Our Cuban Experience

WARNING - EXCESSIVELY LONG POST Cuba – Country of Contrasts I’m sitting in the airport at Havana – on our way to Mexico City after our four nights in Cuba. I’m going to try and describe our impressions of Havana and surrounds. But first I think I could just say that at this stage Cuba for us will be the jewel in the crown of this trip. While it may not be everyone’s idea of a perfect holiday destination – definitely not for resort lovers – we’ve found it to be a fascinating place – with so much history, beautiful architecture and warm friendly people who love music and dance. I’m just going to list some of the impressions and facts that we discovered while here – I’ll try to retain some semblance of order but it may get a bit muddled as things occur to me. This will be a fairly generalized account as I’ve promised to tell quite a number of people about our Cuban experience and I’m going to make this one account serve you all! Before leaving Australia we had obtained our Tourist Visa Cards from the Cuban Embassy in Australia, which cost $88 each plus $30 courier fees and needed our passports sent, passport photos and an application form completed. These are loose visas slipped inside your passport which avoids the need to have your passport stamped. Apparently several countries may refuse you entry at a later date if you have a Cuban stamp in your passport. Anyway somewhere on our earlier travels I managed to lose my tourist visa. I thought this was going to be a major drama but in fact it wasn’t. On arrival at Cancun airport, prior to checking in for our flight to Cancun, I went to the Air Mexicana desk, who are agents for Cuba in providing the tourist card. I showed my passport and handed over 170 pesos (about $22 AUS) and was given the tourist card. So that was a big relief but makes me think it would be easier and cheaper to do it that way from the start. The currency situation is a bit different in Cuba and takes time to get your head around. First of all they don’t accept US dollars or US based credit cards (eg American Express). They will happily accept Visa or Mastercard but charge over 11% on each transaction. We had been advised – and found it true – that the best thing to do is take your money in Euros and have it changed as you need it. It’s a bit of a juggle trying to work out how much to take and then how much to change as this currency isn’t accepted anywhere else so you can change back at the airport but must have your receipts from when you bought it. Then there are two levels of Cuban currency – the Cuban peso used by Cubans which tourists can’t use and the CUC which is the Cuban Convertible peso – this is the one used by all tourists. But if for some reason you end up with a Cuban peso and try to use it in a purchase it won’t be accepted. Not that this is likely to happen – although sometimes a wily Cuban (usually very poor) will try to sell you some in return for CUCs – fine if you want just a souvenir but no good to spend. First impressions of Cuba – on arrival at the immigration check it’s quite intimidating – very serious faces on the staff – abruptly told only one into the booth at a time then when you’ve been okayed they press a buzzer and you walk through this narrow door at the end of the booth into the arrival area where you are immediately x-rayed. Then you use the toilets which have no driers or paper to dry your hands unless you tip the attendant to get some toilet paper for this! When driving from the airport into Havana you think first of all that there are lots of slums. But when you look more closely you see that that people are clean and so are the streets. It’s actually neglect you see – there has been no money for a long time to provide for the maintenance and upkeep of buildings. Then you discover that the people of Cuba are well educated – education is compulsory and free for everyone. Some interesting facts – 400 million women in the world are illiterate but none of them are Cuban. Adult literacy rate is 96.7% which is higher than either the UK or the US. They are renowned for their medical welfare which is free – they have the highest rate of doctors per capita in the world. Life expectancy is 75 years – and the infant mortality rate is the same as New Zealand. The country itself is the same size as North Island, New Zealand with a population of 10 million, 2 million in Havana. There are a total of 289 beaches in Cuba. The countryside is lush and green. The fresh fruit we had each day at breakfast was always really sweet and juicy – mangoes, pineapples, guava, figs, oranges, grapefruit, melon – honeydew and water. Because of the years of austerity and the embargo on any trade with the US, transportation is a real issue. They have had to make cars last well beyond their expected lifetime – so you see lots of 1950 (or maybe even earlier) cars around – Studebakers, Chev Impalas, Cadillacs, and most of them are literally held together with string! It’s commonplace to see cars broken down at the side of the road. And of course there are no spare parts available so they just improvise. Horse and carts or buggies are also common as are motor bikes with side cars. Buses are always absolutely packed and they even have these articulated buses pulled by a truck which carry around 300 passengers – most of them standing jampacked in the aisles. These buses are called camels because they are on two different levels with a hollow in the middle to enable people to get on and off. We stayed at the Hotel Nacional which is classified as a national monument in Havana. It was like a majestic grand old lady – with lots of dark wood, chandeliers, grandfather clocks and a courtyard bar area – very similar to Raffles in Singapore. The rooms are far from luxurious but nonetheless stately. The service is sort of quaint and old worldly. The staff are very polite and formally dressed a la 1940s (white shirts and bow ties or tuxes) but remain quite distant. There is a relaxed attitude to service in that they don’t fall over themselves to help and serve (whereas in Cancun and the US they would be falling over themselves to help and be chatty with it). So we kind of felt especially at the Hotel Nacional, as though we were stepping back in time. However tipping is now the norm here – usually around 10 per cent. Now with regard to the Hotel Nacional – it’s a magnificent building sitting up on the hill overlooking the Malecon and the Gulf of Mexico so has great views. The hotel has a number of bars and restaurants some of them open 24 hours. But the surrounding streets aren’t that attractive. A taxi to Old Havana costs anywhere between 5 to 10 pesos depending on whether you catch it from the front of the hotel or walk 100metres onto the main street so it’s quite easy to get around. Old Havana is beautiful with wonderful old buildings, fantastic examples of architecture, flea markets, secondhand book markets. Lots of little restaurants and bars most of them with live music. What is sad is that so many of the young women have taken up the ‘oldest profession in the world’. We saw them often in the hotel in the company of travelling business men . However at least they seem to get treated to dinner and drinks. We met a young Irish guy and went out in Old Havana with him one night. He was telling us that the night before he had gone out on the town on his own and been pestered constantly by both the ‘ladies’ and their pimps. He really enjoyed his night with us as no-one approached him – guess it looked like he was out with his Mum and Dad! We took two tours while we were there – both through Cubatur (although I think Havanatur are probably just as good). First up we did a city tour which lasted about four and a half hours. In our time we’ve done quite a number of city tours as we always think it’s a good way to get a feel for a city. This was probably one of the best we’ve ever been on. There were about a dozen of us on a minibus with a multilingual tour guide whose manner was so relaxed – none of this following the guide waving a brochure in the air. We had frequent photo stops then when we got to Old Havana we had a relaxed walking tour through the area with stops for coffee, purchase of cigars or rum if you wanted, a mojito at Hotel Ambos Mundo (where Hemmingway lived in Room 511 for a considerable time), visit to a pharmacy which was about 100 years old and about half an hour wandering through a flea market before returning to our hotel. Think we paid about $19 US each for this. Well worth it. That night we went back into Old Havana with a young Irishman we had met on the tour and enjoyed a few mojitos at El Floridita then wandered around the area and found a little restaurant to have something to eat and finally ended up at a little bar drinking more mojitos and meeting some Cuban locals – delightful warm friendly people. We got a cab home – that was an interesting experience – it was one of the cheaper ones – a very old Lada with no airconditioning but when the windows were open the fumes nearly choked us. But still we got home in one piece and enjoyed the experience. The following day we went on the Hemmingway Tour. I hadn’t known that Ernest Hemmingway (author of For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Call to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea,– Nobel and Pullitzer prize winner) had very strong connections with Cuba. For about 20 years he lived most of the time in Cuba and was a real character but also a patron and benefactor to the Cuban people. He live initially in the Hotel Ambos Mundos in Old Havana and frequented the bars there – El Floridita and La Bodeguita in particular. Later he bought a house on a few acres a bit out of Havana – this property and all it’s contents, he bequeathed to the people of Cuba and it’s now a museum. Anyway without giving you Hemmingway’s complete biography, I’ll just say that it was a very interesting tour and our tour guide was absolutely passionate about Hemmingway and had a wealth of knowledge on the subject. Our other outing was to the Tropicana nightclub. This club has been around since the 1930s and going to the show was like going to a show back then – an absolute extravaganza! The venue is an open air amphitheatre with huge trees overhanging. It’s beautifully lit, with a fabulous main stage as well as a huge waterfall cum stage area. The seating is tiered in tables and you can have a meal there before the show starts at 10pm. We opted for that – had a nice simple meal then watched the show. Only one word can describe it – spectacular!! We’ve been to Le Lido in the Champs Elysee in Paris, and also some of the big shows on the Gold Coast and this show outclassed any of them. A couple of other interesting facts we picked up : • President Kennedy was the president who created the US embargo on Cuba. Just prior to implementing this embargo he imported a large number of his favourite Cuban cigars. • 34 Cuban musical acts were nominated for the Latin Grammys in 2002/2003 but the US granted no visas for any of them to attend. • The US Government spend $26M annually to beam radio and TV anti Cuban government propaganda into Cuban homes. Sometimes the radio messages get through but TV never makes it past the Cuban jamming technology. I stress that what I’ve written here is only our view of Cuba – I’m sure there are many other aspects that we aren’t aware of. But we found it a lovely country to visit which has a rich vibrant history and warm interesting people. The complex question of the situation between US and Cuba is one which we’ve discussed several times. It appears to us that while Cuba has it’s problems it also has many, many successes and it doesn’t seem to us that US has the right to come in and initiate a wholesale takeover. For us now it will be so interesting to see what the future brings for Cuba.