Horse carts on the Highway

Wednesday, January 29

Leaving Havana this morning we see a man plowing his field (well, probably the government's field, but...) with oxen...and it's in the middle of a highway cloverleaf.  There are sheep grazing in another cloverleaf.  And horse carts on the highway.  This is out the front window of the bus:

And yet they all manage to get along.  No road kill.

"What ever happened to Alexi - you know, the driver who got a horseshoe stuck in his tire?" our A & K guide asks Hector.  After the oxen and the sheep, we know it could happen to us.

At the rest stop on the way to Pinar del Rio there is a Viva La Revoulcion rally.  Yesterday was Jose Martí's birthday, Cuba's first national hero.  He would be 161 - if he hadn't died young.  Makes me feel better about my upcoming birthday.

There is not much to buy at the gift shop - lots of flags and Che Guevara t-shirts, not many snacks.  Two cans of Pringles - I buy them both to share on the bus.  I'm sure they think I'm a philistine - no Che  t-shirt.  I think I'm just happy to live where I do.

The rally is strident, harsh.  Reminds me of the pissed-off delivery of the North Korean news anchors.  If communism developed a sense of humor, maybe they'd have more takers...or maybe not.  It helps to be an island; the borders are not easy to cross.

And that's something we notice is missing - all that water and no boats.  Except for one shiny white one this morning, moving slowly along the waterfront.  Border patrol.  The waterfront is eerily quiet.

When we were in Cayo Santa Maria our guide asked a local "Hey, don't you have a Boston Whaler?" and he answered "I did.  I loaned it to my nephew.  It's in Miami now.  "  Happens a lot.

At the cigar factory in Pinar del Rio, Delin's home town, no photos allowed.  I don't think the way the cigars are made is a secret, maybe the flash is distracting.  

The factory is jammed with American tourists, their buses lined up outside, blocking the small streets.  Can't be making the locals happy.  It's the first time I've been aware of other tour groups, and of the now obvious fact that we're all seeing the same state-sanctioned things.

The mountains look like something out of a Chinese painting, beautiful and surreal.

There is an ox with truncated horns tied in the parking lot.  An old man offers a ride for what ever I want to pay. No extra change for the hat.

Oddly, there are no other takers.  What happened to foreign aid?  Or a sense of adventure?

From Seed To Cigar
In just 15 months.  Benito, the Cuban Marlboro man: 

takes us on a tour of his tobacco drying barn:

Not a place to seek shelter in a hurricane, but the air circulation is great and the tobacco seems happy:

Benito hand rolls a cigar for Wally:

And lights him up - in the tobacco barn.  No OSHA.  Also no Fire Department.  No Problem.

We ask and Hector translates:  "He sells 90% of his crop to the government and 20% on the open market."  Benito smiles.  He probably has a PhD in math.  About half our group doesn't get it.

On the way back to the hotel we are stopped for a convoy of diplomats' cars.  CELAC - a confab of Latin American Heads-of-State has been taking place here.  Plus Ban Ki Moon.  And they are all staying in our hotel.  Might explain why we only got coffee packets in our room the first day - they must have run out.  Late night negotiating sessions, perhaps?

They are not in limos, these heads of state - they are in little Hyundais.  But the traffic police, with wands like Air Traffic Controllers make their point, and we stop.

When they finally let us go, we whack our way along the boulevard, leaving leaves and branches in our wake.  Our A&K guide says buses are the only tree trimming program in Havana. Surprisingly effective.

We have dinner on the waterfront and drive home along the Malecón.   It is crowded with young people - anywhere else you'd be thinking riot, unrest, Tahrir Square.  Not here.  Here things are completely peaceful.  Might have something to do with the Government minders we spotted on nearly every street corner on our Havana city tour - you can recognize them by their government issue pants and pastel dress shirts.  And the shades - they all wear sunglasses.  In every country they wear sunglasses.  I bet they don't take the night off.  And I bet they're still wearing their shades.

Propaganda and Perspectives

Tuesday, January 28th

Our first night in Havana, and thank goodness Mija and Rob were drinking their rum on their balcony next door - we slid the door mostly closed, and with a mind of its own it jumped shut, and snap! it locked us out.  

Mija and Rob called for help for us, apparently we're not the first.  There is a sticker - in Spanish - at belly-button level - in really small print - saying don't shut the door or you'll be locked out.  So if you are a Spanish speaking midget with really good eyesight, you're good.  The rest of us - not so much.  

Our rescuer (who was laughing at us - you Americans aren't so smart after all!) tells us - in Spanish - that we're not the worst.  One Chinese couple spent the night on their balcony (feeding the mosquitos) and were only discovered when their delegation reported them missing the next day. 

We fall into bed - two queen beds pushed together (no king beds in a nine story hotel - go figure) and the beds are so hard any body part in direct contact with the mattress immediately falls asleep.  Plus the box spring is wrapped in naugahyde (bet you wondered what happened to all the world's naugahyde - no worries, it's here) and every time one of us rolls over the beds squeak.  Loudly.  It's like sleeping with the Mouseketeers. 

Bleary-eyed we head downstairs, to a grim windowless room to be lectured by Camillo, a former Cuban diplomat (he's still Cuban, it's the diplomat part that's former) about why they are right and we are wrong. Complete with the dreaded power-point presentation.  It is really too early for this.

He says all Cuba wants is freedom, independence and self-determination.  I'm thinking "yeah, there are a lot of Cubans out there who'd probably like that, but what are the chances?"   

But he's talking about the country; the blockade has really crippled their economy.  And yet there is no mention of those Soviet missiles...or the years of mutual distrust and suspicion...he does say the CIA has tried several hundred times to assassinate Fidel.  I find it hard to believe the CIA is that incompetent, but I'm in the middle of reading Robert Gates' autobiography, so I'm biased.

There are billboards all over calling the American blockade the world's longest running genocide...

Camillo says all the people whose property was confiscated in the revolution (except those who went to America) have been paid back.  (Really, both of them?)

He says "Why can't we have a better relationship with the US?  The US relationship with the Saudis is strategic; they are a monarchy.  Not a democracy.  Maybe if we had oil..."

They're looking for it.  Oil.  In the Gulf of Mexico.  If they find it, that's a whole 'nother Oprah. 

But I'm remembering what Gabriel Fawcett, our fabulous East Berlin tour guide said.  If you kick out all the business owners, all the people who work hard and think for themselves and know how to build something, all the people who know how to manage and grow a business, how to negotiate and improvise, what are you left with?  

They can open up the economy to free enterprise, but after 50 years of state control and no entrepreneurship, there's no experience.  It's gonna take a while.  And as we know from history, desire for self-determination follows fast on the heels of prosperity.  Good luck with that. 

Finally, fresh air and sunshine!  As we drive past the Peugeot dealership, half a dozen young men are pressed against the glass. You can buy a car now, (at least in theory) but with your government salary you cannot even begin to afford one.

Havana harbor used to be one of the most polluted places in the world, and it's smack in the middle of the city.  But they are closing the industries in Havana harbor, and relocating the port west, and making it way bigger.  To Mariél. With huge investment from the Chinese - and maybe the Koreans? I can't read my writing, the roads were so bad and the bus was bouncing.  And in the back of the bus it's worse.  I tried to use the bus bathroom, and it was like trying to pee while riding a mechanical bull.  

Daniel, an Architect involved with the restoration of Havana, gives us a walking tour.  In one area the cobblestones are made of wood - the man who owned the house here had a wife who complained about the noise of the horses and carriages on the cobblestones.  Problem solved.  

It is colorful and not having cars is a definite advantage - contrast this with Paris or Florence:

and in much better shape than the rest of the Cuba we've seen, 

altho there are still some pretty decrepit parts of Havana.  

And apparently they're still pretty mad at the Spanish too, for old cannons that anywhere else would be in museums are used as bollards.

In parts of old Havana mansions have been taken over by squatters, and the restoration can't even get started until they all agree to move and are found new houses.  The only way to evict someone is if the building is in danger of falling down.  Several building look like they are ripe for eviction, yet laundry still flaps from the balconies, and women lean out to catch a cooling breeze.

We visit a Santeria museum - it's a combination of Catholicism and African religion, and it gives me the creeps.  There is a Santeria dancing exhibition that has the hair on my arms standing straight up.  

"It's all about fairy tales" Tim says.  Scary fairies.  

On to Mojito making and Salsa dancing lessons!

Abelardo is rapt:

We are just thirsty.  

Best Welcoming Drink Ever.  His secret? a dash of Angostura bitters. After the third Mojito we were all ready for our dance lesson...

Our teacher would not let you sit down.  And no matter how bad we were (and we were pretty bad) she would not give up.  Then she and her husband began to dance, and my confidence turned to despair.  I'm taking Salsa lessons when I get home.  

Al is so bad, he tries to trade shoes with Paco, the Salsa dancer. Good day.   Tired but happy.  

Dinner was in an old mansion now turned Government Restaurant. It is gorgeous, makes me wish I had seen Havana before the revolution.  Makes me understand what the people who were kicked out lost. And the service is pretty much what you'd expect from a restaurant where no one can ever get fired.  More beans and black, pork and chicken.  We joke that the chicken walked all the way to the restaurant.  

Play Ball!

Monday, January 27th

Baseball!  We played the Remedios team- I can't remember their name, and since they're Cuban, Google isn't much help...and we could have used some help.  With more than the name.  We were awful.  

They have a great stadium, and every Cuban plays baseball. There's a joke that Cuban kids are born with a baseball bat in their hands.

These guys are really good.  But there's not much else to do here...we were lame, but we have the internet and thousands of TV channels and reality TV and Target and Neiman Marcus (you get the idea)...plus, baseball isn't our ticket to a better life.

Wally hit on every at-bat:

and had a pinch runner.  The Cubans wouldn't tag her out, they wanted to watch her run.  When the two youngest pretties ladies were both on base, Craig said "That's a double feature for those guys!"  

Hector never misses.  

His home town team is the Cienfuegos Elephants.  (There was a soviet missile base at Cienfuegos, he admits when asked by a traveler.  No idea what's happening there now.  Maybe that's where they keep those elephants.)

"How did you become a tour guide?" someone asks.  Hector was a college professor in Cienfuegos, teaching English to English teachers.  Remember the Cuban economic crisis brought on by the fall of the USSR?  Well, there was no chalk, no paper (there is still a severe paper shortage), no electricity for most of the day, so Hector left and went into tourism.  (Note: There is still only intermittent water service, so there are water tanks on every roof.  When the water is on, you fill up your tank, and take short showers.  Puts our water troubles in a new light).

A word about English in Cuba - after the revolution it was illegal to speak English, listen to music in English - the language of the enemy, he calls it.  Tough times for Beatles fans; their music was outlawed too. Now English is compulsory in schools, and many of the people we meet speak excellent English.

He also tells us about the government barber shops.  Until a few years ago the government owned and ran the barber shops, so if you were a barber you could only have one shop, you were working for the government, and you'd have a government manager.  One to one.  Now there are co-ops with several barbers and fewer managers.  Another  place where socialism seemed like a good idea at the time...

At a rest stop off the highway a man is getting a haircut.  Craig says "That doesn't look like a haircut - that looks like a sheep shearing!"  

We crack up.  Still, the guy is enjoying it about as much as the sheep does, and he's about as cooperative.  I'm surprised the barber doesn't flip him on his back to finish the job.

And he's giving this haircut right next to the piña colada bar!  Somebody says "Hey, how come there's hair in my piña colada?" and we crack up again. We think this guy lost a bet...

Almost everywhere we go we are met by live music - at the rest stops on the highway, in every restaurant and cultural center...and of course we are also met by the ubiquitous Welcome Drink.  If I never hear that term again it will be too soon.  It's usually something fruity, and given the health warning we all got from our doctors, we're not too sure about drinking it.  Still, they usually pass the rum bottle too.  Mija jokes that the rum should kill any germs.  One memorable lunch our table manages to drink the entire bottle, Mija and Craig doing the yeoman's job.  

Our guide can't believe it, and we get a stern look, which cracks us up even more.  

Craig says "Hey, if you put rum in the coffee it tastes just like Kahlua!"  Tim and Syl take it for a test drive:

Looks like a home run!

This was my favorite lunch, and not just because of the rum.   There was a whole roast pig:

We were really hungry, and it was really good.

There was an adorable puppy,

An adorable young couple whose home and garden (and puppy) this is, a kitchen that would have been at home in the Middle Ages (we were amazed at the fabulous food that came out. Maybe we don't need those 6 burner ranges!) and a big organic garden - finally, vegetables that are safe to eat.  We hope.  Let you know later.

Tomorrow: tobacco! Cuban cigars! and the Cuban Marlboro Man

Bitter Sweet

More Sunday, January 26th

In 1990 Cuba closed about half of their sugar mills, including the one in Caibarien, and turned it into a sugar mill museum.  

As we are walking onto the grounds, Abelardo says "They've removed the gates.  There used to be big iron gates across here.  With armed guards." This was his family's sugar mill, the Reforma Mill, taken away by the revolution.  It's where he grew up, playing in the mill and running thru the fields, riding the steam train.  An idyllic childhood, interrupted.  It is a very emotional return.  52 years ago the revolutionaries took away the mill, and his family's home, threw a few of their belongings in the back of a truck, and said "Get out." He was twelve.

As we walk thru the mill he tells us "These are the cane crushers - these are the cookers.  It was all powered by steam - those are the four boilers. For the first few days the boilers are powered by wood, then when you get enough cane crushed, the left-over fibers are the fuel.  It's self-sustaining, but it takes four days to power up, so you never want to turn it off.  One year we had run out of cane, and my grandfather had to make an emergency run on the steam train fifty miles away to get a load of cane.   He asked me if I wanted to go along, and of course I said yes.  I loved to ride on the steam train.

"The engineer was famous for having one hand on the throttle and the other wrapped around a bottle of rum.  

"It was touch and go whether we would be back in time to keep the mill running.  The engineer  asked my grandfather 'How important is it to get back?' and my grandfather said 'Vital', so the engineer loaded on the power, cranked up the steam, and we went flying thru the Remedios train station at seventy miles an hour, the engineer with one hand on the whistle and the other clutching the rum.  We weren't stopping for anything!  Much to the surprise of the passengers and the livestock at the Remedios train station."

He sees a swinging chair and says "That used to be in my house!"  It is a bittersweet moment.

We are so privileged to share this experience with them - and they are so gracious.  

A long whistle - the steam train is here!  We hop on - Wally and a few hardy souls in the front (where we have been warned it is hot and loud), the rest of us in open air-cars.  

The train belches and jerks, picking up speed.  It's loud, and when the wind isn't blowing, smoky.

We roll past shanties with laundry hanging out and a few chickens scratching around the yard.

I'm guessing this isn't the most desirable real estate.

A cowboy lopes along beside the train:

This could be a hundred years ago.

We pull up to lunch, and hot and sweaty, but grinning ear to ear, they pile out of the engine.

We did lots of other stuff this day - saw a palm climbing demonstration (they feed the palm nuts to the pigs) had lunch in a garden (Beans and Black, Delin calls it - every meal has black beans and rice).   But the bitter sweet sugar mill is etched in my memory.  What an experience, what a day.  

Tomorrow: Baseball! 

Tourists In A Time Warp

Sunday, January 26th
Leaving Cayo Santa Maria across the causeway:

we drive thru flat tobacco and sugar cane fields, a few head of cattle grazing in small fields - Wally points out each cow has its own egret. Impossible to photograph from the bus.  

Cuba is mostly flat - a few mountains in the east (where the revolution started) a few west of Havana.  

The government gives everyone a house, there are no homeless.  It used to be if you lived in your house for twenty years, and you paid ten percent of your salary per year for that house, you would own it.  But you couldn't sell it.  But at least they couldn't kick you out...oh wait, yes they could.  Remember the revolution?  

Things have changed in the last 2 years - you can buy and sell houses now, and private enterprise is being encouraged.  

After 50 years of a planned economy that must be a difficult switch. Remember, after the revolution the government took over ownership of everything, kicked all the rich people out, and spread the wealth to the remaining poor.  And if you weren't poor before the revolution, you were after.  

Hector tells us most tobacco farms are now private, and although foreigners can't own land, they can get a 99 year land lease.  They're hoping that will spur development of resorts and hotels.   But if a company does business with Cuba it can't also do business with the US.  If a ship visits Cuba it can't visit the US for 6 months.  So no cruise ships, and trade is mostly with countries like Venezuela and North Korea who don't have the best relationship with the US to begin with.  And given that choice, guess who most companies choose?

Melía, a Spanish company, had a few rundown hotels in Florida - they walked away from them and built the resort we're staying in - and lots more.  But most Cubans can't afford to stay here (even if they were allowed, a murky subject) and as most don't have cars, or cab fare, getting to work across that 48 k causeway is a problem. We see crowded rusty busses - not as crowded as India but still...bearing phalanxes of workers.

We see a kid on a bicycle hitching a ride on the bumper of a bus. 

A motorcycle cop passes going the other way, looks in his mirror, and makes a fast u-turn - the kid and bicycle disappear down a narrow street before the cop gets near.

There are buildings in the city with bushes growing out of them.

There are tiny houses with small truck gardens.  If you grow vegetables you can now sell them privately and we see a few roadside stands.  They grow fruits and vegetables for the resorts too - Cuba has a food crisis.  Your government ration are enough for about 15 days, then you're on your own.  When the Soviet economy collapsed and subsidies were cut, instead of an Arab Spring style revolution, it was "If we starve, we'll all starve together."   

Bright colors amidst the crumbling, some restoration.  And the interiors are just as bright:

One rainy night we see into homes with the doors open for cooling, and so many are painted this bright green.  I don't think it's going to catch on in my neighborhood.

Friday, January 24th

Two Cubas

Ralphie (I’d shoot my parents if they gave me that name) is part of the one million Miami Cubans.  He talks about growing up in a Cuba frozen in time - the food, the language are all from the 50’s.  And there is great nostalgia for that life,  just ninety miles (and fifty years) away.

At dinner with out fellow travelers, we talk about the two Cubas, the remembered one of his parents, the one they always hoped to go back and reclaim, and the one that is just to the south.  I would add there is a third Cuba - the ideal socialist state, the one that hasn’t quite happened yet.  The one they're still trying for on the island.  The one with old American cars and crumbling buildings and CDR offices in every neighborhood - that stands for the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution.  Not a happy place. That's the Cuba we are going to tomorrow.

Ralphie walks us thru the Department of Treasury paperwork - when was the last time the DOT cared where you went?  and reminds us there are 220 laws - American laws - forbidding interaction with Cuba. Unless you're on a People To People trip - more about that later.

And there is a couple on our trip with their American-born daughter who both left Cuba as children 48 and 52 years ago.  This is their first trip back, and it's very emotional.  We are so privileged to be sharing this experience with them.

Off to bed, we have an early flight, and I swear the airport Hilton has skid marks on the roof from the low-flying planes.  Just as you start to drop off to sleep another plane screams overhead.  I think it must be similar to sleeping in a war zone.  Rough night.

Cuba!  Saturday, January 25th

At the Santa Clara airport we go thru security as we get off the plane.  Instead of plastic bins they have tiny beat-up wicker baskets that snag your scarf and sweater.  And dogs sniffing bags. There are lots of Cubans returning from Miami bringing soccer balls, microwaves, clutching teddy bears and dolls, toting flat screen TVs.  Like being in the Walmart parking lot at Christmas - minus the cars.

And that's one of the first thing you notice - there are almost no cars.  

A few old Yank Tanks, as they call the American cars from the 50’s.  

A few Soviet Ladas.  But the horse-drawn carts and bicycle taxis outnumber the cars.

At the local cultural center we meet the children:

one flirting, one reserved.  One beaming, one guarded.  The faces of Cuba.

They put on a production of Romeo and Juliet performed by four to eleven year olds - with bad lighting and worse acoustics.  And fabulous acting and dancing, and great enthusiasm.  

It’s a modified Cuban version, complete with baseball-capped homies and rifle-toting hombres, and of course a paper maiche pig roast.  The kids are adorable, and after the performance (and the obligatory audience-participation dancing) tell us what they want to be when they grow up.  Actors, singers, one stewardess.  

I say "What do they want to know about us?" and they ask us questions.  A five year old girl says wistfully, "You are from America - it must be very beautiful, and you have everything you need."  It breaks my heart.

Hector, our fantastic Cuban guide,

fills us in on the history and day-to-day reality of life in Cuba.  When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990 the Cuban economy collapsed too.  No more subsidies, no more largest trading partner.   

Remember, after the Triumph Of The Revolution everything was nationalized -  houses, factories, schools, utilities -and the government 'gave' you a house (a house that they still owned) and food (heavily subsidized, bought at a deep discount with ration cards and long lines).  In exchange the government did everything for the people - free education, free health care, those food subsidies, even guaranteed jobs.  But when the USSR went away the Government couldn't afford all the things it had been doing - turns out the successful socialist state was heavily dependent on Russian subsidies.  Oops. 

If you don't own your house, and the government could take it at anytime, why would you maintain it?  So nothing has been maintained:

since the Triumph Of The Revolution.  Not just the revolution, every time a Cuban mentions it, it's TTOTR.  

This building in Caibarien is fenced off because it's about to fall down.  So is the church.  

This was Abelardo's home town, his old school is just behind the church, though both were closed after the revolution, and both are crumbling too.  Happy to see Caibarien again, sad at the state of affairs.  He and his family walk into his old school, surprised that the American Theatre across the street hasn't had a name change. But the church is closed, it's in danger of collapsing any minute.  

Cuba is trying to find a system of socialism that works, a hybrid with some free enterprise so the half a million people who've lost their government jobs can start businesses and make a living, so that the government can continue to subsidize food and education and health care - and probably a thousand other things we don't know about yet.  And it's confusing, for until the last few years private enterprise was illegal, private ownership was unheard of. It's hard to make that big a u-turn quickly.

But they're still working on it, and they’re still committed to it.  If you're not committed to it you're either in Miami or in jail.

We cross a 48 kilometer causeway (heavily guarded) to Cayo Santa Maria (Saint Mary Key) and the hotel Melia Buena Vista. Warm breezes, a flamenco show by the pool, mojitos...we drift off to sleep.