First Impressions

Arriving at Jose Marti Havana airport I was struck by how long it took to get past immigration. It wasn’t because of the volume of people or because Cuban officials are slow in letting foreigners enter the country. In contrast to what you might think, it is the returning Nationals that cause the delay. Likewise once we had hunted down our luggage we were herded through customs quickly, whilst returning Cubans join a lengthy and slow-moving queue. It seemed to me as though Airport officials are more suspicious of Cubans returning to the country than they are of foreigners entering the country. This was the beginning of my Cuban education.

Dad and I had decided to take a trip over Christmas and we settled on a country we were both intrigued by. Known for Fidel Castro, the Revolution, Rum and Cigars, Cuba was our destination for 2 and a half weeks. With very different ideas of how to travel but the same desire to see as much of Cuba as possible, we made an agreement. Dad was responsible for organising the first two weeks of the holiday and the last 4 days were down to me.

On our arrival we took a white knuckle ride of a taxi journey to our first hotel – The Parque Central. We spent two luxurious, air-conditioned nights in this hotel located in Old Havana. Sipping mojtos, eating tapas and having our breakfast omelettes cooked for us, it was easy to forget where we were. However, walk out into the street and Havana hits you. Old men try and sell you the National paper, or just try for a peso, noisy old cars from the fifties are driven or pushed past you, and once impressive buildings surround you. The import of cars to Cuba from the US finished after the revolution in 1960 and so the streets are packed with huge, colourful Chevrolets, Dodges and Fords from 50’s America, together with robust Soviet cars like Ladas. It’s like stepping back in automotive history.

One of the many old cars

The buildings in Old Havana are also antiques of history, relics that have not been touched for over 50 years. Dating from the 18 and 19 hundreds and with architectural influences from all over the world. Old Havana is the definition of faded Grandeur. Mansions remain standing, just, with crumbling facades, missing doors and windows, and brickwork lying in heaps in the rooms and corridors visible from the street. It is testament to how well the buildings were built that following numerous hurricanes and neglect they remain standing today. In fact the whole city was well planned with the climate in mind. Pavements are covered by colonnades, so that you can walk the entire length of the street shaded from the hot sun. Also telephone and electricity lines run underground, so that they are not disturbed by winds and hurricanes.

architecture

On our first day in Havana we met up with our tour group and guide and investigated the production of 2 quintessentially Cuban products; cigars and rum. The cigar factory was absolutely fascinating and everything you might expect. When the tobacco leaves arrive from various plantations they are sorted into blends in one room. The air in this room is thick with tobacco and a couple of minutes in this room can leave you light-headed and feeling like a 40-a-day smoker! In the next room, men and women sit with the tobacco leaves on their legs whilst they smooth them, remove the veins and sort them into colours. It was in this room that I first heard the tanoy system with a woman’s voice talking to all the workers. Our guide explained that to keep the workers minds busy during the monotonous work, all cigar factories employ someone to read newspapers, stories and poetry over loud speaker. This system has been running since the 1860s. It means that cigar workers, although very basic manual workers in what they do, have night cultural, social and political awareness. In fact when Fidel Castro first took power and got rid of all the rich landowners, it was the cigar workers he turned to fund his new government. With their high social and economic conscience, they readily worked extra hours to contribute funds to Fidel’s government. Perhaps he got the idea from Jose Marti, another revolutionary figure who tried to overthrow the Spanish from Cuba in 1893. Following rousing speeches that were published in newspapers and journals, it was the cigar workers who pledged one days pay a week to the revolutionary fund. Amazing to think what can be achieved by keeping the minds of manual workers busy. ( see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8406641.stm_) In the factory we visited – H Uppmans, everyone was listening to the escapades of Heathcliff and Catherine in Wuthering Heights!

In a large noisy hall, the next part of the cigar making process takes place. Here, men and womens it at school-like desks and roll the cigars. Sorry to break the Cuban stereotype but none of the women roll cigars on their legs, and most certainly none of them looked like virgins! Filling the large leaves with tobacco blends and rolling them looked pretty simple. However, finishing the cigar was a complete art form, involving nimble finger, water and a sharp knife. The rolled cigars are then taken away to be labelled (using flour and water) and boxed according to colour. Smoking cigars is a way of life in Cuba and you see many people sitting on doorsteps with a fat MonteoCristo or Cohiba hanging from their mouths.

Lady and cigar

The rum factory we visited was less interesting since it was mostly automated. I was however a lot more interesting in the finished product and from that day forward I think I drank more rum than water like a true Cuban!

Walking around Havana that afternoon and talking with Cubans a few things became apparent. Firstly, Che Guevarra is never far from you, he looks down on you from street corners, shop windows, T-shirts, buses. In fact every flat surface in Havana makes a prime canvas for pictures of Che, Fidel and messages from the 50-year old revolution. The second thing that begins to dawn on you is how little freedom the Cubans have in their daily lives. The first blatant example of this if the monetary system.

We want to be like Che

The power of the tourist

There are two currencies in Cuba; the Cuban peso and the Cuban Convertible peso (CUC). There is very little private sector in Cuba with about 80% of the workforce employed by the state. Cubans are paid very low wages and are all paid in Cuban pesos. These pesos can then be used to pay the government your electricity, gas and water and a minimum food ration. All Cubans have to visit a basic ration shop called a Bodega where they can collect a months worth of sugar, salt, rice etc. These rations barely last the month, only make up about 30% of calorific intake, and do not include items like soap, fruit and vegetables. These items must be bought in other non-subsidised sh ops which are expensive (US price) or trade in CUCs, making purchase of enough food very difficult for the average Cuban.

The CUC is often referred to as the tourist currency because it is illegal for us to use Cuban pesos. There are about 25 Cuban pesos to the CUC, and on average a Cuban earns the equivalent of 15 CUCs per month. A doctor will earn around the equivalent of 35-40 CUCs per month. A beer in a tourist bar costs about 3 CUCs. As you can see, a CUC is a valuable commodity in Cuba.

Sweet memories

After two days in Havana we hopped on a bus (where we were to spend a great deal of time over the next two weeks) bound for Trinidad. The journey was both fascinating and depressing. Across the harbour from Havana stands a group of modern and tall buildings, the beginning of a tourist complex. Before the Revolution in 1959, US-backed Batista was in power and had connections with the rich and influential in America. Havana was a rich city. Batista allowed the Mafia to holiday in Cuba under certain criteria, one being that they would refrain from violence. The mafia spent many a restful and peaceful vacation in Havana and in return they invested heavily in the area. Casinos, restaurants, bars and cabarets appeared and with the influx of Americans, Havana became richer than Las Vegas. Big plans were made for a tourist complex opposite the harbour and work began. The beginning of the complex, like Old Havana, is a relic of how rich the city once was.

Leaving the city behind and entering the countryside the buildings thin out to the ocassional small holding. You see some fields of sugar cane and the odd farm but the majority of the land is wild with the remnants of sugar cane overgrown with grass. About 30% of the country's land is used for crops. So what happened to Cuba's farmland? Before the revolution of 1959, the agriculture in Cuba was largely oriented towards the US economy. When Fidel took leadership, he took land from the big land owners, including US companies, and gave it to poor peasants or created state farms. The US government responded to the confiscation of US-owned sugar plantations by cutting the quota for Cuban sugar imports into the US. Eventually all Cuban trade with the US was banned.

After the communist government took over, the Soviet Union supported the Cuban economy by paying premium prices for Cuban sugar, and by delivering fertilizers. Sugar was bought by the Soviets at more than five times the market price. Also 95 percent of its citrus crop was exported to the COMECON. On the other hand, the Soviets provided Cuba with 63 percent of its food imports and 90 percent of its petrol.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cuban agricultural sector faced a very difficult period. Cuba could not compete in the world sugar economy and so 71 of the 156 sugar mills were destroyed by the government. The agricultural production fell by 54% between 1989 and 1994. Due to trade embargoes with the US, machinery, seeds, and equipment are scarce and for this reason agriculture has become largely organic and subsistence. In fact, Cuba now imports about 80% of it's food rations, with the US being the top provider!

Okay, agricultural history over... back to the trip. When we eventually arrived in Trinidad we were really pleased with what we saw. Trinidad is a 500-year old city with well maintained Spanish colonial architecture and houses ablaze with colour. The main square is a hive of activity and our hotel was the lap of European luxury! (By way of explanation, many of the nice hotels in Cuba are joint ventures with countries such as Spain, and France). In Trinidad we came to a realisation that pleased me and dismayed dad, to equal and opposite extents! No meal in Cuba is complete without the accompaniment of live music. This normally comprises a singer, someone on bongos, a couple of guitarrists and maybe some extra percussion banging pieces of wood together. I loved it! Dad hated it! After a few days I was well versed with the common songs; Che Guevarra, Dos gardenias para ti, Chan Chan and Guantanamera, and was even able to serenade dad even when we were unfortunate enough not to have a band around It is absolutely amazing how musical everyone in Cuba is, I think you would be hard pushed to find a Cuban who cannot sing, play an instrument or dance.

After wandering the streets of Trinidad for a day and listening to some live music in the evening, we headed to another province the next day; Pinar Del Rio. Here we stayed in the nature reserve of Las Terrazas for 3 nights. Unfortunately we got some rain while here and one of our days plans was thwarted, we did however get to visit a coffee plantation, a couple of museums and most excitedly... dad and I threw ourselves down a 1km long zipwire through the trees and across a lake. We also visited a fantastic orchid garden, the Soroa Orchid garden built by the Spaniard Tomás Felipe Camacho (in dedication to his wife and daughter who died). The garden is home to over 700 different species, and is beautifully kept by diligent gardeners.

Heading East

After exploring the Pinar del Rio province it was time for us to head East. We took a flight to Holguin after a long wait in a departure lounge where the only thing to do was to watch Raul Castro (Fidels brother, current Cuban leader) on television delivering a very long speech. (As an aside, long speeches must run in the family, Fidel is in the the Guiness Book of Records for delivering the longest speech at the UN, 4 hours and 29 minutes). In Holguin we started the second half of our trip with a new group and guide. We headed towards Guantanamo, but didn't get very far before we got a puncture and had to stop. Whilst the driver and some passing mechanics (what luck!) replaced the tyre we wandered up a lane to see what we might find. At the top of the lane, a farmer invited us to look at his farm. This was a real experience! His shack of a house stood in the middle of a a small area of land. On his dry dusty land he kept goats, chickens and a pig, and a little puppy who thought he was a big strong dog yapped away. When invited inside his home, we couldn't resist seeing how a real Cuban lives. The small house was built of wood and was divided by curtains. On entering the home a narrow corridor was home to a row of chairs and a rocking chair from which you could watch the television. Beyond this was a dining table and further still a basic kitchen that opened straight out onto the backyard. The bedrooms could be seen through the flimsy curtains. These were furnished with small beds and a wardrobe. The centrepiece of the home was most definitely the television, which (like all other Cuban televisions) only shows Cuban televison. On our way out of the house we saw a sign on the door, the sign states that a doctor lives in this home.

Farmers home

There are more doctors per person in Cuba than any other country in the world. After the revolution Fidel instated free Healthcare and now Cuba has one of the highest life expectancies in the region, at 77.45 years (just behind the US at 78.11 years). At the same time, Fidel ensured all children got free education and one year after he became leader illiteracy (which had been 1 in 4 children) was obliterated. Now Cuba has one of the highest literacy rates in the world (99.8%), higher than both the US and the UK.

Once the tyre had been replaced, we visited Guantanamo and got as close as you are allowed to the Naval Base there. Guantamo is the oldest overseas US Naval base. It is surrounded by 55,000 land mines and an eight mile cactus fence to prevent Cubans trying to flee Cuba for the US. Although this may deter Cubans leaving by these means, many Cubans leave the country by whatever means they can. The "Wet Foot, Dry Foot" policy on immigration means that as soon as a Cuban sets foot on US soil they are granted refuge. If they are caught on the crossing; they will be sent back to Cuba.

After Guantanamo we headed to Baracoa, the first capital of Cuba, and the first site Columbus visited. After the bus became grounded on the slope up to the hotel (not the driver's best day on the job!) we walked up to another nice hotel. It was at about this point that the rain started... and didn't stop. It was rain like I have never seen. The swimming pool overflowed and our room also filled with water. The staff didn't bat an eyelid whilst they mopped up the water, so I guess the weather was not unusual. When we took the bus out the next day we saw people standing in the doorways of their homes with water up to their knees. They didn't appear too bothered by the water and our guide at the cocoa plantation was most pleased to have rain.

After Baracoa, we headed to Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city in Cuba. Following time in the Nature Reserve in Pinar Del Rio and Baracoa, this was a cosmopolitan city indeed! We checked into the fanciest hotel around and spent a relaxed few days exploring the area and also lying by the pool on Christmas day! Our days of luxury in the organisational hands of dad were coming to an end!

Back in Havana we had a final night of 4 star luxury in Old Havana before hailing a cab to the residential area of Vedado where I had booked a Casa Particular. A Casa Particular is basically a homestay. The Cuban government allow Cubans to rent out rooms in their houses or apartments to tourists, providing new sources of income. They do however have to pay the government substantial taxes. When the taxi drew up at the address I had been given, I had the distinct hope that he had the wrong place! The road was dirty, the pavement broken, a group of men lingered on the corner and all the buildings were dirty and crumbling. Unfortunately, the taxi driver confirmed that we had the right place and went to get the owner of the Casa. As we walked up the tatty stairs to the apartment, I really thought that dad was going to turn around and jump straight back in the taxi but he braved it out! Thankfully inside was a different story and our hostess was very gracious and house proud. We had separate rooms and a shared bathroom, and although basic, the rooms were clean and tidy. The bathroom and plumbing was interesting (that's a euphemism for sure) and one of the two showers looked like a watering can had been screwed to the wall. It was definitely the most interesting place we had stayed in.

Dad and I in Havana

For the next few days, we had breakfast and chatted with out host in the morning before heading out and exploring Havana further. At a posh hotel I booked some Cuban Salsa lessons and was directed to an address in the middle of old Havana. At that address I met the dance teacher and went to his bedroom for dance lessons! Despite initial trepidation (nobody puts baby in the corner...of a bedroom!), this is perfectly normal, and with the bed pushed against the wall and his CD player belting out Cuban Salsa, we twirled and danced the afternoon away. We were interrupted at one point by his teenage neighbour with a dead pig draped over his shoulder, he wanted to know where to put the pig (thankfully the answer was not "in the bedroom"). During our time at the homestay, Dad and I also dined out the Cuban way. Paladares are restaurants ran out of Cuban homes, they are only allowed to seat 12 people, and this was exactly the number of chairs at the Paladar we visited. 4 Were taken by locals and 2 by dad and I. The setting was the height of Cuban sophistication; formica chairs and tables, plastic easy-wipe tablecloths, some kitsch pictures on the walls and a dog that scanned the floor for food. Once again, dad was overjoyed with the places I was taking him. Despite only one thing being available on the comprehensive menu (pointless menu really) we ate like kings! We had piles of pork (so that's where the pig got to) with onions, chips and an unknown vegetable, a glass of wine, 2 beers, 2 coffees, and a flan for about £10. After dinner (thankfully!) the owner invited us into the kitchen where we were surprised to see he had not only 2 dogs, but also about a dozen caged birds.

When we eventually left Havana, and eventually left Cuba (after a 5 hour delay) it was with some relief that we returned to the UK. Having visited Cuba and seen how the Cubans live, I feel very lucky to live in a country where I am free to travel (no-one in Cuba has a passport unless for special circumstances), free to buy whatever I like, and free to have an opinion. Having said that, it made a refreshing change not to have seen a Starbucks or a McDonalds for the last three weeks, and it was also refreshing to drink rum as though it were water.

Roll on the Cuba Libre!