Cuba A – Havan A Good Time

Hello everyone.

The usual caveat prevails, if you don’t want these notes please let me know and I’ll happily take you off the distribution list.  I imagine these are going to be fairly sporadic because of comms. difficulties and you may get two at once because internet access may be more difficult the further we get from Havana.  We have no mobile phone connection either.

I guess some of you will be surprised to get this at all, not realising that we’re off again.  This time we’re in Cuba for five weeks doing our independent traveller stuff as best we can.  We arrived with a return air ticket, the first three nights accommodation booked, poor Spanish and no plan.  As I always say at some time in these notes, what could possibly go wrong.

Best Wishes

Les

Cuba A – Havan A Good Time

OK so it isn’t exactly Shakespeare but from where I’m sitting it is an irresistible sequence of letters.   I haven’t a clue when you’ll see this (started being written on 25 Feb) because the internet is very difficult to access.  Wi-fi appears to be virtually non-existent and access is through the infrequent internet cafés using their machines, so getting any sizable amount of text across is difficult.  At least that’s our view after one whole day in Havana.  Lots of people are using pay phones on the street because the mobile/cell phone is not as ubiquitous as we’re used to. 

We’ve started by staying in a Casa Particular which is a sort of bed and breakfast arrangement with hundreds set up everywhere in Cuba.  Our first had three rooms with us, Brazilians, Swedes, a Jamaican and some eastern Europeans passing through in the four days we were there.  Breakfast is at one big table so we can swap stories and handy hints and of course chat to other nationalities.  These Casas have begun now that the relaxing of rules against private enterprise have been relaxed.  They are all inspected to a standard, have to have the proper sign outside and there are apparently severe penalties to running one unlicensed.  They have what is called a tax on them but it has to be paid whether the room is occupied or not, so it is more like a licence.   Of course this is much less bureaucratic than a tax and it makes no more for the owner if they ‘forget’ to fill in all the forms.  Vicente, our host makes a point of explaining various scams which we might come across in Cuba with the only new one on us being the ‘two menus’.  Unsurprisingly this consists of two menus in the same restaurant with different prices on them and you have to make sure you get the right one ! (How ?)

This country is noted for having a large number of old American cars still kept on the road because of the impossibility of importing newer cars for many years so of course ingenuity must be the name of the game.  Smaller engines from newer cars are fitted and some cars are lovingly cared for and very colourful.  However, a large number have the sort of paint job only normally seen on an ill-maintained shed and they look about as roadworthy.  They crab past us billowing smoke, tappets clattering away like demented castanets and holes where holes ain’t spposed to be.  I have to say I thought there would be an occasional sighting and that there were probably a hundred of so cruising around but there are far more than I thought.  Although I’ve not undertaken a count (yet) it seems to be about 20% old American cars in Havana.  Many are just names I know or have seen on TV although for some of you this would be like reliving your childhood.   A few names I noticed : Mercury, Plymouth, Oldsmobile, Buick, Pontiac, Chevrolet (the sort of Chevy that I imagine was driven to the levee), even a De Soto and one of what has been voted before now as the ugliest car ever produced.  Yes Havana has a Ford Edsel driving around, the car that I believe almost bankrupted Ford.

Havana really is a vibrant city with an engaging personality, live music is played everywhere, even at lunchtime in restaurants.  There isn’t much litter and it doesn’t have the common aroma of many cities in hot climates, drains, although I note that an old dustbin smells the same wherever it is.  Much of the old city is in a terrible state with buildings crumbling everywhere and they say that if you see a building with scaffolding on it, cross the road just in case.   However, this is a communist country and although I don’t claim to be anywhere near an expert, probably the closest the world has seen to one.  I don’t consider the USSR bloc, China or North Korea to be communist, they are or were just military dictatorships.  So here where there aren’t shareholders to please, the old town is slowly being properly restored.  Central hotels are owned by a group which uses the profits to restore the buildings and neighbourhoods as living areas, with schools, medical facilities and the like so that it isn’t just like a museum.  The more tourists who visit the old restored city, the more money is raised to restore further. They are doing a fantastic job but my goodness they have some work ahead of them.  I’m skipping the inability of the population to leave the country and problems of shortages etc.  After all this isn’t a political treatise.

Havana inside the old town is very run down in many places and outside that it is all run down, streets are potholed, street lighting sporadic and liable to go off as you walk along but still it feels very safe to walk in.  The main road along the sea, The Malecon which anywhere else would be lined with smart houses, restaurants and shops is equally run down with one or two restaurants along miles of prime location.   Touting for business is regular but not incessant, “Taxi, taxi”, “hello my friend”, “I have good restaurant” and so on but a friendly no thanks is usually enough with the usual reponse often “OK, perhaps tomorrow”. 

The skin colour of the population is basically a variety of coffee colours as you would expect and probably blacker than we’ve noticed elsewhere outside Africa.   A bit of English is spoken by some of the locals, even some bicycle rickshaw drivers, so the language has been awkward but not impossible. 

This is a also a country with a dual currency system, the Peso for locals and the Convertible Peso (CUC) for visitors.  1 CUC is equal to 25 Pesos but things are so cheap in CUCs you have to wonder what the local economy costs for the same items.  It is the only place I’ve been that has a three unit note, the 3CUC and the 1 CUC comes as coin or note.  By the way, we haven’t heard of anyone being palmed off with Pesos instead of CUCs. (source Virgin aircrew).  Here are a few examples of costs and bear in mind that 1CUC is equal to 1US$ (about 65p).  Our first three nights of Bed and Breakfast plus dinner for one night cost us CUC94 (for the arithmetically challenged of you that’s about £64).  A beer or a cocktail or coffee cost CUC2.  A main course meal, say a pile of grilled shrimps, rice and salad is about CUC7, while a whole evening meal for two including beers has been about CUC17.  This is a relief for us not just in terms of the economy of it but that after four days we have yet to find anyone accepting credit cards and that’s in the capital.  There are some ATMs but we‘re relying on the cash we brought with us.  That’s Sterling rather than the usual US$ because the $ has a 10% loading on exchange.  I guess the two countries have had an argument at some time.

Whichever style a restaurant is described as, the menus are fairly standard and after a whole week we‘ve yet to see any potatoes on a menu.  Spuds are replaced by rice, banana chips and some other root vegetable which we haven’t yet translated.  Some menu translations are as usual amusing to us but we couldn’t make any sense of “Sigh of the Poet” on one fish menu.

We’ve moved onto Cienfuegos on the south coast, where in the afternoon you can have a couple of coffees and an ice-cream followed by a couple of cocktails and get through nearly £5.

After a week here, our target aspiration is to go a whole day without hearing Guantanamera.