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Published: February 1st 2008
libertad...adonde
don´t look like libertad to me! WELCOME TO THE HOTEL INGLATERA….such a lovely place….such a lovely face
It’s a wonder all the women aren’t pregnant and all the men asleep. Cuba runs on sex, fuelled by rum, coffee and tobacco, supported by the familiar background soundtrack, it’s hot, and wet, fecund. They have the best of everything.
Travelling thru the city and countryside you still get an endless barrage of patriotic reminders of the revolutionary struggle, now nearly 50 years on!
Libertad, Liberty, is a consistent theme, but this doesn’t look like liberty to me!
The older generation seem to accept it all but I’m meeting and talking with a lot of young people: smart, fit and really keen to work, who are increasingly frustrated.
The laws are almost as repressive as California, but at least there, if you’re white, you’re free to make so much more money than you need, fcuk over as many people as you can while doing it, and follow a loveless, angst-ridden, self-centred, vacuous existence along the way to plastic heaven.
But here, you can smoke while you wait!
There’s a constant, incongruous contradiction in the belief system here. Fidel is revered, and rightly so, for the struggle he led
and many, many people believe that he will never die, it’s remarkable. And El Che, well he is somewhere right up there, well above god on the respect and awe level, even higher than an aussie rules hero. There are some English speaking taxi drivers who will suck up to the touristas and badmouth them, but throughout the country, when you really get down to it, they are still worshipped.
But here’s the rub. As universally as Fidel, Che, Marti and the other heroes are deified, ‘the government’ is universally shit-canned for the repressive policies and over zealous police who enforce them, and mostly for the lack of opportunity to get on with work and make some dinero!
But another aspect: there’s an incredible work ethic, even tho’ they get paid almost nothing most people seem to be absolute workaholics and take a passionate interest in their jobs, the sort of attitude we lost about 100 years ago.
I was again awestruck at the monument to El Che in the Plaza de la Revolucion in Santa Clara last week. It is one of those monuments that just overwhelms you.
It’s a pity so many people in the world haven’t read
at the bus stop
gran is actually 2 years younger than me! more of his work and only follow the selective negativity of the us press and see him only as a revolutionary for the sake of it, or an evil communist who supported murder and terrorism and never get to appreciate his vision and the passion that drove him to achieve it. He really was a remarkable person.
I’ve been asking a lot of people as I travel around “Where is the libertad now?” and “What do you think El Che would think if he came back now?” The responses always reflect the same dilemma. It is as if the past glories and the heroes are quite separate from the policies and practices of today, but at the top is the same man, 50 years on.
Arrgghh…another alcohol and smoke free day is tanked by 9am! Sis is smoking her 2nd, I’ve had my little shot of the best coffee in the world, and someone hands me a bottle of rum.
But to start at the beginning….
Ahh…back in Cuba and a lot has changed in 7 years but some things are eternally Cubana. There is undeniably no city like habana anywhere in the world. Around one corner
Laydes y yo
gran piedra ' santiago a crowded tenement slum, another, a war zone, another, a perfectly preserved slice out of Spanish C17th history, another, a modern boutique and flash hotels, another, a park surrounded by antique book sellers, another, cops rounding up a few street kids, another, (almost) classy restaurants, another, dangerous looking dark alleys and smashed pavement roads, another, the bustling wharves and container terminal, another, the most elegant little parks, tucked away, fabulous old and contemporary statues and artwork, another, a bunch of tough soldiers (sent in the watch the cops) hassling some girls trying to catch tourists, another, a whole symphony orchestra set up on the pavement putting on a free show, despite the traffic noise and choking exhaust fumes, another, a 10 storey building, most of the façade torn away, great blocks of masonry in the street, more dangling way up high, rusty girders exposed, like a bomb has gone off, another, a fabulous, tree-lined, mosaic tiled walkway down the middle of a tree-lined avenue, carved seats, statues and elaborate light posts, another, great marbled plaza, magnificent sculptures, immaculate gardens, another, dingy market stalls, meagre piles of vegetables, pork and chicken meat out in the sun all day, another, a supermarket
que flor
san juan with a pretty impressive range of goods (hurry tho’, they might not be there tomorrow!), another, huge crowds of people waiting for few buses, queues outside stores, banks, offices, you always have to be patient here, even if you’re a rich tourista, and always the people, colourful, passionate, friendly and stoically existing!
Increased security is obvious from the start. Cops and military everywhere, with lots of dogs as well. Someone suggested to me that with Fidel so close to the end there is an increased cop and military presence. There is a tangible feeling in the air, something is going to change, but what, and which way?? Altho the changeover has been undoubtedly choreographed to the nth degree, I get the feeling that the death of Fidel will be a catalyst for unpredictable changes.
And there’s always lots of these old guys on the streets, walking, sitting, often with an old cigar, often with newspapers or something to sell, but never with the hassling vigour of the cigar touts. The big problem is that these old guys are the most interesting to talk to, but the hardest to understand. Cubana español is the fastest, most incomprehensible of all the
flor2
san juan varieties, it makes the Venezolanos sound slow!. I constantly ask everyone “speak to me like you speak to a child”…a great concept, but I reckon mostly they speak just as quickly to the kids!! or, after two or three nice clear sentences it’s back to a million miles an hour! Guess I’ll just have to learn a bit harder.
So, these old blokes around the streets, smiles, with and without teeth, some English, often selling papers or something, many with crutches or sticks, always ready to talk about some aspect of life and Cuba. And always with a patient tranquillity and sense of humour.
There’s something different about Cuba. Havana is a fantastic city, it must have been quite something in its heyday, well, for the rich anyway!!
Beautiful architecture, just stunning, I’m walking around almost in a daze. I can’t stop staring around, so many things catch my eye, beautiful little parks and gardens everywhere thru the city, massive buildings, some restored to the decadent splendour of their day, others crumbling and falling apart, tangled dangling electric wiring runs to dozens of apartments, lines of washing on the balconies.
Decrepit, decayed, delightful, unfortunately, increasingly dangerous, and so clean, always
people sweeping and cleaning up the streets and parks, many of them old people, I’m not sure if some of them are paid or just have a sense of civic pride.
There is a strange thing about work here, the wages are absolutely shit so there’s not a lot of incentive to go to work, but if you have a job there’s a minimum wage attached and they seem to get paid whether they turn up or not. People working in shops, banks, whatever, will gladly just go away with you for a few days with seemingly no penalty! Also there’s always more staff than necessary so I guess they are all covered!
Back to the street…
Well, this is mainly in the old part of Havana, a lot of work has been put into fixing things up for the touristas, and there are lots! And they bring in lots of money…and they have to pay top dollar for most everything.
Back to the city. Some see a scabrous decaying rat’s nest, all the evidence to reinforce the jaundiced view of those dirty rotten commie rats, poverty, decrepitude, overcrowding, dark, dirty and dangerous.
For me, all that and more, so
much more, Laydes has family and friends in some of the grimmest looking places, we go to visit, me with some trepidation maybe, not for long, I’m directed to the best chair, got to get used to this, a lot of people, as my eyes get accustomed to the dull light, an old couple perched in one corner, must be 90 not out, a couple of people hanging on the almost vertical stairs leading up into what?…a few more in the tiny kitchen, but everyone, talking and laughing, throwing questions at me, some I can understand and answer! offerings of coffee or beer, I pass around cigarettes…if there is one, unique concept in cuba it is sharing. If anyone has anything it is passed around……meals will always be stretched to fill the available mouths. Places to sleep will always be found….…
In this tiny apartment, I see a shaft of light filters thru from some hole up higher, suddenly a wall of the most brilliant deep blue mosaic tiles is revealed, white borders, tiny, multicoloured flowers, it is something out of an Indian palace, worthy of a museum, now secreted away here. The bottom corner has been torn away where
the dividing wall goes in, in different places rough holes have been punched thru for gas, and water pipes, nails have been driven in to support the net of electrical cables, vandalous work but when you understand the priorities……previously one person would have owned this as their private palace, the only cubanos here would have been servants, now they share it with 50 other families but it is theirs!
The contrasts are stark, some fabulously ornate wrought iron balconies and carved facades, mosaic floor tiles, on buildings that have been divided up into a thousand tiny apartments with haphazard electrical wiring, bristling with makeshift TV antennae, lines of washing, always lines of washing, hanging out of windows, over balconies, everyone is always clean, clothes are always cleaned and pressed, it’s an obsession.
From the city to the campos (barrios, where the poor people live) almost universally people are clean, with perfectly laundered clothes, very conscious of personal hygiene and appearance. Houses and yards, even dirt floors are swept and cleaned. I don’t want to sound condescending but when you consider the conditions they live under it is amazing. More on Laydes and life in the campo later.
Other buildings
are vacant, great ragged holes in walls that just gape out onto the street, bare, rusted girders exposed, rotting buildings, balconies precariously hanging on, one good gust of wind and the whole shitbox would collapse.
We called in to a couple of the big buildings and they are like rabbit warrens, anthills, overcrowded and dark with dodgey water supply, hot and sweaty, always someone cooking something, smoke and smells and lots of people living very close. But always hospitable, sometimes embarrassingly so, so generous in sharing whatever they have in fact, always giving the visitor the best seat, the best bits of food, the cleanest bed, and always music, rum, cigars.
I see there’s a lot more food available this time. Of course, in the street stalls and the market the locals get to pay in local pesos while we pay in convertible pesos. The ratio is 25:1. But in the stores, jesus wept, I can drop $20 on a few bits and pieces, beer and rum…..that’s probably a couple of month’s pay for the checkout chick.
I do like this idea tho’: as touristas we have to pay a lot for the life here, (it is way more
El Che
santa clara expensive than any other place in latin America) and the locals can get by buying a lot of the same stuff but for a 25th of the price…bring it on!
Back to walking around, it’s like I’ve got a camera in my head just clickety clickety constantly, photo ops everywhere, I have to be careful as the streets aren’t always smooth, lots of cobblestones, potholes, open traps, I’m wandering around, carried by the crowd or eased into the quiet of a park or side street.
Down by the water, the entrance to the harbour, in the morning, the booksellers are setting up, there’s a great reverence for books, these people set up stands with hundreds of books, some old classics, some more contemporary, then every night they pack it all away again. They are set up around another park, big shade trees, regulation elaborate iron fences, obligatory statue, perfectly trimmed garden, this one is the plaza de armas, what a fabulous place for booksellers. On one side is a hugely imposing building. Once the governor’s residence. Massive stone columns, supporting the portico, statues guard the worn steps, balconies with carved supports, it’s a giant square with an open garden
inside, impressive.
The whole city has been laid out with wide tree lined boulevards, lots of parks and gardens as well as the narrow streets with overhanging balconies.
The Hotel Inglatera is on the Paseo de Marti. One block up is the really impressive Capitol building, as extravagantly excessive as anywhere, huge, snarling lion statues guard the bottom of the steps that seem so wide and sweep up to the portico. More astounding statues and stonework, pillars and scrolls. Quite the house-of-power look.
It may not be any more spectacular than similar buildings in major European cities but the juxtaposition of overcrowded, high-rise barrios next door is spectacular.
Down the other way, Ave Marti runs right down to the harbour, a couple of kms, the centre median is an intricately tiled walkway, 15m wide, carved stone seats, statues and pillared walls, the overhanging branches of the huge trees meet in the middle, a beautiful shady place to hang out. I stop to talk to an old guy, he’d caught my eye and called me over, he shows me a few bits and pieces he’s been carving. As we talk, (I’m picking up 20% of what he’s saying), he pulls
out a small chisel and makes a few cuts to one or other of the pieces, certainly not in a rush. He tells me they cleaned the whole promenade back in ’96, polished the walkway and did it all up, he sighs, just wants them to do it again, maintain it in it’s splendour. He nods to another old guy pushing a wide, bald broom up and down gathering the leaves.
I can stop anywhere and just watch the world go by, nowhere quite like this for extremes of colour, size, shape, texture, always a response to my smile, still plenty of street hustlers with cigars or viagra or peanuts, they sell roasted peanuts in long white paper cones, so intricately rolled it’s a battle to get them open, hustlers with offers of live authentic music, beautiful chicas, cold beer…it’s a huge endless circus, and still too many bloody tourists.
And the chicas, well, what can I say? Maybe all I can say is that the guys who bring wives or girlfriends here are kicking themselves.
There are soo many absolutely beautiful women here, flirting, blowing kisses and just walking up asking….and there’s a big discrepancy in the M/F
good job
san juan ratio so it’s not so reciprocally fair for women.
I met a girl who will come with me to Santiago de Cuba next week. I want to go back and try and find my friends with the band. Laydes is from Santiago but is here in Havana studying ballet. Yeah, like she can afford one lesson per week. I’m going this arvo to watch her lesson. Ballet, classical music, the arts in general are very much alive and flourishing here. The other afternoon, I got back to the hotel and a symphony orchestra was set up on the sidewalk, right under my little balcony, just divine, like I was in the best seat in the opera house. The noise of the traffic and the clouds of exhaust smoke made an awful background to this sublime music.
I was thinking about just how we were going to get to Santiago, Laydes thought it was about $10 to fly, I doubted it. Actually it was $108, so I figured fly down, come back by train. The train is 20 hours and everyone freaks out when I mention it…hey, I love trains, do the Theroux thing, Laydes doesn’t mind. Then I thought, train
down, fly back.
Yesterday we went down to the train station to get the tickets and after several stops we found the right window. It was obvious really, a thousand people long queue!
Plan B, fly down, train back. We were walking back up town, major interchanges, we dodge cars and busses, hopping between median islands, then, as we walk past a car waiting in the traffic she starts talking, next thing we’re in this classic rust bucket heading out to where she lives.
I see it all the time but I can’t figure out how you know which car to pick? But it is a lovely tradition here, you can flag down almost anyone and ask for a lift, obviously not everyone participates and it’s a wonder anyone gets anywhere on time, I see people waiting for hours for a lift. Always big crowds waiting for busses but soo orderly. When you join a queue, for a bus, a ticket, for any reason, you ask ‘ultimo? (last), someone will indicate they are the last so you know when your turn comes, you can then go away and come back anytime, as long as the one before you is still
juanita, betty, elsa
habana, casa de elsa there! So there’s no need to ‘hold-your-spot’ or worry about someone jumping the queue, it never happens.
I give the driver 4 pesos for gas, 1 peso is about $1.10, gas is 80c litre.
We have to reach outside to open the doors of the car, all the windows are open, it’s hot and the car has no suspension, we head out thru the ‘burbs, down a side lane, the road deteriorates rapidly, it’s a track, v rough, I’m wondering if the car will make it, now the little shanties appear, tiny little shacks, a maze of lanes, rough and puddly.
Laydes still has on the high heels and looks great wobbling along, I’m ducking under the cobweb wires that dangle across the paths, we’re looking for her aunt, with whom she lives, the ‘house’ has a couch and 2 chairs, like regular furniture, a fridge, TV, stereo, thin sheets of gaudy patterned material divide off ‘bedrooms’ the whole place is maybe 15’ square, some bizarre burner is fired up under the pots, we duck around to several locations, I get introduced to the aunt, the cousin, 200 locals, they all live so intimately, like a big, extended family.
I’m
tight fit
campo barby thinking this is probably similar to the barrios of other big cities, except that here there is no sense of danger whatsoever, in fact, quite the contrary. Then she drags me off to find some food, one shack has some fried pork rind, chicharron, mmmm.
We walk past another shack, a girl is leaning in the door, or maybe she’s standing straight and the door is leaning, anyway, Laydes calls the girl over and spoons a mouthful of beans and rice into my mouth then herself, then gives the bowl back. At another place I’m sat down at the table, bowls of beans, rice, bit of chicken and sliced tomatoes are put out for me, the others eat from one plate, walking or squatting, I’m a bit uncomfortable but I know this is the way it is. I’m slipping a few pesos to Laydes, for a few pesos I’m feeding everyone.
It’s decided, I’ll go off with the driver, (who’s still hanging around, also getting fed,) and the cousin, to get the tix for Santiago. We drive around to several places, it turns out the cuz is looking for tix on the local bus, I tell him I want plane
listo!
campo santiago tix, we drive off across the city, at the airline office a queue of 30 people, then I find out Laydes doesn’t have a carnet (ID card) and without it she can’t go anywhere!
Later, at the apartment, Elsa offers to go and buy tix on the big bus for us, it works because she knows someone at the office, it will still be a bit tricky without the carnet but we will see!
I was struggling with some street stall food. You get a chicken leg, to the thigh, on a pile of rice and black beans (the famous, inevitable, eternal, undeniable, frijoles con arroz) it’s piled up in a flimsy cardboard box, as a foreigner I get a dodgey plastic fork, the locals get nothing, it’s a finger job. At least I get to sit down, the locals stand and make it look easy. For me it’s somewhere between the can-of-beer-and-a-pie-at-the-footy and those cocktail gatherings where your holding a glass of something and the hostess comes up proffering sticky chicken wings that can never be eaten one-handed. Anyway, I throw caution and decorum to the wind, throw rice and beans all over the table, grease up so
much I can barely grasp the beer bottle. Ah, the guy comes over and graciously hands me a partial paper napkin, lifesaver! I wipe the rest off on my shorts, the locals, of course, manage to eat standing up, grease free fingers, nothing missed.
Suddenly I realise I can understand the conversation next to me. No, not a sudden linguistic epiphany, it’s an aussie and a Canadian. I join them. I’d been successfully avoiding English speakers but it’s exhausting trying to speak español all the time.
A few days later I move in to the same apartment as Leonardo, the Canadian. His landlady, Elsa, is willing to let me bring Laydes with me. This means a lot as she is from out-of-town and also she doesn’t have her carnet (ID card) very dangerous, when we are out walking she often has to drop back, I go on, looking disinterested, the cops pass.
It was good to have the first 3 days in the hotel inglaterra but I had to get in to a casa familiare. Luckily Elsa’s is fantastic, the entrance is slightly obscured from the street, the apartment is great and she is the best cook! I’ve been learning
about cubana cocinas, a lot pretty basic but always, always, you get far better food in the house. Most restaurants charge a lot and the food is pretty ordinary, the street food for the locals is much better but the home cooking is the best. Always black beans and rice as the basis and chicken or pork, fried platinos, bananas, tomatoes, cucumber, sometimes lettuce, lobster, and that’s about the most of it. I did find a little roll of ground uraguyan beef one day, special! And made a spaghetti bolognaise!
I was going to fly to Santiago but can’t buy Laydes a tik without her ID, it’s even difficult to get on the train, so we’ll go by bus, 18 hours! But in Santiago she has family and hopefully we can get her papers sorted. Her Mother and 2 sisters live in a campo on the skirts of Santiago. Her Mother is a washerwoman, her Father was a baker but he was killed by a train at the crossing 2 months ago. Jesus wept. And there was no way she could get back until now, with me, I just don’t know what to say.
Waking up from time
4 1-2 hours later
this little piggy... to time, that lovely drowsy half-sleep, I can feel soft, even breaths on my back, every point of contact, I think I love the mornings better than the nights, almost simultaneously we roll over, like hot dogs on those rotating roller cookers, an arm, thrown over my side, clasps my hand under my chin, little kisses on the back, our legs entwined, I drop back into a dream. At the next waking, stretching, I lie back, she snuggles her head on my chest, leg thrown over, clinging tightly, she’s still half asleep, soft dusky kisses. I’ve got sort of hay fever, runny nose etc and then I sneeze, she shoots up off my chest, I’m laughing, sneezing again, she grumbles but settles again, sleepy eyed, soft morning breath, little moans and sighs, I wonder what she dreams about.
The first morning light is showing, my favourite time of day, I slip out of the bed and now I’m at the table putting this down while she sleeps on. After the privations of the campo, she’s taking every possible advantage of this ‘luxury’.
Here at Elsa’s casa, a small apartment on the 3rd floor there are 2 bedrooms with a communal
bathroom, a reasonable sized living room and a small kitchen. Elsa’s niece came in from up country last night. This morning I realise they both slept on the floor in the kitchen!
Everyone in this country is used to sacrifice and hardship and everyone here is fiercely bonded, both at a community and familial level. Sharing is the natural, normal way of life. There is a tribal way people move in and out of each others lives. Not to say there isn’t a dog-eat-dog reality in the struggle to survive.
But even the young and the restless, frustrated at the situation where it’s not worth working as the pay is so bad, are all fiercely patriotic, and not jingoistic bullshit, they do love their country.
When Laydes came back from getting her clothes from the campo (a plastic shopping bag) she had two other, older women with her. I was feeling a little uneasy having all these people in the appartment but when Elsa came in they all just talked away like they had lived together all their lives, unbelievable, minimal formal introductions, I went and got a couple of beers from the fridge, I knew how this works, if
I’d asked, no-one would accept, I open the cans and offer them around, we all share from the 2 cans.
A little later Laydes’ friends go, they make small farewell gestures to her, almost no acknowledgement of the rest of us, there’s no bad feelings, it’s all cool, just the way it happens, so casual, so intimate, as a guest or visitor in someone’s house you can ask for anything, sometimes I’m mind boggled, Laydes might be lying on the little couch and will get Elsa to make her a hot chocolate, then ask for more sugar, I mean, lying there like a princess…but Elsa accepts it, it’s just the way it is, and she’s more than happy to do it. There will always be some reciprocity somewhere down the track.
The walls are paper thin within and between apartments. At night in bed. A baby starts crying and it is so close I feel I should go and pick it up, so close I can hear the shlep and gurgle as it latches on to the mothership breast and feeds. The conversations go on, a glass shatters, door slams, vague traffic noise from the street, coughs and gags,
sultry
habana water splashing, always some music from somewhere, someone is calling up to an apartment from the street, after several shouts they get a reply, a hammer is banging away, the sounds of bodily functions, a dog barks far off.
Next time I wake it’s 3 am, I’m still feeling crap with this cold but I’m still in boat mode, sleeping in 2 - 3 hour bursts. But something is odd. I lie in the half dark. Laydes is sleeping, arms and legs over me. When she feels me move she throws out an arm to pull me back. I can feel something is not right but I can’t work it out. Then it hits me. It’s the stillness and the quiet. It’s totally silent and nothing is moving. After 6 months on the boat where there is always movement and always sounds this is so strange.
Way out, a rooster crows, a bit fcuking early I would have thought, but at least it gave me a frame of reference, I’m not going deaf! Then a dog, responding to the rooster? Occasional vague traffic noise, some faint sound I can’t identify, something from a Spielberg soundtrack, but still, so still.
The baby wakes again and cries for a few seconds. I’m sitting on the edge of the bed. Laydes has wrapped herself up in the sheet like a mummy, when I lie back down she tugs it free and rolls us up together.
Then it’s my time again, 6.30 and first light, duller this morning and still overcast. We had rain yesterday, not full-on monsoonal but pretty severe. First rain in several weeks so it was good.
The house politics continued yesterday as I got sicker, sat in the lounge drinking rum to ward off the cold, only partially successfully, and watched the proceedings. Elsa is really down on Laydes and wants me to switch to the niece, Juanita. I’m in a haze, gripe coming on, mind dazed. Have I made my move too soon? Did I leave the hotel Inglatera too soon (a premature evacuation) I tell her that if she thinks I am a good man, then how could I just change chicas like that? How could Juanita ever be trusting me? Besides, it’s Laydes I prefer, she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed but for me she is wonderful. There’s something about her naivety that brings
me back to the reality of this place. Anyway, as the afternoon progressed it was Leo who was behaving, and chatting with Juanita. Elsa is changing her mind about Leo, again!
I’m feeling shocking, the gripe-cure-rum is only half working. There’s no way I can face 18 hours on the bus so I ask Elsa to cancel. Anyway, Laydes hasn’t come back from the shops, she’s been gone most of the day. She finally gets in, distraught. She got pulled by the cops, taken downtown and grilled for 2 hours. Then they checked the computer and confirmed she is a ballet student here and let her go. It was a devastating experience for her. I’m holding her in my arms and rocking her. It takes a while before she stops shaking.
Later I ask Elsa to get all the ingredients for chicken soup and also anything picante (chillie hot) so she heads off. (there’s a sad lack of anything spicy in cubano food and you know how I like it HOT) Anyway, she comes back with bags of stuff. (It’s easier for her to buy the stuff than me. When they see us touristas coming the prices just skyrocket) She
has found 2 little tins of pickled jalapenos!! Whoo hoo…I open one and just scoff them, plus a couple of cloves of raw garlic. Everyone is looking at me warily.
Later we have a fabulous chicken soup. L and I go off to bed and I listen to the extended play as Leo and Elsa and Juanita move closer. If this comes off it will be perfect. The 4 of us playing happy families and Elsa the den mother!
It seems the best solution is to hire a car. Surprisingly straightforward but a bit exy. Len says he’ll come too and split the costs, great deal. Me and Laydes, Leo and Juanita. We get up early but Juanita bails, so the 3 of us head out of town. Nearly 900kms to Santiago de Cuba.
I think there are 3 road signs in Cuba, none of them in Havana!. And also I need gas. We drive out along the autopista, I see a motorcycle cop parked off the freeway. Before he can signal me in I pull up next to him and ask the way. Really accurate directions…but.
Eventually we find gas and the turn-off. I pull over again to
ask and check. A friendly type confirms our direction and asks for a lift. Perfect, he’s going most of the way to Santiago as well. It turns out to be v good luck as he tells me whenever there’s a check point ahead (slow down to 40 kms), points out some freakingly obscure turn-offs and leaves us pointed in the right direction. He’s got a bag in the trunk and holds a small cardboard box on his lap, it makes noise, 4 homing pigeons! We buy him food and drink as we go. As we drop him off another guy comes up and wants a lift. Perfect again as he also warns me of cops, potholes, obscure turn-offs and other hazards. When we get to Santiago he actually directs me to the very door of Layde’s sister’s place. And then walks back half a km to where he was headed!
It’s been a long day, 14 hours or so, and the last couple of hours in the dark were really tough, strange potholey roads and I couldn’t see anything in the oncoming lights, the windscreen was plastered in bugs and the washer out of action….ayayay
But it is so
fantastic to be back here in Santiago, as beautiful, as old and full of beautiful colonial buildings, trees and pollution as ever. I am feeling just so high on it all!
What a reunion, Laydes and her sister, and a cousin (there’s always a cousin!) he’s stocky but really fit, works out, about 30yo and a nice guy. Leo and the Sis hit it off right away so that’s sorted. The big house is just amazing, mosaic tiled floor, 20’ ceilings, a fabulous carved wooden archway halfway down the main room, pillars and fret work, extraordinary. They are slowly doing it up. There’s no room here so they have lined up a couple of local casa familiares (private houses licensed to have boarders) Without her carnet Laydes can’t get in to ours so she goes back with Sis. I sleep alone.
Next day Leo and Sis, Laydes and me and the cuz went to see the Gran Piedra, a huge rock peak, a couple of hours tortuous drive up in the mountains, unbelievable, the road had elaborate stone gutters and barriers, was this built by the Spanish? A long winding, narrow, hairpin riddled road, then the last walk, 452
steps to the top, a gigantic rock peak, you can see all of cuba from here, a couple of locals selling hippie beads, v friendly, I’m panting, then back down, enough exercise for today.
On the way back we call in to Playa Siborney, I remember spending some wonderful days here on my first visit in 2001. It is so beautiful, but this time a few more touristas. We‘re coming back on Sunday with the kids.
Back at the house, we have a room now, Laydes wants a rest and sends me out to sit with the cuz on the street. This is all so different. Just outside the house, on the street, are 2 bus stop seats, it’s the coolest spot as it’s still pretty hot and muggy, 6pm or so, and a slight breeze. I’m sitting with the cuz and 2 of his mates, others drop by from time to time. We pass back and forth the bottle of rum, then we go get another.
These guys are obsessed with sex, it’s interminable. And there are so many stunningly beautiful women, and they are up to it. The guys have a hiss/whistle, unbelievably penetrating, and accurate. I seen the cuz call a chica at 100 metres!
Eye contact is blitzing, in the car or on the street I’m constantly getting these smouldering, dark, penetrating looks, eyes lock on, she’s got me stripped, ridden and $20 out of my wallet before I can say Hola!
Back at the bus stop, some of the girls stop and chat. Before I know what’s going on the boys have lined up 2 gorgeous girls for me, I can go with both of them to their casa, I am trying to explain to these boys, when you get to my age, it is so much better to find one good girl and stay with her than be constantly chasing the others…..they think I am crazy…maybe they are right…but I’m so happy with my chica…and she’d kill me if I even talked with another chica. She’s never slow to give me a clip on the ear if I look at another, but crikey, what can a man do? I tell her I’ll always look…but never touch!
Saturday we hit the market early, great like all markets, and stock up, for a few pesos, a trunk load of food. We drive out to the campo and Laydes’ aunt’s little shack. Great introductions to the extended family. Out the back a big fire pit is blazing. The pregnant sister is washing the intestines of a pig, hanging of the tree. An old bloke is slowly cleaning and sharpening a long pole. The pig is brought in and placed on the table. 2 guys ram the pole thru and then, back outside, ram it on the ground until the pig slides down to the middle, it’s a tight fit! Back on the table the pig is stuffed, marinade pushed into cuts and then stitched up. A few nails are driven thru the snout and all four legs, this baby is going nowhere! Lastly a sheet of chain link is wrapped around the whole deal and the pole is hung on ropes from two uprights. At one end of the pole is a small cross piece and everyone takes turns at sitting on the little seat and turning. Four and a half hours and 4 bottles of rum later we’re ready. Aunt has been supervising salads, rice and beans, name, platinos etc. The pig is chopped up on the table and everyone pigs in, boom boom. I can’t remember much of getting home.
Sunday at the beach, Laydes is scared of sharks. We swim and play, drink cocos from straws.
Monday she goes off to meet her Mum and get the carnet sorted. Late afternoon Gran, Sis, the cuz and all the rest are carrying on. They tell me Laydes has been arrested, by the secret police from habana, apparently they had film of her, and possibly with me, and tracked her down…all starting to sound a bit far fetched to me but they are all genuinely worried.
I’m devastated, not sure if this is just another elaborate scam or real. Nothing I can do.
The next day Len and I and the cuz head off to Trinidad as we have to get the car back to habana the following day and cuz has to go and see if can spring Laydes.
Along the way we pick up hitchhikers from the endless crowds at the start of the highways, I love to continue the tradition, besides, it gives me the chance to meet lots more people, practise my español and find out more about what’s going on.
A music teacher, a phys ed teacher, factory worker, hospital orderly and then the uni student, funnily enough all chicas, and all lovely, cuz does the chat on them all!
Just out of camaguey I stop and pick up a uni student, she’s got final exams tomorrow but says she’ll come to Trinidad with me if I can drop her off at uni in santa clara the next day…easy! We find a casa in Trinidad and have another fine feed, the quality of the tucker has improved a thousandfold since ’01.
Next morning we drop the uni student off at the campus, just a shed really, in Santa Clara, she has her final exams but may come to habana next week. She’s done 4 of 5 years study to become an engineer, quality control process engineering in the increasingly expanding manufacturing sector, in fact I drove around lost in camaguey, in the factory sector, lots of dead old factories but increasingly new plants opening up, v modern equipment, she’s got no problems getting work, just universally shit pay! And she’s drop dead gorgeous, and she’s got a 3yo looked after by her mum.
In the morning, as is often the case, but always surprisingly, she never makes any mention of wanting money. Of course I give her some but even if I hadn’t there would be no drama, it is different! Sometimes it’s just the ride, the food and drink, the company…….
We swing by the fabulous Plaza de la Revolucion and the El Che memorial before leaving Santa Clara. It is the cuz’s first time there and he is incredibly in awe of it all. We wait for him go in to pay homage at the crypt. This is a classic example, he’s really frustrated at not being able to work and make money but has this incredible devotion to the revolution and it’s heroes.
Then back on the road to habana. 2,500 kms, 6 days, and what an extraordinary time. I feel like I’ve been away for a month….I feel like I’ve been in cuba for 6 months! I mentioned this to another traveller and he said the same, what is it about this place? I’m just feeling so tranquilo, contento, it’s a high. Time just drifts by, so much to see and taste and feel and smell, I am feeling soo good it’s ridiculous.
It is illegal for cubana chicas to be with tourista guys so it is always a battle. Especially in habana. On the street you get the nod, move into a shop or quiet corner, chat a little, make a time and place to meet later. At the casa, they have to be v careful coming and going. If they are caught they have their carnet confiscated and without that it is almost impossible to survive. I’m thinking this is what happened to laydes but she wasn’t being straight with me! When they go to get another they have to pay the price. Maybe 1 year in the can. It is v tough. But with average wages of $20 - $30 per month, and that possible in one hour, you can see what’s going to happen. Chicas are the main income generators for families. The awful truth!
The other good earner is casas familiares, a licence to have touristas stay in your house. The owner/s will doss with neighbours, sleep on the floor, do whatever they can to get you in. They get $20 - $25 per head per night. But, they must have a licence, $200 per month, with or without guests! And any slight error in the classic bureaucratic nightmare forms and books, a $200 fine! If the inspector or the cops find a chica with a tourist in your casa you are in deepo poopo….lose the lot…It’s crazy.
It is possible however to meet a ‘good girl’, I have been introduced to Natacha, the daughter of a friend of Elsa’s. She is taller and fairer than the average cubana and a bit older so we can walk about without getting hassled. She’s just finished a computer course and starts work next week as a secretary in a maritime company. $15 a month.
She has a cell phone but no line (SIM card) so we go down to the phone office. Only a foreigner can buy a line for a local. The cubanos can’t! Go figure. It’s $120 and then you have to buy cards to recharge at $10 a time, you have to pay for incoming calls as well, and if you don’t have any credit for 90 days the line is cancelled. And $10 doesn’t last long in call time!
Natacha called me last night to come over to eat. She lives with her Mother and Grandmother in a little apartment just a couple of blocks away. Their building is beautiful. Huge carved wooden doors to the street, marble stairway, mosaic tiles throughout. Little balconies out over the street. But furniture, cooking stuff, everything is pretty basic. But always the rocking chairs, every dwelling in cuba has a rocking chair, or more than one. Elsa has 3, even out in the campos they have them. Carved wooden rockers, cane mesh seats and backs, always perfectly balanced and comfortable. At Natacha’s they only have one and she tells me that there’s always a battle between her and her Mum for it!
Gran is confined to a wheelchair. Wizened like a little old bird, but still v much on the ball, really sweet to me. One leg seems to end just below the knee, the other has half her foot missing. Mum was a bit iffish at first but has warmed to me. After we ate she brought out the photos for me. A dozen old and well worn photos, of her wedding, Tash as a baby, at 15. Such a contrast to our bulging albums, boxes of slides, movies, vids, dvds etc. These are her revered treasures. Tash brings me out a newer photo, of her Dad, he pissed off to spain 15 years ago and married a young Spanish girl. As Tash shows me the photo, Mum, standing behind her, mimes the actions of ripping it up…but laughs, what else can she do?
Leo and I went down to the Partagas cigar factory the other morning. Truly a treat. Just a bummer it was a smoke-free day for me! Doh. Fascinating tour thru the rustic old building. Starting at the bottom, leaves roughly sorted. 2nd flooor 60 or 70 women at small tables tearing out the stems and sorting the leaves by colour and quality into 6 or 8 piles, the leaf is almost like flesh. Music always and a lot of laughter but this is hard work.
Top floor, 260 workers crowded in to a huge room, this is the centre of operations, 4 leaves for the centre are roughly packed up and put in a rack of 10 and then into a big press for 30 mins. After the press the one outer leaf is rolled on, fantastic works of art. They have to make on average 110 cigars per day!! Pay rate is $40 month. Bonuses for over production, penalties for under. They can all make all types and here they make 21 types under 10 brands as directed by the marketing people. At the front of the room there’s a stage, every morning someone reads the news for an hour, then they have book readings or music or listen to radio plays…how inspiring! It is strange, they are all looking pretty happy as they work but I wonder what they are thinking as groups of rich touristas slouch thru their world.
I know what some of them are thinking, I get the nod and wink from a few of them as I pass, letting me see a bunch of fresh cigars, hand signal the price, all very on the sly. I ask our guide about this, he says it’s a big problem for them …and me, if we’re sprung…but it clearly goes on all the time and lots of people on the street are offering good deals. Plus the workers all get 5 a day for themselves and lots get taken home and sold.
Lastly the cigars are sorted, labelled and boxed. The consistency of colour, size and quality for a handmade product is absolutely amazing.
28,600/day here, 60 factories in cuba (this is the biggest) about 21 mil cigars per year! And an average price of about $2.50, yes, they are expensive even here, the top-of-the-line cigars can set you back $10!
I bought a couple of boxes of Romeo and Juliets for the boat ride.
I’m going to hire another car Sunday night and head off to the east end where I’ve never been. Tash has postponed her work start to come with me, I’m not sure how I feel about that but I am v v happy and we are having a great time together. I’m trying not to think about having to leave in a couple of weeks. I told her at the start that this was going to be our dilemma. She too!. Leo is coming too but not sure which chica to bring or just see what happens. We are giving Elsa a lift to her family place in Pinar del Rio and picking her back up on Wednesday on the way back. Along with a trunk load of fresh tucker from the campo. Elsa gets deliveries from time to time, fresh meat, vegetables, fruit, fantastic yoghurt, the best rice…mmm
I see I’m into page 13…many of you passing out…..c’mon Billy, get to the fcuking point!. Desculpeme! Or disculpeme?
I might try and get this online, always a drama.
And some pix.
Chau, besos…
I am soo freaking happy, contento, tranquilo, I can’t tell you how much I love this place!!!
OH well, just a little more!
Just back last night from a couple of days in the east. We ended up staying with Elsa’s sister, husband, daughters in the old family house. Out back they have just finished a liitle room up high with it’s own baño, just fantastic, Tash and I get this room…I could live here.
The house is full of activity, people and love. People come and go, Ricardo, the dad, a lovely guy, takes me out to the tobacco patch he shareworks, in a little darkened room in a shack out in the tobacco field, a guy and a woman are rolling cigars, they give me 1 to try and a couple to go, absolutely magic! This area grows the best tobacco in Cuba and therefore the best in the world, and I put in an order for 10 slim and 20 regular fats at $1 each, we pick them up next day, all v clandestino but they have made the equivalent of 6 weeks wages in the factory in one night, they must have been up all night rolling, these are the freshest, bestest cigars you could imagine…now I’m getting to understand cigars!
A TALE OF 2 CIGARS
On the way down to San juan y martinez from habana a car is broken down on the side of the highway and a guy flags me down. He asks if we can give a lift to this woman, I guess so she can get help for them. No worries I say and she piles in. She tells us she has a small tobacco place in the next town. She directs me off the highway, down a lane, into the tobacco. We walk out into the crop, she explains all about it. We get to the huge drying shed and see the whole process. From here, after 45 days drying the packs of leaves go to the factories, this is the prima of the prima, for Cohibas, the best. She brings out 4 cigars and I give her $20, as much to help with the car as the cigars.
Later, when we get to san juan and the family house I light one up, it’s not going to well. Ricardo takes it from me, looks at it scornfully, asks me the where I got it. He breaks it in half, tells me it’s total crap and when I tell him what happens I realise it was a total scam right from the broken down car onwards! I’m the laughing stock but I’m laughing too, and explain to him that yes, I see it was a scam, but that it was done so well I have to appreciate it! For the next couple of days we are in the house Ricardo gets the busted up cigar and tells the story to anyone who comes into the house. Eventually I have to tell him to quit it!
Then he takes me out to his place in the fields and I got the good stuff!
SOMETIMES ITS BETTER IF I DON’T PLAY NINTENDO
Almost as soon as we get to san juan, Ricardo wants to take us to the lake. He and Alexi jump in the car and we all head off out of town, turn off onto dirt, down a goat track, this is definitely not on your tourist agenda, eventually we get to the river, climb right up this incredibly steep hill to the top of the dam wall. An amazing place, beautiful views, but we can’t take photos, this is a restricted area, jesus wept, get me out of here, more slugs of rum as the bottle gets passed around.
Later still Jimmy piles in and we head for the beach, this just keeps getting better. On the way back to town I get pulled over by the cops. They want my papers and get me to follow them over the road. They tell me I have too many people in the car. Me and Tash in the front, Leo, Juanita, Jimmy, Ricardo and Christian in the back. This is where the payoff will be.
I decide to play the dumb tourista and say what sounds like “I don’t play Nintendo” (No intendo español). Oh well, I guess you just had to be there!
Anyway, the traffic is going crazy. They decide it isn’t worth the hassle and let me go!
Next day we go for a long drive, thru’ the mountains, extraordinary views, Jimmy shows us all the hidden local treasures, then to the cave of the Indians, walk thru’ the caves, then part of the way in a boat!!…unbelievable, then to the mural, a huge rock face painted in blues and reds and purples, depicting, well, depicting what exactly? Juanita says she can see a lion!, she’s trippin’……but humanoid shapes, I reckon eric von dunnycan would have something to say about this, definitely alien work.
Then another crap restaurant meal, overpriced and just not a patch on home. Eventually we get back to the casa and of course another monster Elsa cook up.
Crikey, there’s so much we’ve seen and done, again it feels like a 3 month trip, and getting back to habana really feels like coming home. I take Tash’s bag up, mum’s not happy, Tash ran out of phone credit to call in….mum softens.
This is really living in a freaking movie, or more like living in one of the amazing over-the-top brazilian novellas (soap opera tv shows) they just go berko, lots of these brazilian shows thru’out latino, always addictive, always so badly done they are fantastic, sbs probably show them at noon!
Anyway, little bits more of information trickle in, Elsa is a great gossip monger and changes her views, opinions and ideas constantly, and just when you think you’ve got a handle on what’s happening, a new piece of the puzzle shows up and throws everything on its head (in true novella style!)
Elsa suggests a party before I go, jesus wept, it’s only a week to go. It’s settled, I’ll get another car this arvo and we’ll head off to San Juan, party hardy Saturday, be back in town on Sunday night. A couple of nights in the little room on the roof sounds like heaven to me. And the whole spit pig…con carbon of course! ..Elsa’s famous frijoles, arroz, and the whole 9yards…and Ricardo’s colleagues will have time to roll me another 20 fresh specials. Sounds like a plan.
But, now is the time, I’m going down to the hotel inglatera and try and get some internet time…did I tell you? $6 per hour! Oy yay, coño, mierda….
I don’t know if they’ll let me use the jump stick, or if the photos will upload, or if it’s even working,…why am I talking to the computer like this?…I am tripping too…and I am still on such a high….oh, and listen, mira, I’m hoping there will be no dramas getting out of cuba with a suitcase full of contraband cigars, nor a problem entering panama with too many cigars, so if you don’t hear from me for a while, don’t panic, it’s probably just that I’m stuck on a yacht in the middle of the pacific for 5 months!!
Aaarrgghhh………
You know I love you all……
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