!Hola Yanquis Imperialismos!

Winston Churchill once remarked that the USSR is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. The same could be said of Cuba. It is a fascinating time warp full of old cars, buildings, technologies and customs. Imagine a place where there is no advertising, no fast food outlets, little crime, and where the word "new" is measured in decades.

Cuba is the largest and least commercialized country in the Caribbean. Visualize picturesque colonial towns, intriguing Afro-Cuban culture, kitschy revolutionary monuments, romantic popular music, unblemished beaches and enchanting countryside. Political factors have prevented Cuba from being ruined by mass tourism, and it beckoned we two, who really needed a vacation from American politics! The Cuban people are sincerely warm and friendly, and US citizens receive the same spontaneous welcome that Cuba extends to all their guests. There's absolutely no ill will towards American people. The Cuban immigration authorities were happy not to stamp our US passports, so Uncle Sam was none the wiser. We didn't even have to change money, since US dollars are now legal tender in Cuba.

El Plano

How did we get there? Tourists from the US get to Cuba via various legal and illegal routes. We chose the popular, West Coast route, via Cancun, Mexico. Representatives of our tour company met us at the airport in both Cancun and in Habana. They helped smooth the way for us to get on the flight from Cancun to Habana and from the airport in Habana to our first lodging. The first four nights we spent in what is called a 'casa particular', which means private house. Sort of a B and B. Our host was Senor* Guerra (yup, that means war), a very sweet, retired military official. We nicknamed him the 'Colonel'. The Colonel's three-bedroom apartment was not lavish; neither was it worn out. Each bedroom had an attached bathroom. The building faced a very noisy street and the windows had no glass, only wooden slats. Our room was right next to a school. So screaming children woke us up early in the morning. In spite of the noise, we had a great stay with the Colonel because he was such a nice and interesting guy.

The Colonel

The Colonel, retired from 33 years in the navy, was twice married with three sons and one daughter. Two sons live in Miami, one in Chile, and his daughter, a university student, lives with him. His wife travels a great deal while he runs the family business. He loved to talk about politics. He said he did not understand Bush (join the club) and thought him a cowboy. He had a great sense of humor and a smoker's throaty laugh. One night we came home to find his 24-year old daughter sitting in his lap watching TV-- very cute. His daughter Norma is studying literature at the university. She was crazy about dogs, and had a pit terrier puppy named Maximo who happily shredded anything in sight.

The Colonel had been awarded his three-bedroom apartment in a good neighborhood, for services rendered for the Revolution. His children were allowed to emigrate, which is unusual. He was even granted an exit visa to visit Miami. Obviously, the Colonel was privileged. Yet because his wife was traveling for the next eight months, and he couldn't cook, he wasn't eating well. He lived on cigarettes, coffee, white bread, and an occasional meal cooked by his daughter. One day during our stay, the government inspectors came…one of the Colonel's neighbors called to say they were in the building. We were asked to hide our bags and stay in our room. Officially he rented one room but was actually renting out three bedrooms.

Senor Lucindo was Senor Guerra's friend. Lucindo had also been in the military, had been married three times and had done military service in Angola and Guinea-Bissau, where he contracted malaria five times. Lucindo also could not have been more charming. Part of the tour company, Lucindo was responsible for getting us to and from our rent-a-car company, Transtur, without hassles.

Hot Nights in Habana

Habana, situated in Eastern Cuba on the North coast, is the largest city in the Caribbean with a population of two to three million. Founded in 1519, it's one of the oldest cities in the Americas and one of the most important historical and cultural centers as well. Habana Vieja is an intact baroque town filled with castles, palaces, churches, convents and old apartment buildings only 90 miles from Florida -- imagine that! When this revolutionary period ends, Cuba will compete with Florida as a tourist destination. In fact, it has the potential to wipe Florida off the tourism map. Hmm, maybe that's why Floridians support the US Embargo…

After four days of touring around Habana (highlights were the Cuban art museum, the Museum of the Revolution, the Malecon, the Old City, the castles and spending a day with Chris, a fellow Berekelyite who was also in Cuba for the holidays. It was nice hanging out with Chris because he could speak Spanish), we were ready for the next leg of our journey -- outside of Habana.

Lucindo was 3 hours late picking us up to take us to to the Transtur rental office. It turned out that his car had broken down. He ended up picking us up in the car rental itself. Our car was a brand new Peugeot 5-speed hatchback. The car was hard to get, said Lucindo, because of all the Miami Cubans who were in town (Dec. 23rd had seen 27 flights from Miami to Habana in one day). We decided not to remind him that we had insisted on an automatic transmission…

Driving Around (in Circles)

Santa not so Clara

Fiesta

Flat Chance

Navidad Blues

We were happy to learn the Xmas day was not an official holiday. [Official holidays in any country are a pain in the neck for tourists.] Since we had gotten a flat tire the night before, we needed to get it repaired. At first we tried a service station. But they said no dice, we needed to go to the rental car company garage -- it wasn't far, just go here and then there and turn left before or after the circle, depending on how you translated the directions. We couldn't find the garage and so we went back to the hotel to call the rental office. The number was busy-busy. The receptionist gave us directions to where she thought the Transtur office was. We went over these directions 5 times, noting that they were in a totally different direction (but oh well, who knew?). With only one U-turn, we made it to the 5 star hotel where there was indeed a car rental office. It was not Transtur, however, it was their competitor.

A nice tourist at that hotel overheard our plight and offered to take us to the middle of Santa Clara, where he knew there was a Transtur office. We gratefully followed him back into the easy-to-get lost city and he led us straight to a Transtur official dressed in blue. The official, after hearing about our llanta desinflado, said in curt English that we were obligated to go to the company GARAGE. This was an office, and therefore they could not help us. He gave directions, which we insisted he write down. We went over the directions 3 times, and wrote down all the landmarks he mentioned. After only one U-turn, we found the garage. It turned out to be exactly where the first guy said it was, had we only made him clarify in the first place!

To the Top

Cuban Cuisine-not

Cuban joke: what are the three greatest problems in Cuba today? Answer: Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Cuba could feed itself easily if wasn't for massive bureaucratic inefficiencies. The quality food that is available goes to the tourists -- that's us.

The central planners of Cuba managed to stifle any creative cuisine by mandating that all of the restaurants in Cuba have the same menu. It's a fact. Call it central planning. The menus were chicken, pork, beef, and fish. Sides of rice and bean combo (called the 'Christians and Moors') and salad. Well, you may say, there are many different ways to cook chicken and meat and fish. Not in Cuba. There was only the 'a-la-lard', and 'a-la-vinegar with lard methods'-- deep-fried, or not so deep-fried. There were usually fresh vegetables: cucumber and tomatoes. Unfortunately, avocado season was over. This was an improvement over the mid 90s, when 'mixed salad' came from a can.

The restaurant of the hotel in Topes de Collantes got our 'worst meal in Cuba' award. W ordered grilled fish, and got a breaded, deep fried piece of fish, with a side of under cooked, cold and greasy French fries, sprinkled with cider vinegar. He sent the fish back. The waitress apologized and eventually brought another piece of fish (actually, come to think of it, it could have been the same piece of fish), which had no skin and which was completely saturated in vinegar. We consoled ourselves that night by eating our California cookies and by skipping breakfast the next morning.

Pigs (not the Bay of…)

There's one in every household, being fattened especially for New Year's Eve. We got intimately acquainted with a large sow one night in our next destination, the town of Trinidad. We had unwisely given up our pre-arranged reservations at a hotel during Xmas week, as we wanted the cultural experience of staying in one of Trinidad's warm and friendly casa particulars. There are only 2 small hotels in Trinidad anyway, yet scores of legal casas with 1-3 rooms each -- all in all, approximately 200 rooms for the 600 tourists who descended on Trinidad that week. Thus, we found ourselves competing with other homeless tourist couples, and going to every door with a blue triangle on it (the mark of a legal casa) knocking. But everywhere we were told, " sorry, we are lleno."

At one of the nicer houses, we were invited in to rest while the host made calls to the 60 casas that they had on their list. Alas, would you believe? There were no rooms available anywhere -- they'd never seen anything like it. Our hospitable would-be host was forced to give up. So after reluctantly leaving that house, we went back to a house where we had been made an offer of an 'illegal' casa. It's not that we cared one way or the other; it's just that the room had been a little scary looking. To make this long story shorter…we ended up in a nice family's house, in a very poor room, which was next to an oinker! The hostess said that the oinking would stop as soon as the sow was fed. Two mornings later, we heard another pig screeching as it was being hauled off to you-know-where. The traditional New Year's Day meal was, you guessed it, roast pig.

Touristy Trinidad

Fidel's Revolucion

The revolution and its aftermath are still part of the national psyche. We didn't see pictures of Fidel everywhere, the way you had pics of Hussein all over Iraq. But there were pictures of Che Gueverra, who fought with Fidel, and was who was shot in 1967 in Bolivia in front of approving CIA agents. There were lots of postcards, calendars and murals of Che. He was evidently a very hunky dude, perfect martyr material, since he hadn't been permitted to age like Fidel. Cubans rarely mention Fidel by name. They either call him 'El Jefe' (the chief), or more commonly do a downward stroke from their chin with their hand, indicating a beard. [Beards may have been vogue in the 50s and 60s but certainly weren't now.] Many Cubans believe Fidel has held power for so long through his mastery of the occult. He certainly is a survivor -- he has survived numerous assassination attempts during his 40 years in power. On one hand, we read that people didn't like to think of life without Fidel. On the other, people were waiting for his death for change. He may still be above resentment, but the ruling class, who has all the power and money, is hated. [As for work: "We pretend to work and the government pretends to pay us." We just had to put that in. It's from Chris Hunt's book, Waiting for Fidel]

The US embargo is still blamed for Cuba's ills. An Economist article, which we read on the way back, made us question the meaning of the word 'US Embargo.' In fact, US businesses are conducting trade with Cuba as we speak, at least, in the food sector. As evidence, we saw some American breakfast cereals on the shelf of the 'dollar stores'. It was nice to eat Cheerios for breakfast while we were staying with the Colonel, who couldn't even boil an egg much less cook for us. [We took him and his daughter out to dinner the last night we were there and gossiped about the nationalities they had as guests.] P.S. We hear that Ashcroft is clamping down on Americans going to Cuba now…

Echoes of the Soviet Past

Dollar Madness

Ever since the demise of communism, and hence their chief patron, the USSR, the Cuban government and the people will do anything for a dollar--anything. In fact, they are competing with each other for dollars. So far, the government is winning. For example, there was a paladar (private restaurant), in the town of Vinales, which was very successful. It had location, palatable food and had been written up in all the right guidebooks, so that even if it didn't have a sign advertising its existence (the government doesn't allow advertisements that would compete with its restaurants), the tourists could find it. When the popularity of the restaurant got to be too much, the state inspectors went in, closed it down, and later reopened it under its own aegis. We ate there -- it wasn't bad.

The Buena Vista Social Club/s

Cool Caves

Culture Crash

The accident happened when H took a hesitant left turn in Cienfuegos where we stayed after Trinidad. It is a city of 200,000 that sits on the large Bahia de Cienfuegos, which opens into the Caribbean Sea. We were looking for the road to the castle across the bay from our hotel. As usual, there were no signs to guide us and our map was not detailed enough. H was almost done with the turn at this three-way intersection when someone behind us screeched and rammed into our left bumper, causing the brand new Peugeot to spin a bit and H's head to whack the window (seat belt was on). The window whack hurt a lot. As all the hitchhikers whom H had been trying to avoid gathered around, H's head started to bleed, the way head cuts like to. So there we were, surrounded by peering people, as well as the driver of the other vehicle, a slick type in sun glasses, who was trying to convey to us that it was our fault, not his. He was driving a Polish Lada and it was more damaged than our car. But since the blood was flowing, we ignored him. W put H in the back seat, a junior officer jumped in to guide us to the hospital, and we fled the scene.

The very nice junior officer made sure, with extensive hand gestures, that we got to the emergency room of the Cienfuegos hospital. H felt very comical being wheeled in by orderlies who whispered "tourista". She was glad that she looked injured -- that way she didn't feel totally stupid, just embarrassed. H ended up getting two stitches (the first in her life actually) at the hospital by a charmingdoctor with a big smile who sported flip-flops and socks. After being stitched up, the police, three of them, showed up and took our statement. H had already practiced the line, "my turn was 98% completed when…" The cops looked a bit skeptical. They wondered why this gringa had been at the wheel when a perfectly good man, W, was available to drive. Another comical part of this adventure was being wheeled to and from the x-ray room by a smoking orderly. Then, she was placed under a 30-year-old x-ray machine, with cracked glass by a salsa-dancing attendant, who would have been drinking if she had been able to afford it.

In the meantime, a nice, sympathetic woman who was the administrativa economica (or some title like that) had joined us. We understood right away that she was the one responsible for getting us to pay. First she helped the cops with the spelling of H's name and address. Then she led H to a usable toilet in another wing of the hospital and spent much time calculating la factura (the bill). Shecouldn't have been nicer, or less understandable. But H's brief encounter with Spanish accounting terms in the mid-'90s helped. In the end, H understood, she gave us a break. Instead of charging us the full $125 or so, we would only have to pay $75, in cash of course. Since we lacked the sufficient funds, she came back with us to our hotel room and collected. By then, we had bonded. H asked her if she was the first foreigner that had entertained them that month. She said that actually, H was the twenty-second. Evidently a lot of foreigners come to the hospital for elective surgery. That would explain the nicer, emptier wing of the hospital, which H had seen.

De Getaway

Feliz Ano Nuevo

Breakfast at Party HQ

Transportation Woes

Serene Soroa

Vivacious Vinales

Homebound

The goal was to arrive at the Transtur office in Habana at 3 p.m., where we had agreed to meet Lucindo, who would ensure that we got our deposit back sin hassles, and then give us a ride back to the Colonel's house. This time, we were ready to miss the correct turn off the highway to get to the right neighborhood of Havana. There was, as usual, no sign, and we kept driving, until we saw brand new and detailed signs, which served as helpful clues. We were never actually lost, and only had to ask three people in order to arrive at the Transtur office at 2:30 p.m. Who needs signs anyway? Not us anymore.

Since the car was damaged and there was the accident to explain, we did not rush to return the car, but instead waited patiently for Lucindo to show up. After 45 minutes, H got pessimistic and decided to call. We had a phone card, and actually knew how to use it (in France, we never did figure out their system), but the payphone nearby did not work. Another payphone worked but Lucindo's phone acted funny. So H called the Colonel and attempted to explain our plight. [They were, after all, buddies.] The Colonel did some investigation and then H called back. She didn't really understand him, other than the part about Lucindo still being at his house. In the meantime, Lucindo had called the Transtur office and asked them to please deal with us and take us home. But the Transtur guy hadn't noticed us so he said that we hadn't arrived yet. After the Colonel called Lucindo to tell him that we WERE there, waiting for him, Lucindo called Transtur back and told them to go looking for us. So while H was at the payphone, trying to understand the Colonel, the Transtur guy went outside, found W and told him that Lucindo wanted to talk to him. Evidently, Lucindo's car was in the shop again and he didn't want to come pick us up. He didn't think that there would be a problemo with our $200 deposit. W calmly said that we needed his help NOW.

So 15 minutes later, smiling and ever charming, Lucindo showed up on a mountain bike. It was impossible to be annoyed with him because he was so disarming and apologetic. We did need him though. The Transtur guy, upon seeing our police report, immediately went into the act of dissecting every word. And Lucindo was obliged to play along by squinting at the words of the report. The two men ignored us, which was fine. The Transtur guy tossed back H's hospital bill, which we let slide. They examined the damage (and fortunately did not test the rear door on the driver's side -- it wouldn't have opened). Evidently, they had just wanted to make sure of the name of the other driver. We got our $200 back. Lucindo hailed a cab for us and we were free to go.

We were a little worried that Lucindo would miss our very early in the morning pick up to the airport (4:15 a.m.) but he was actually early and had called ahead to the airlines. There was an overbooking situation, and we needed to be first in line. We were back in Berkeley, without incident, 18 hours later.

And in Conclusion

"Country or Death."

"Cuba Yes! Imperialists No!"

"History will absolve me." (Fidel Castro)

"To Die for the Revolution Is To Live."

ART of Survival (post script)

Most of Fernando's paintings change hands at between US$5 and $30. Fernando sells between ten and fifteen paintings a month. Competition is stiff and it's a buyer's market. A foreigner who wishes to take a larger work with him must pay an additional $5 to a government agent who sits nearby. The canvas or paper is rolled up and stamped to show that it's cleared for export. Fernando is a graduate of a respected art school. He works in many styles and subjects in order to find sales -- semi-abstract nudes, parrots, naive motifs, portraits of the national hero Che Guevara, and caricatures of '50s American autos. Framing is nonexistent. To most of our eyes Fernando's work might appear garish, amateur, andrepetitious. Smiling constantly, he admits that in spite of his credentials and hard work he has not yet mastered his form. "While waiting for my ship I keep busy," he says, giving me a wink. He's holding a pantless, grinning, two-year-old named Cristobal.

One of the main problems is market-induced price control. There's little of what one would call the incentive for excellence. Idealistic commitment and the concept of serving the state don't seem to be enough. The result is that individualism on the Malecon is rare. But Cubans are a spirited people, and in spite of interminable floral speechmaking the independent "art spirit" has not quite been knocked out of them.