre, recently restored by UNECSO, where you expect to buy paraphernalia about the building in its lobby and find only books on revolution, posters about revolution, pictures about revolution, postcards showing revolutionary figures and revolutionary music. Not a theatre program in sight !
Answer: Only in Cuba !

Flying to Cuba from The USA was a long convoluted process, not being able to fly direct of course. Amy and I parted for the first time since we met up in Borneo and it felt odd to say bye bye, if only for a short while. We both flew into Mexico City airport, 2 hours apart. I flew in first and waited for her at her arrival gate. Having met up, we made our way to our Mexico city hotel for a one night stop over, knowing we would be returning in 2 weeks time for a longer visit. Next morning at 4pm, we set off back to the airport; Amy flew to Cuba via Cancun and I flew via Panama City, taking in fab views of the canal. As I was due to get into Cuba 45mins before Amy, I again arranged to meet her at her arrival gate. After an hours wait over her expected time of arrival (the arrivals board confirmed she’d landed), I started to worry that she had missed her flight. Waiting at the gate she was sure to emerge from, I wondered what was keeping her. Another 30 minutes passed and I saw her, though only fleetingly, through a crowd of people and I sighed relief that she’d made it. 40 minutes later she appeared at the gate waving her hands for me to stay put, then she disappeared back into the immigration section of arrivals. Another 20 minutes passed and eventually she arrived, looking relieved after spending much time being questioned about her camera and the job she did back in the UK. Slightly spooked by this unnecessary event, I bungled Amy into a taxi and we headed for our government run hotel in Havana. Having settled in, we went for a walk and something to eat and enjoyed the music and our first few mojito’s of our visit to the land of Son - the salsa music played in every bar by live bands - fantastic!! The following day we did more of the same and found that the jaded dilapidated buildings, the 1950’s American cars and the music was infectious and could understand why Hemmingway loved this city too. Fantastic!! Getting back to our hotel, we decided to go to the roof top bar for another mojito and in the lift I made a disparaging, if not slightly humorous comment, about the watchdog communist society Fidel and his mate Che had set up. Two seconds hadn’t passed after my comment when the lift stopped dead between floors. We were stuck in there for 15 minutes, pushing the alarm bell hoping some one would hear us over the Son being played in the bar above. Next morning we asked if we could purchase some internet time in the hotel so we could organise the rest of our stay, but we were told no you can’t and as bluntly as that. We got the same reception in other places too. Refusal to serve us in our hotel over the next couple of days for other things like beverages and money changing, also became apparent. So when my mobile phone was blocked for 24 hours (and not by the mobile phone company), we got back in the lift and made a public apology to Fidel and Che. Sorry boys, that’s not that fantastic!!
You cannot go to Cuba without sitting in a café and listening to a live band playing their own brand of salsa and son music, it really is wonderful. Every band has their own CD that they like to sell to the café’s customers or ask for a donation for their efforts, as their only pay is from customer donations. During our stay in Havana, we sat in many café’s and bars and listened to some magical music and suffice it to say, I am now the owner of at least a dozen CD’s - sucker I hear you say? Yup - correct:J
Given this countries history, a visit to the revolution museum in Havana is a must. Sadly, revolutionary history is the only history that’s really available, the rest has been shrouded, overlooked, overwritten or just ignored in favour of 19th and 20th century events. Take a walk down any Cuban road (except in Varadaro - which is not the real Cuba ) and you’ll be faced with images of revolution, socialism, communism, Fidel, Che and Cienfuegos. Through its entire history, this country has been run by several dictators as well as many incompetents and from the eradication of the indigenous tribes by the Spanish conquistadors through to the USA enforced trade embargoes, Cuba has certainly had its ups and downs. Whilst it looks very jaded, with many buildings falling down around its occupants and feeling like its stuck in the 1950’s (their internet connection and banking system for foreign visitors probably pre dates 1950) it retains a certain charm that draws you in, especially now that UNESCO and its funding has stepped in to save some of the more important towns and city plazas , you can start to get a feel for what it used to be like - a colonial grandness devoid of the revolutionary graffiti.
Getting out of Havana is best by bus, internal flights are on old Russian planes that often don’t make it to their final destinations - allegedly. Mind you, with the state of some of the roads, getting around Cuba can often be a slow process. The motorway was laid down by the Russians many years ago and resembles an aircraft run way, with very deep pot holes, which makes for a very bumpy ride. Our first trip was over to Viñales for the day, an area known for growing excellent cigar tobacco. First stop, a tobacco farm, where we watched a chap role a cigar which he gave to Amy as a gift - her backpack now smells of camel dung. Second stop, a rum distillery, making delightful sweet rum where we tried lots of the golden liquid, bought a bottle and staggered back to the bus. Last stop, a prehistoric valley and caves where the oldest indigenous Cuban tribes lived before being wiped out and then used by - yes you guessed it - Fidel and Che to hide out during the early days of the Revolution. The day was punctuated by frequent stops at road side cafes to drink pina colada with copious amounts of rum and delightful coffee, another crop grown in Cuba. So by the time we got back to Havana, we were wide eyed and high on all the espresso and rum we’d been consuming. So we went out and drank some more - and purchased another CDJ
We decided to leave Havana and travel south , our plan was to leave by train and go right to the tip of Cuba to a place called Santiago de Cuba. “Why ze train, is not safe, you take bus. Why you go Santiagao de Cuba, it stinks, is dangerous, train unreliable, take days for you get back for plane home. You no go there, you go somewhere better” said Thies, the lady on the travel desk in our hotel. Thies worked for the government run Cuba tours, the only reliable organisation available to us and given that we could not get internet access in our hotel or any other we tried at to sort out further arrangements, she was our only option. We asked her for alternative suggestions, but insisted that we use only Casa Particulares where ever we decided to go. A Casa Particulares is a type of bed and breakfast accommodation where you stay with a local family, who feed you and do your washing if you need it, all at a very very good rate. They have to be legally registered and are only allowed to rent out 2 rooms per household. Next day saw us on a bus for 5 hours, travelling south to a place called Cienfuegos, named after Che’s best mate, Camilla Cienfuegos who is the third guy you see on the revolutionary graffiti around Cuba. Getting off the bus. We were immediately greeted by a young woman from our booked lodgings for the next 2 nights. We were staying at Pepe and Fefe’s Casa Particulares, who had sent their daughter to meet us and get us back to their home as she spoke better English than we spoke Spanish and Fefe, a lovely lady of about my age, spoke no English at all. Our stay here was great and we wandered in and out of the 19th century typical Cuban/Spanish styled home at our leisure, returning for dinner in the evenings and sitting in the small sun drenched courtyard to read before meandering around the small town to discover its delights, one of which was a 19th century theatre mentioned earlier, built by an Italian called Tomas Terry ! The theatre and many other colonial buildings in the town square have been refurbished by UNESCO and declared a world heritage site. This has stopped further decay of some beautiful old colonial buildings and even prevented some from collapsing as has happened to many more through out Cuba.
After 2 days we purchased another bus ticket and moved onto Trinidad, another 5 hours south. We loved Trinidad!!!! Again we were met by our Casa Particulares land lady, Maria, at the bus station, who installed us in our roof top room with its open air sun drenched terrace where each morning and evening she brought breakfast or dinner, a bevy of delicious local produce. Now given that until recently Cuba was still using ration books and in some places they still are, we felt lucky to be eating such delicious food. Unfortunately for the Cubans, there have been times in their history where food has been in short supply, especially for those in the countryside, but never more so for the entire country than when Russia pulled out all financial support overnight in 1989, when they woke up one morning a decided they preferred capitalism over communism. The Cubans were left high and dry, with USA embargoes tightened even further, the people of Cuba literally started to starve, so rationing was introduced. Its getting better now, though the few supermarket type shops we saw had very limited stock with even more limited selection on their sparsely filled shelves. One person we had met before getting to Cuba had told us that on his visit 3 years ago, he was declined several request for meals on the basis that Cubans and their families ate first. However, despite Fidels hatred of tourism, he has had to open his doors to it over the last fourteen years or so, to allow a growing number of foreigners to spend their cash and boost his communist economy, and he knows how to charge too - Cuba is not as cheap as you would expect. A small wedge of Capitalism seems to be pervading the dark corners of Cuba - as one of their exiled anti communist spokesman said, when a countries black market is more successful than its government, its time for a change. Anyway back to Trinidad. It’s another town that UNESCO have helped to start renovate. Its colonial cobbled streets, like Havana and Cienfuegos (thank heavens we abandoned the idea of cycling round Cuba), are filled with horse drawn carriage taxi’s and old 1950’s cars. The buildings are painted in pretty pastel colours of all shades and from every street corner you can hear Son, the Cuban music of choice. They really take their music and rum seriously here. You can dance and listen to music every minute of the day and with a glass of rum if you want it. We got so wrapped up in the music, we decided to take congo/bongo drumming lessons with a local musician, which was worth every penny (or CUC - that’s a convertible unit Cuban which if you purchase with your cash card you are charged 11% commission for the privilege. Given that there are no ATM‘s that work with European cash cards and the US dollar is no longer legal tender, it can get costly) . By the time we had finished, we were drumming away with every son band we heard, morning, noon and night - fantastic!! More mojitos, more dancing and more rum. Another bus ticket purchased, 8 hours bus journey north and off to our last destination - Varadero!
Varadero is the town that was created to cater for the US rich and famous holiday makers by the American fun industry of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s, before they were kicked out lock stock and barrel, leaving behind echoes of what used to be. Varadero, with its new Spanish owned hotels, built to kick start the tourist industry and bring in cash rich Europeans and Canadians (and quite a few Americans that shouldn‘t be there), is trying to make a come back. The beaches are beautiful, sunsets outstanding and there is unlimited amounts of food and drink at the all inclusive resorts - yes food, very odd considering the rest of Cuba seems to be short of it. Varadero is not real Cuba, our drum tutor in Trinidad told us, its all wrong and very American. I agree, it felt wrong in a way I can’t describe.

Back in Havana on our last night in Cuba before flying to Mexico, we stayed in the National, a beautiful 4 star hotel built in the height of Cuba’s hey day, frequented by Hemmingway and then used as the revolutionary HQ by Fidel and Che. They have a fabulous show of dancing girls and great musicians every night as well as a stars gallery showing all the famous people that have stayed there over the years. But the most interesting bit was in the garden area at the back of the hotel, where there is a bunker and hundreds of meters of tunnels that run under the grounds and into the hotel, all hastily dug during the 1962 missile crisis. Fantastic!

We laid in our bed on our last night watching an American movie on the state owned Cubavision channel and tried to some up our time there. Difficult, because whilst there had been a few hick ups along the way and it being generally a lot more expensive than we had been led to believe, we’d had a really good time, despite feeling that we had been thrust back into the 1950’s. We left with more questions than we arrived with. Does Fidel have a roof on his house or does he star gaze like many other Cubans? Does Fidel secretly beg for soap and food on the streets like lots of his Amigos? Does Fidel drive around in a cranky old 1950’s American chevy or has he got a new one? Does Fidel wear that crap green uniform around the house or slip into a cute Armani number when no one is watching? Has anyone else noticed that Fidel is wearing an American Adidas track suit in all his photo’s? How many towns will UNESCO pour money into before asking Fidel one last question - What has happened to the billions and billions of dollars made from the 14 years of tourism and the huge profits made on sugar, rum, cigars and coffee sold at over inflated prices to Russia - where has it gone I wonder? Come on Fidel own up to it ya buggar, sack you’re your pals and your brother and let some one do a proper job on Cuba. Viva el pueblo de Cuba for they are its soul!!!!

I always buy a book on the history of places I visit. Interestingly, there wasn’t one available in Cuba. At the airport however, there was a small book called ‘A brief history of Cuba’ a short fairy tale about a land in the Caribbean. It had goodies and baddies in it like all fairy tales and even pirates called Sir Francis Bacon and Christopher Columbus. The funniest work of fiction I’ve read in some time.

Would I go back to Cuba ? You bet I would. I can’t wait to return. I loved it!!!!!!

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Photos

Towel Origami
Havana hotel house keeping have too much time on their hands

1950's motor
So many old American cars that some how still manange to keep going.

Cuba libra and mojitos - fantastic!
Ok, we got the drinks now bring on the band

Son, son of son and sons dad.
One of hundreds of bands, all brilliant and all selling CD's. I own one by this lot too.

Viva Revolution - yawn
Some of the many pieces of carefully placed revolutionary grafitti artwork around Havana

The town plaza Cienfuegos
UNESCO renovated colonial buildings in the town square in Cienfuegos

The local bus
Our bus into town in Cienfuegos

The coffee pot shop
A local artists shop selling coffee pots - the new symbol of women in Trinidad and beyond.

We're going to need considerably bigger buns
These litte cakes were sold by street sellers trying to make a quick dollar or two. Very tasty too.

Trinidad town plaza
Colourful and pretty. The town plaza in Trinidad is where it all happens.

Nasty Jelly fish
A Varadaro Jelly fish - so no swimming for us in the beautiful blue sea.

Last sunset in Varadaro
.............but they were all spectacular