Adding Cuba Into the Mix

With the Cuban portion of the journey complete, lets see how it stacked up against Sucre and Veracruz.

Food: Contrary to its reputation, Cuban food is actually pretty good. It is simple - essentially a variation of some sort of meat, rice, beans, and plantains - but it is done well. I had some amazing home-cooked meals with the families I stayed with, and even though they started to get repetitive the lunches of street pizza and ham and cheese sandwiches were always tasty. I have a hard time believing anything will top my love for Mexican food, but Cuba was definitely a step up from Bolivia.

Snack: A haiku about the churro:
Fried deliciousness
a crescendo of sugars
one is not enough

Paired together with Bolivia's salteña these two morsels form the Beyoncé and Jay Z of on the go delectables. It doesn't feel right choosing one or the other, for now they both occupy top honors.

Climate: Mid 80s during the day, high 60s at night with decent humidity. It was uncomfortable to wear long-pants during the day and during salsa classes I conceded to shorts, but for the most part I relaxed reading during the hottest hours of the day. There was one night where it dipped into the low 50s in the countryside and a jacket was needed, and that was honestly fun to feel chilly again. Unfortunately, with a slightly warmer and more humid climate than Mexico, Cuba finds itself in last place. I realize the above description might sound like a paradise and my preference absurd to all currently dealing with the sub-arctic temperatures of winter. Nothing is stopping you from writing your own blog proclaiming your love for the heat.

Music: Cuba takes this one. You can find live salsa music at pretty much every restaurant in Cuba, and if you didn't hear it while eating there are clubs everywhere with salsa groups. There are a few songs that do get repeated over and over but that is my only criticism of the Cuban music scene.

Drinks: Another one in the W column for Cuba. Mojitos are delicious, and even though I'm a bit burned out on them as a national drink they trounce what Sucre and Veracruz had to offer. Bottles of rum are one of the few truly inexpensive items... a nice one goes for around $7, and there are so many delicious flavors to choose from. My favorite was Legendario, an incredibly sweet nectar that tasted more like candy than spirits.

Bars/Clubs: In theory, Cuba should win this with salsa dancing everywhere. I probably just got unlucky but the places that I went to involved a plethora of Cuban dudes looking to pick up women tourists. I'm sure not every place is like that, but since I wasn't able to make friends with any of the locals to discover local venues I was resigned to the predominantly touristy clubs. There was an
awesome discoteca in a cave, but that wasn't enough to push Cuba ahead of Veracruz and Sucre.

Spanish: I covered this in the last post, but to reemphasize: Cuban Spanish is impossible. Unique pronunciation coupled with blazing speed is a brutal combination. I didn't have enough conversations with locals my age to pick up on any regional slang, but I was very happy to return to the calm shores of Colombian Spanish.

Adventure: I wouldn't say that I did anything incredibly adventurous but the volume of activities gives Cuba the edge over the other two. These included: hiking through tobacco farms, mountain biking to caves, discovering hidden beaches, and dodging a bombardment of Christmas Eve fireworks.

Something Random: I'm going to go with the flood of Apple logos. I suppose it could be some some subtle symbol against communism a-la Catniss's mockingjay, but more likely it is just a sticker that has become vogue to slap on your car. Still, I did not expect to see Steve Job's legacy on the windows of many Cuban vehicles. The backyard crocodile and Zebra crossing guards were definitely more random.

An Early Departure

Initially I had planned to stay in Cuba for 2 months but I decided to cut that short to just under 5 weeks. There are a number of reasons why I'm making an early exit, but they can all more or less be summarized by this: Cuba is exhausting. First, let me be clear that I have really enjoyed my time here. Salsa dancing, live music, mojitos, fresh cigars, interesting politics, and some of nicest people I have met have all contributed to this awesome to experience. But here are some reasons why Cuba has exhausted me:

Lets get the most embarrassing one out of the way... it is difficult and expensive to use the internet. It is pathetic to admit, but I miss having easy access to inexpensive, unrestricted internet. It goes beyond connecting with friends or reading what is going on in the world, although that is admittedly a primary concern. But in addition, without internet you lose the ability to look up a restaurant, book a hostel, check directions, and many other travel related activites that you normally just take for granted. Fortunately gmail works, but almost every American website is blocked in Cuba. To use the internet here you must buy 30 minute or 1 hour scratch cards that include a code to type into your computer or internet capable device (wifi is only in Havana). These average to about $8 an hour, which isn't eggregious but certainly adds up.

And woe if you have to make an international call. Normally this doesn't come up for me, but because American sites aren't too stoked about making flight arrangements to Cuba I booked my flight via a European version of Kayak. For some moronic reason they required a phone confirmation to change my flight. 15 minutes and $67.50 later I was the proud owner of a new ticket. Granted it was written in the 1990s, but I distinctly remember Into Thin Air describing the Everest satelite phone costing $5.00/min... I suppose I should thank Fidel for at least being $0.50/min cheaper!

Next, Cuban Spanish is not easy. I was feeling pretty good about my progress in Bolivia and Mexico, and that came to an abrupt halt when I got off the plane to Havana. Cubans are alergic to the letter S (much like the people of Boston and the letter R) and that extra split second you need to realize what was just said makes a world of difference. Further compounding the issue: the speed is unreal. What is the rush? I tried speaking in English at that speed and was exhausted after a minute. I suppose it was good practice and I started to get the hang of it by the time I left, but every conversation required much more energy than in Mexico or Bolivia.

Next, there is a significant derth of stores that sell basic amenities such as bottled water, snacks, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, and most surprisingly, lighters/matches (how can Cuba of all places not have something to light their cigars with??) Of that list really bottled water is the most inconvenient since I would go through at least a few bottles a day, but in every place we stayed we had to hunt for the water supply. I never did find deodorant, but fortunately my stick made it to the finish line.

Cuba is an expensive place. The cheapest lodging you are looking at is $25/night, and since there are no supermarkets you are pretty much going to be going out every meal. If you stick to just the Moneda Nacional places you of course can get by, but eating pizza and ham and cheese sandwiches all isn't the most pleasant of existences. But more importantly, access to money is an issue for Americans since ATMs do not accept American bank cards. Before the globalization of ATMs I suppose this is the way people used to travel, but I don't enjoy keeping a big stash of cash on me at all times and constantly monitoring my supply. In an emergency I could have money wired to me via Western Union, but that isn't something I want to rely upon.

But all of those reasons pale in comparison to this: Here, more than anywhere else in Latin America, I have felt the most significant separation between foreigner and local. Look, as a tourist you are going to get hassled to some extent no matter where you go. If I flipped out every time someone asked me to buy something I would have had a colossal meltdown long ago. But Cuba is unrelentless: every corner someone shouts at you to take their taxi. Every restaurant has someone outside waving their menu at you. People will follow you for a block explaining that the Buena Vista Social Club is playing at their bar tonight and it is just around the corner if you will just walk this way, amigo. This is of course more worse in Havana than in the smaller cities, and especially bad in any area where there are likely to be large groups of tourists (the Old Havana part of town, near any hotel, etc.). But it really was everywhere that I visited on the island.

There were times of incredible kindness: one time an old man stopped me on the sidewalk just to shake my hand and wish me a happy New Year. Everyone loved that I was from the US and even the hustlers had kind things to say about American people. My last night in Cuba I ended up sharing a cigar and a bottle of rum with a doctor on his porch where we talked for hours about politics, women, and the similarities between our two cultures.

But those were the rare exceptions. Unfortunately by the end of my stay my default reaction was to ignore or say no to any local that tried to talk to me. And that is an absolutely terrible default position to take. Connecting with the locals is my favorite part of traveling, and after 5 weeks I stopped making eye contact. An encounter on my last week really drove home how far I had devolved:

I walk past a man holding a flyer who asks me to stop and go to a restaurant around the corner on another street. I politely say no thank you and continue to walk. Like countless other encounters he follows and asks me where I am from and how long I have been in Cuba. As long as I keep walking I don't mind these conversations, and even though they are more or less always the same it is still good Spanish practice. We reach a busy intersection and stop at a red light, whereupon he brings up the restaurant again -- it's just around the corner and serves great food at a good price, my friend. I explain that I prefer to eat in places where the prices are in Moneda Nacional for lunch. Moneda Nacional is the ultimate trump card: people understand they can't compete with something that is a fraction of what they are selling, and once they hear that the tourist knows about these places you are immediately left alone. This has the desired effect and we shake hands, wish each other a nice day, and I go on my way.

The next day I am walking in a different part of the neighborhood after just finishing 2 hours of salsa class. I'm hungry and walking quickly, the $0.50 ham and cheese sandwich tantalizingly within reach. I am about to turn a corner when I hear "Oye, amigo! (hey, friend!)" I look up and there is Mr. Restaurant from the day before. I wave and continue walking but he motions for me to stop and come towards him. I'm not too happy about this, I really just want my sandwich, but I grumpily stop, and mutter to myself "que quieres? (what do you want). Looking back I'm actually a little pleased that my instinctive reaction was to talk to myself in Spanish, that's progress! I didn't really intend for him to hear my grumpy question but he certainly noticed, and he angrily comes towards me, points to his head, and asks why I am taking his presence negatively. You should have a positive perspective when someone waves to you, he exclaims, why did you immediately assume that I wanted something from you? I am a little taken aback by the abrupt change in mood and pause for a few seconds to register this angry Cuban who is now very close to my face. I attempt to explain my perspective and how my experiences over the past 5 weeks have made me weary of these kind of encounters, which isn't the easiest Spanish to convey. I think for a few more seconds, but as I am slowly trying to state my case he loses patience and storms away. This time I manage to keep my mouth shut and only silently tell him to fuck off (in Spanish, of course).

 

The thing is, he was absolutely right to be upset. You can't complain about not being able to converse with locals and then react with hostility when someone tries to talk to you. He was probably working the day before, and unfortunately restaurant promoting involves pestering tourists. Since this interaction took place in a different area he probably did just want to talk. But the sins of the other Cuban hustlers are destined to revisit future generations; I had long reached my breaking point, and he himself had been guilty of steering me towards somewhere I did not want to go just the day before. And I wanted my damn sandwich.

It certainly has been an interesting 5 weeks but I am happy to begin my backpacker rehabilitation program. The first time I walked past someone sitting on a stoop in Cartagena I cringed, but there was no hassle, simply an "hola." Already feeling better.

 

 

Quick Update

There hasn't been too much to report the past week. I've been taking two 90-minute salsa classes each day and Brendy has had percussion classes in the morning and joined me for the later dance class. We have decided to return back to Trinidad and Vinales for Brendy's last week and then I will either take a 15-hour bus ride or a 90 minute domestic flight across the country to explore the east coast.

 

And now, a few random Cuban facts:

There are 4 TV channels: one news channel, one channel with kids programming and educational shows, one for sports, and one for entertainment. In the evenings many of the movies and shows are in English with Spanish subtitles, but sometimes those are just dubbed over. There are no commercials though, which allowed me to watch Justin Bieber's Never Say Never in its uninterrupted entirety.

When you want to join a line for something, you call out "ultimo (last)." The previous ultimo identifies himself, and you know that it is your turn after that person goes. When the next person wants to join the line you identify yourself as the ultimo, and the chain continues. This way you don't have to stand in line as long as you don't wander too far off. I never fully trusted this system and always stayed close by, but it worked every time.

Finally, I don't know what kind of dog this is but its one of the most hideous creatures I've ever seen. And they are everywhere!

 

 

So ugly in fact that he won me over.

 

The Cuban Economy

Clearly this isn't a Warton dissertation, but here are some simple obversations about what I've seen so far. The average Cuban has a salary of less than $20 per month. But Cuba is nothing like North Korea or China during the Great Leap Forward, the people are not starving and for the most part everyone lives comfortable, albeit modest lives. Here is how it is possible.

First, there are two currencies: the Cuban Peso (aka Moneda Nacional, or just peso), and the Convertible Peso (CUC). 25 Pesos equals 1 CUC, and 1 CUC is $1 USD. Each Cuban citizen is assigned a ration card that allows them to buy certain items each month using Moneda Nacional. These include rice, beans, bread, small quantities of meat, soap, simple clothing, and other basic foods and amenities. There are also a number of food stands in every town that sell sandwiches, personal pizzas, coffee, and sweets in moneda nacional. Once I made the discovery that I could buy essentailly the same ham and cheese sandwich for 15 pesos that I had paid $5 CUCs the previous day, I've become a strict pesotarian. Brendy and I even managed to find a beer stand in pesos which we visited once or twice.

Any item outside of the basics - electronics, furniture, almost all alcohol - has to be paid for in CUCs. From what people have told me the ration card covers just enough to meagerly get by. Once the supplies from the ration cards is gone people have to use CUCs for everything. Unless someone works with tourists in some way (as tour guides, in restaurants, taxi drivers, and most recently homeowners with a spare room to rent) people are paid in moneda national.

People affiliated with tourism covers a decent amount of the population but is by no means a majority. So how do the rest of the people get by? Many get by with a little help from their friends (or more likely a family member) in the US. Tell 10 people on the street that you are from the US, at least 5 of them will happily exclaim they have friends or family in Miami. Even $50, an amount that most people would consider nominal spread over the course of a month, almost triples the average salary.

Finally, there are those that don't have family who can send them money and do not work in an industry that pays in CUCs, and quite frankly these people are just have a tougher time. The obvious irony is that this system has created a dichotomy anathema to Fidel's dream: the population is divided into those who have access to CUCs, and those that do not. CUCs are king, and if you don't have access to any you are going to live a significantly less comfortable life style.

 

The Bay of Pigs

During our 8-day tour we stopped at Giron beach, also known as the Bay of Pigs. While I'm by no means an expert (despite writing more or less the same Cuban Missile Crisis paper throughout middle school), here a quick account of what happened and my experiences at the museum.

 

But first, the tinniest of backgrounds. The current political structure was established when Fidel Castro and Che Guevarra overthrew Fulgencio Batista on New Years Eve, 1959. Fidel was elected president (there are elections but just the one party) and retained the position until 2008, when illness forced him to take a less active role and his brother Raul assumed the presidency. The specific details of Che's depature from Cuba are not discussed here, but he tried to lead similar communist revolutions in Africa and South America before being assassinated in Bolivia in 1967 (the CIA almost certainly helped with that one).

 

 

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was one of the US's earlier attempts at getting rid of Castro. Essentially, the CIA trained a few thousand Cuban refugees, armed them, and sent them to land on Giron beach with the promise of aerial support. The thinking was that an invasion from even a token force would incite an internal upheaval: the oppressed population would rise up and the army would turn against Fidel, overthrowing the communist regime. Turns out most of the country actually liked Castro and this uprising did not occur, there was no air support, and unsurprisingly the force was anihilated quite quickly when an entire country's army showed up to defend itself.

 

The museum commemorating the invasion was fascinating, especially the black-and-white propoganda video that was made shortly after. A dramatic 1960's theatrical score blares over a series of battle clips and long lines of prisoners marching, with the occasional victorious slogan sprinkled throughout. My favorite: the evil imperialist invaders with the world's most advanced technology were defeated by the humble peasantry equipped only with a just cause. I love the USA and am forever grateful to be an American, but we aren't the Jesus of the world: sometimes we fuck up, and this was one of our dumber foreign policy maneuvers. It was refreshing to see how another depicts its version of history, albeit with a flair of exageration.

 

 

 

Around Western Cuba in 8 Days

It's been about 2 and a half weeks in Cuba so far and it certainly is an intersting place. This post will be mostly a reccount of the activites so far with less political observation/commentary, but I'll include that on a later post.

But first, isn't it illegal for Americans to travel to Cuba? Yes and no. Obama actually legalized travel for American citizens who are at least third generation Cuban, and as my maternal grandmother is Cuban this qualified our entire family. For those less fortunate who do not have sangre cubana, it is still technically legal to travel to Cuba... you just are not allowed to spend any money. This essentially makes it illegal to come here, but tens of thousands of Americans make the trip via Mexico or Canada each year and nothing happens.

My stay in Cuba began with an 8 day tour of Western Cuba. Due to flight timing I landed the evening before the rest of my family, but they arrived the next morning and we spent the day in Havana before starting the offical tour. I'm still not quite sure how this happened but somehow I ended up in first class from Mexico City to Havana, a very welcome gift after a 3:30am wakeup and a 4 hour connection delay.

Completely by chance our entire tour was American: my family, a family from Orange County, another from New Mexico, and a teacher from Washington DC. Our guide, Dadi, was a Cuban native who spoke English with an Australian accent, and drove the crew around in our nicely air conditioned bus.

First stop was the Che museum, a 2 hour ride outside Havana and about 30 minutes from our first night in Santa Clara. Interestingly enough there are posters and slogans of Che everywhere but very few of Fidel. The relationship between Cuba, Che, and Fidel could be my graduate thesis topic so lets just note that observation and move forward.

In the evening we took an hour bus ride outside of the city to a small town famous for its Christmas Eve fireworks. Christmas has an interesting history in Cuba: after the revolution Fidel banned it and people had to work on the 25th (how was there never a grinch parody with Fidel??). When the pope visited in 1997 Christmas was reinstated and the people got their holiday back, but because there was nearly a 40 year gap it isn't that strongly celebrated. The party for Christmas Eve apparently never got canceled though and this was quite the fiesta. The fireworks were somewhere in between the size that you light off in your backyard and the ones at Disneyland, but with almost no wind and a launch pad in the center of the square we were literally doging the fallout. Would it have sucked to have been burned by firework debris? Absolutely. But I had a great time, and these are the kind of experiences that our litigeous society has for better or worse erradicated.

The next day we left for Trinidad, a colonial town that is celebrating its 500th anniversary next week (the Menlo Almanac hasn't returned my emails for a paid stipend to be their correspondent but I'm going back anyways). Most of the town is cobblestone and you can walk just about everywhere, but the town seemed big enough that you could spend a week and have enough to do. We ate Christmas dinner on the beach, and while its not quite the same as waking up with presents under the tree it was an adequate substitute.

One of the most interesting experiences of Trinidad was by far the least expected... a discoteca in a cave! $3 gets you into the place, one mojito, a bizarre 30 minute show where a group of shirtless dudes pick up a table with their teeth, and unlimited cave dancing.

Our last stop before returning to Havana was Vinales, a bucholic town noted for its tobacco farms. This required a 9-hour bus ride across half of the country which was fortunately broken up by stops in Cienfuegos and the Bay of Pigs.

Once in Vinales, the highlight was a 3 hour hike through one of the farms where we enjoyed freshly rolled cigars at the source. The hike was capped by the best piña colada I have ever tasted in some random gazebo 30 minutes into the hillside. We ate our farewell dinner with the group at a nearby organic farm where we feasted on at least 10 different meat and vegetable dishes cultivated a few meters from our picnic table.

Guided tours are admittedly not my favorite activity (pub crawls of course are an exception), but as tours go this one offered enough independence and variety that I had a good time. Other than the two nights in Havana and the night in Santa Clara we slept in the homes of local Cubans, all of which were very comfortable with a private bedroom/bathroom. Overall, a pretty solid introduction to Cuba.

 

Veracruz vs Sucre

After completing my second destination, I thought it would be interesting to compare each place I´ve been on a few categories to get a glimpse of what each offered. Considering the structure of my time in Sucre and Veracruz were significantly different, some of these comparisons won´t exactly sync. But by the end of my travels this should work for a a quick scale of the highlights. I arbitrarily chose the following categories based on what I think mattered and what I had pictures of:

Food: The Dream Team vs Angola, Alabama's football team vs. Western Kentucky St., freedom of speech in North Korea. What do these all have in common? All very one-sided affairs. That is exactly the case with Bolivian vs Mexican food. In Bolivia it is a national crime if there aren´t at least two different kinds of potatoes in every dish. I certainly enjoy potatoes, but I really don´t need to eat potato soup followed by rice, boiled potatoes, and some mashed potatoes on the side, and then do it all again the next day. Even if the food was incredible in Bolivia I don´t think it could have withstood my passion for Mexican cusine, but this wasn´t even close. My last week in Veracruz I discovered the holy grail of restaurants, an all you can eat taco buffet for $4.50. That alone should defeat all challengers, but the enchilladas, quesadillas, gorditas, empanadas, and molé dishes make this an unfair fight.

 

Snack: I´m giving this one to Sucre. I loved the cheese empanadas and enjoyed the various flavors of tamales, but the salteña is the perfect on-the-go creation. Chicken and veggies wade together in a salacious broth, gifted in a buttery, flakey, slightly sweet crust for $1. For some inexplicable reason these were only sold between the hours of 9am to 2pm; I can only assume the potato lobby is responsible for this atrocity.

Climate: Close call here but Sucre gets the edge. Veracruz was low 80s during the day, mid 60s at night with slight humidity. That´s pretty good, but the humidity made it uncomfortable to wear pants during the day (I try to avoid screaming that I´m a tourist and shorts are a bulls-eye) and at night it was still too warm to wear my favorite piece of clothing. There were also mosquitoes... enough said. Sucre was high 70s during the day, mid 50s at night with 0 humidity. I really can´t think of a better climate than that. T-shirt and khakis during the day, just warm enough at night (after a few drinks) to wear a t-shirt, but most importantly it allowed me to wear my most coveted attire... the sweater!

Music: This one is a tie. Live music wasn´t featured in either place and the music played at the bars was more or less the same. I cannot stand the Mexican music of the north that features a heavy dosage of the accordion but thankfully I only heard it sparingly.

Drinks: Also too close to call, with maybe the slightest edge to Sucre. Amazingly enough I did not have one margarita when I was in Mexico... probably because no one really drinks them there outside of all-inclusive resorts. Instead the local drink unique to Veracruz was the Torito, a thick, flavored drink fermented from sugar cane. In Mexico the common beer was Sol, a very light lager similiar to Corona. There were other, slightly darker options but nothing too spectacular. Pretty much all the beers in Sucre tasted the same but with a little more flavor, and more importantly higher alcohol content. Bolivia´s local spirit is Singani, a clear, tequila-esque liquid, and mixed with Sprite creates the Chuflay. Not my favorite beverage, but tasty enough.

Bars/clubs: This isn´t entirely fair since I went out significantly more in Sucre than in Veracruz, but Sucre wins. I had a great time when I went out on the weekends in Veracruz, but I am glad that I already had a group of people I knew to go with beforehand. The venues themselves were great in both places, but in Veracruz the people seemed less conducive to meeting strangers. Many times in Sucre I ventured out on my own and joined a group of locals. I didn´t get the same feeling in Veracruz, it felt a little more cliquey. Veracruz definitely had the better bar hours, there was no hard 3am shutdown that applied to most places in Sucre. Still, I´ll take the friendliness of strangers over the guarantee that my bar will not close at 3am.

Spanish (accent, slang, etc): Mexico wins, but it´s close. Both Mexican and Bolivian Spanish are very clear, not too fast, and use the generally accepted words for most items. Mexico wins because of its slang, specifically the usage of the word ¨wey.¨ This means absolutely nothing but I guess the closest would be ¨man¨ as in ¨hola wey¨ (hey man) or ¨pásame una cerveza wey¨ (gimme a beer, man). This had to be the most common word I heard at M-A whenever I listened to kids speaking Spanish so it was fun getting to actually use it in conversation. Plus, the Spanish teachers in Mexico were closer to my age so they were a little bit more fun to converse with.

Adventure: Sucre is the defacto winner of this category since I really did nothing except school and a few weekend trips to bars in Mexico. This category should be much more interesting once I actually start moving around to different places.

Something Random: The zebra crossing guards in Sucre win here. I guess I can understand why there are crossing guards even though there are crosswalks, but why are they dressed as zebras? The something random contender of Veracruz would be the pet crocodile of the owners of my favorite local restaurant. I had to see this one to believe it, but sure enough in the backyard there is a crocodile. Señor croc lives a leisurely lifestyle of sunbathing, but I did not confirm if he does in fact enjoy a nice scratch behind the ears.