November 2015- Havana, CUBA
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Hot destination: CUBA. travelling opens doors to new worlds. $1000CAN=$722CUC. We took a cab from Varadero with another couple for $100 CUC. Our driver took us to a casa that was full. We tried many others along the street that were also full, but then we met Dario who had the perfect suite. We paid $35CUC per night for a beautiful room; high ceilings, a shared balconey, clean white sheets and AC! A lovely host, running this place all by himself. He calls down to the street to the restaurant in the evening and says "Dos personnes?" Si, a momento...Si! We had a great meal of lamb and lobster...mohito's and tacos...Oh and we found a mercado after much confusion and angst. It's as if we have fallen into another world here...It's beautiful and tragic in the same breath. Havana club for $5CUC, $66 CUC for two meals, 4 mohitos and appetizers.
Day 2 Havana: breakfast with cafe, fried egg, buns with cheese, lots of beautiful fruit and fresh pineapple juice. We begin our walking tour of Old Havana...Wilfred Lam: Cuban artist, animalistic, plant matter, distorted anthropological images, primeval, ritual, religion symbols and magic, tribal, mystic, voodoo surrealism! Picasso. Uniform colours, faces, horns, leaves, plant abstraction, the colours come to life, faces in the trees and eyes and hands, half moons and colours so vivid, blending into one another...Simplistic hands and feet touching blood, rich blues and all greens hint of fuchsia and red, free and transformative La Jungla. Andre Breton, Matisse.
We walk. Among the plazas and the vendors and the guys selling tours and bici-taxis. We stop at EL DANDY, a bar y galeria. We drink Cristal ceurvesa and Bucanero fuerte and eat quesadilla picode gallo and avacado. $8CUC for 4 beers and $6CUC...making plans and reservations is tricky. We plan to be in Havana til Sunday and travel to Vinales in the north-east. We "converse" with Dario, the son of the Cubans who own the casa. He is very patient with us and tells us how long to travel so and so...We are clueless but happily listen to any advice anyway. I am slowly learning Spanish words. I feel like a child and yet there is not as much fear as there was when I was in Baja. There is some more understanding.
The heat is constant. Sometimes there's a place you go, in the shade that gives some relief but mostly it envelopes you at all times. Email here is "Hey!" called to someone from the street. It's vibrant and moving. People gesticulate and tell you exactly what they are thinking. The men make me crazy, looking always, and then they come to your man and say, "That book is fake..." I was disgruntled. The machoism everywhere. I see it. The end of day 2. Is cuban pizza any good? I say no, it can't be that good can it. We go to Saborear- a fancy restaurant with a lot of tourists. Maybe we pay too much, No lo say. A man goes by and blows kisses at me. A man goes by with a colostomy bag and asks for money. Havana is strange_ The heat makes clothes go missing.
Day 3 - We have a new mission: bus tickets to Vinales and Trinidad. We take a taxi to Vizzul, the bus depot. It's a 30min ($10CUC) ride into downtown Havana. What a line! We wait 30 min to get to the woman at the computer and when we reach the front, she says to us: "A momento, por favor, I need a break!" Ha ha, she has a sore bum and goes away. Ha ha! Meanwhile, the german couple standing behind us, the woman blind says "Where did she go?". We say "To take a break, maybe to use the bano...". She says, "Oh no, in Cuba, a momento could be a long time..." hahaha! We wait 15 more minutes and she returns. I forgot my passport for the tickets but she accepts my tourist card, thank you! Two return tickets to Vinales and to Trinidad for $98CUC. Lunch at ARTPUB very good.
Outside a young boy plays with a soccer ball, kicking it into the air and across the street against an old abandoned building. His father sits across the street on the stoop of the casa, playing and watching his son. The boy kicks the ball very high. And then, he kicks it into the balcony of the abandoned casa. Oh no! We feel so bad. He starts to cry, we can't see the boy but we hear him, it's so sad. We felt so bad for the little boy. We call down to him and say, "We buy you a ball manana!"
Later we go to plaza San Francisco to see the art and music, but we are too late. It's finished. We wander to Hotel Florida and have a drink with Hemmingway; the best mojito in all of Havana. Markus and I leave the Floridita bar and take a bicitaxi home to casa, but the driver say $2CUC for the ride and Markus says, "NO.", "$1CUC?", "No, $5CUC...!" Haha, Markus talks him into more $. So funny, we are drunk and having a good laugh.
Day 4. So hungover...Today we have a couple of missions: to exchange more USD and to get the soccer ball for our neighbours boy. It's so easy when we don't know anything, but we see the changing face of Havana today. A little more sad, a little more scary and we feel the poverty and prejudice. We turn a corner and see more of the reality that is Cuba. We go to the bank. Markus is the money handler and I wait and practice my Spanish, off to the side. Markus comes back shaking, sweaty, forgetful of where the streets are. We go back to the casa where we decompress. The exchanging of so much USD is stressful for him. He waits while the teller looks at every bill. $1000 worth of CUC and the supervisor comes over to approve the transaction. The eyes of the "man" upon another. Judgement. The Cubans have no need for USD. We come to understand how the $ would be accepted or not. There was no problem changing it here but there some fear on our part...It's very interesting. Now into San Rapheal for finding the ball...We search into many sport stores to find any kind of ball...Across the Habana Vieja into Centro Havana and everything changed. The hustlers hustle mucho fuerte and they sell sunglasses by people in wheelchairs. There is a great sense of poverty and desperation. I am approached by a woman with a baby who asks me to buy milk for her baby. I turned to stop and talk to her...big mistake. No, I'll give you the money...No, she can't take any money. It's illegal to give money on the street to people...but please Misses, please buy milk for my baby. "No, I can't..". And she follows me so closely that I begin to move into a store where she follows me, very aggressively and then I go out of the store and I'm herded into a group of women who ask me for the milk as well. I'm scared now and look for Markus who comes to me and says "Let's go." I go with him and the ladies finally leave me alone. They were so aggressive and demanding. I was corralled into these women, and the whole time she's carrying that baby was crying. I want to hep but I know that this only make the problem greater. According to Cuban policy, every child is provided for with milk. I couldn't shake this woman from me. She hunted me. She could see my vulnerability and I felt assaulted. It made for a strange outing we could smell the day old fish...Havana was showing another side of its' face.
Dicen que soy un sonador, pero no soy el unico- Translation: "They say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one" - John Lennon. Day 5, our last day in Havana, we leave for Vinales tomorrow morning. The Cuban people are true...The music is very nice here ORO. I buy a cd for $10CUC. I can tell I'm very drunk. Been drinking all day. Just the fort and John Lennon. It is very hot. We sweat the moment we go outside. Mojito's all day long...it's the rum that fuels us. The music takes over. My writing is primitive and I feel drunk. The sax is low and sexy. The red wine is rich and the voices are fresh...The ladies are keen and fresh. Their sound is real and we sit so close, nothing else is around. The sound is beautiful, mucho bonito. The sounds of the night take over, the children scream in a happy way but these women sound so beautiful...There is a time in the night when I reach the red light.
