Cuba Diary 4 - Travels

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May 24th 2006

Published: June 22nd 2006

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The Pod

Fidel and Raul welcome us to La Isla

Hiya,

A couple of weeks have passed and, in the meantime, we have broken Havana´s bewitching spell long enough to do some travelling around Cuba. We decided to travel for a week, starting first by going to the Isla De La Juventud with four friends (Angela, Maria, Adama and Adama´s six year old daughter - Amatu). Part of Cuba, La Isla is a small island off the southern coast of Cuba that used to be the hangout of Francis Drake and Blackbeard (or was it red?) and was apparently the original inspiration for the book Treasure Island. In the sixties it was renamed "Island of the Youth" in honour of the thousands of volunteer students that went there to get industry set up. We had heard it was a beautiful, quiet island, half of which is designated natural reserve and with the best Caribbean Indian cave paintings in the region.

Unfortunately our trip was a bit of a disaster. We arrived on the Friday evening and found out there were no tickets back on the ferry to Havana on Sunday and that the only chance of leaving the island was to queue all morning on Saturday to get on

Moment of depression in La Isla

When we found out we would have to spend most of our time in La Isla queueing for the ticket home.

the list of people who could then be allowed to queue at 6am on Sunday to see if there were some no-shows. We then found out that the only way of seeing the caves and getting into the natural reserve was by tour and the only tour bus was being used by a large tour group. Trying not to get too downhearted we hired an old car to drive around the island a bit and go to the beach. The car was great but ten minutes into our journey the skies opened up and there was a torrential rainstorm with thunder and lightning. After a soggy time at the beach we returned to the main town and went out for dinner. Unfortunately the only place open was a pork restaurant where most things were off the menu (Olga and I had a plate of rice each). Still feeling rather hungry we went to bed so that we could get up at 5am to queue for possible tickets. It was finally the start of our lucky streak when we got the last 6 tickets on the boat and said a relieved goodbye to our acursed trip. Anytime something goes wrong now

Beach at La Isla

A rare moment of peace and tranquility on La Isla

we smile and say “Looks like its all going a bit Isla!”

The next day Olga and I started our new and hopefully uncursed trip together. We only had a week and so picked our destinations carefully. We went first to Holguin, a city Cubans call the city of parks, in the east of the island. While not a common stop on the tourist trail, it is a quiet city, with beautiful plazas and squares, but it is also a slightly unfinished city. There had been some renovation projects and several amazing sculptures that had been started five years ago but they still sadly stood half-finished. The sculptures stood with the internal structure still showing in places and/or with their constituent parts lying scattered on the grass around. It was almost as if the artists just got really bored with their projects and went home and no-one ever said anything because they didn’t like them in the first place. I guess it’s more likely though that the money just ran out. We met some real characters there - Johnny, a salsa teacher and part-time security guard for the local bar who we got on really well with, danced amazingly

Before the storm, La Isla

Our posse and our car at the House lived in by Jose Marti, father of Cuba, while in exile on La Isla. From left: Maria, Adama, Amatu, Angela, Olga

and who somewhat spoiled our friendship by asking for money before we left; and Rodolpho, a know-it-all forty year old professional singer with a cheshire-cat smile who belted out boleros at the Casa De La Trova and sashayed around the city with his beautiful 17 year old girlfriend on his arm. Amongst the few foreigners here there were also a very large proportion of aging European men with very young Cuban girlfriends where at least 40 years difference seems to be standard.

Being as the subject has come up, I´ll take the chance to write a little here about Cuba, sex and tourism. It may seem harsh but it is true to say that sex and money are the major aspects of the interaction between Tourists and Cubans, stronger here than in most other countries I have been to (apart from Thailand obviously). Cuban culture is highly sexualised and macho. For example, men are always whistling, blowing kisses or trying to chat up women on the street. Women mostly ignore the men’s calls and advances, although amazingly many Cuban men have met girlfriends on the street using just these methods. I think young women definitely feel more societal pressure

Mike posing in car, La Isla

Sadly I didn´t get to drive it, just pose.

here to dress to emphasise their sexual attractiveness and in some way measure their attractiveness by the extent to which they receive this street attention. Into this mix come foreign tourists who have a lot of money compared to Cubans (carrying much of the coveted Cuban Convertible Pesos), represent a long-shot opportunity to leave the country through marriage and who of course can be attractive for being different. Any tourist who is interested in having sex/ a relationship while here in Cuba will find they will not have to wait longer than a day or two. Around all the tourist spots are Jineteros/as - young Cuban men and women who spend most of their time and, if successful, make most of their living, by getting together with foreigners for the duration of their trip(s). Mostly this involves the Jineteros taking the foreigners around to different places at the expense of the Tourist, having sex if desired and, if the relationship develops, asking for a helping financial hand at the end of the trip. There are also Proxenettas, men who make money by finding prostitutes for tourists. Hence, as in Thailand, many older men and some older women come regularly to

In our car on La Isla

From left, Maria, Amatu (Adama´s daughter), Adama, and Mike

Cuba looking for love and they usually have no trouble finding it. All this is of course fine between consenting adults, although the extremes can sometimes feel uncomfortable when you see an old man with a girl 50 years his junior or when you see the cold piranha-like approach of Jiniteros. It was these extremes that we saw play out every night in the bars of Holguin. These interactions generate quite a lot of dismay and some resentment by Cubans not involved - there is a common assumption that all foreign men here are here for sex and Cuban women sometimes display considerable resentment/fear of the Cuban male interest in foreign women. There is also a very clear race aspect at work here because most of jineteros/as are black - black Cubans (and foreigners) are often stopped from entering hotels on the basis that they may be jineteros and the police do a relentless job of making their life difficult. Luckily for us, being a foreign couple here has largely freed us from the attention of jineteros/as and many of the negative assumptions of Cubans about being here for sex (although I think occasionally Olga is mistaken for being Cuban

On the beach, La Isla

Olga explains something (obviously highly complex and confusing) to Maria and Angela

and so the assumptions are sometimes applied).

From Holguin we caught a local truck to Gibara, a small fishing town on the north coast which was absolutely beautiful (see photos below). An old colonial town, it has a wall around the town and old Spanish fortresses crumbling on the surrounding hills. We stayed just one night here but wished we could have stayed longer. The first night we went up to the hill-top bar where we sipped our beer alone looking over the town and the sea. The next day we decided to try to get to one of the beaches on an island close to Gibara and hitched a ride on a fishing Skiff across the bay. Soon after arriving there, walking along the mud path towards the beach the dark skies started to open up. We just made it to the beach, shielded our clothes and dived in the water before it started to pour - it was beautifully surreal being alone together in the sea in a torrential downpour. When the sky cleared we tried to get back to the launch to get the boat back before it rained again, only to be caught half way

Sky in La Isla

back by an even bigger downpour. We sloshed through water and mud up to our ankles and stood soaked under someone’s porch while the sea and air merged and the local pigs snuffled past us revelling in the mud. We caught the boat back and after finally getting dry that evening we took a taxi back to Holguin to get the bus to the last stop of our trip, Trinidad.

We arrived in Trinidad very early in the morning on the bus fron Holguin and were amazed that the first casa in the guidebook was available. And what a great place it was - we had two roof terraces to ourselves, and a lovely little room. We stuffed ourselves with amazing breakfasts and dinners on the terrace every day and the owners went out of their way to help in whatever way they could. Trinidad is on the coast and so we thought our first day would be wisely spent on the beach. It was beautiful, sunny and nearly deserted, and so we languished there all day. That night we strolled up through the city to the area around the main plaza where there are a number of bars,

Crucial hair styling, La Isla

Adama and Amatu

restaurants and places to see live bands and dance shows. Trinidad is a small picturebook colonial city, with cobbled streets and each building (some restored, some crumbling) is painted in different pastel shades (see Trinidad photos below). Usually it is filled with tourists as it is one of the most popular destination spots (apart from the beach resorts which people fly in and out of without seeing anything of Cuba), but luckily we were hitting it out of season. Although a few bars closed early there were enough tourists that most of the shows were still put on.

It was here that we saw one of the Afro-Cuban music and dance shows that we saw both here in Trinidad and also in Havana. There seems to be a common format although it varied in intensity and number of dancers. Musicians play rumba and traditional african beats at the back of the stage and women and men sing in Yaruba. Then men and women dancers appear. The women swirl in unison in flowing dresses and rythmically swish oxtail whips. The men all appear with wild staring eyes, topless and in baggy shorts with a sash, jackknifing their shoulders back and

Romantic palm, Holguin

forward, and swirling machetes from their feet to behind their head. There are some common characters - usually a nutty lead male dancer with machete, a svelt lead woman dancer with a tall headwrap and oxtail whip, and a jester of sorts who has a red cap and bent red stick. The lead men move so hard and fast that they are soon sweating all over, throwing their bodies to the floor and up again in some of the most impressive and visceral dancing I have seen. We loved these shows the best, mostly because they had so much more umph and connection than the highly technical but often quite cold and egotistical salsa dancing we saw (I´m probably just jealous because I´m still rubbish at Salsa!).

For the rest of our time in Trinidad we wondered around the city and also did a trek through the mountains north of Trinidad to a beautiful waterfall in a canyon. It was good to get some exercise and sweat a bit after a week of beer drinking (and a couple of months of rum drinking!). Then, sadly our week´s travel was over and it was time to return to Havana for

Home for the elderly, Holguin

The helpful sign on the gate for residents or to remind passers-by is: "socialism or death" - you choose..

our last week and a half before leaving Cuba. A fine postnote to our small trip was that as soon as we arrived back in the door to our little apartment early on Sunday evening, our friends Eva and Angela phoned to tell us that they had brought us tickets to go to a big concert by a well known Cuban band called Syntesis. With just enough time for a shower and a change of clothes, we nipped back out the door for the concert. It was a tribute to the band, which had been around for nearly twenty years and they had guest appearances from Sylvio Rodriguez (one of the most famous Cuban singers of ballads, a bit like Simon and Garfunkle) and from the lead singers´ son, X Alfonso (the guy we saw in concert soon after we arrived). A great end to the week.

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