This is part two from our American correspondent, Dave Ford, about the beautiful island nation of Cuba. It all had to be a dream of course, and not in real life, because Americans are forbidden by law to travel to Cuba...
Vivid Cuban Dream Days 1-4
I started out my dream (for those of you that know me well) in true Dave Ford fashion at the five star Parque Grande Hotel in the best part of Havana.
Sidenote: This proved to be dumb. Not just a little bit dumb but extremely, idiotically dumb.
Also, I am extremely bad with money. And by extremely, I mean I might be the worst person at handling money in the entire world. Everything in Cuba revolves around money. When you are American everything revolves around you "NOT" having access to any money. So, in the first four days of my dream I spent a ton of money. I brought $1000 bucks (in my dream) thinking that it would plenty. After traveling for the last 6 and a half months in South America I thought that I would have some sort of an idea about how much everything would cost. I was "as wrong as the day is long". Right off the bat, I went up to the rooftop posh pool and had a nice $15 dollar CUC lunch and a few Mojitos. This cost me about $20 bucks US. Sadly, this was only the beginning.
I had a few buckanaroos on my trip as well.
After buying a nice Cohiba cigar I decided to walk around the town and soak everything in. Right after leaving my hotel room I met a French guy that works as a writer for a French Radio Station. He is assigned in Cuba for two years or until Fidel dies. He was a great guy and needed to interview an "anonymous American" for a story he was working on. Apparently, I was the 73rd tourist that he had asked if they were American. He was pretty happy to have found me. I told him to say my name was "Lenny". We hit it off and he gave me a tour of "Havana Vieja".
We hit up a few of Hemmingway's old haunts (Hemmingway spent about 30 years of his life in Cuba and liked to drink...ALOT). So, being the idiot that I am I decided that I would pay our $45 dollar tab. Nonetheless, I learned a lot about what is going down in Cuba in my first 2 hours on the island and am really glad I met the guy.
This is hanging in Hemmingways Mojito bar. He had different bars for different drinks. The Floridita was his Dacquari Bar.
Sidenote: About 30 journalists from all over the world are stationed in Havana right now. They are all waiting, some anxiously, for Fidel to die.
The next day I checked into my very nice "Casa Particular" in Vendado, a small upscale part of the city of Havana. As I mentioned in my last post, the Casa is owned and operated by two very nice Cubans Esteban and Barbara. I ended up staying for the entire rest of my dream in "a room in there house". The room cost me $40 per night with a nice breakfast included in the morning. Estaban and Barbara and there staff were extremely nice and took very good care of me.
The Feel = 1957
The cars were amazing. On every corner you would see people working on their 1955 Chevys. In reality, my dream took place in 1957. Elvis should have been playing on the radio. Cuba is a living, breathing time warp.
The buildings, the cars, the restaurants, and pretty much everything else is preserved like a fetal pig in a jar of formaldihyde from 49 odd years ago (sorry, that was a weird analogy but you get the point). Although, much of Cuba is falling apart. Would a pig in a jar of formaldahyde fall apart after 50 years? I am not sure. I really need to get away from this analogy.
Note to Self: I have not the slightest clue how to spell formalydahyde. What a tough word. I need to start writing easier words to spell. In fact, I do not think I will ever have the ability to spell it correctly. It is beyond my capacity. Spell check does not even know how to spell it. I bet those spelling bee geeks can spell it though. God I hate those kids.
One thing that has really hit me hard is just how safe you feel walking the streets of Havana. Let me put it this way, in parts of Baltimore City and Washington DC where I am from I have walked (not intentionally) and driven through some pretty rough spots. The same dilapidated 1950's feel that you get in Havana is present. There are so many resounding similarities. Building are falling apart. People are trying to get money from you constantly. There are a ton of people on the street drinking. 90% of the faces that you see are people from African descent. Walking down these streets in Cuba, you feel completely 100% safe. If I was in a similar neighborhood in SE Washington DC I would running for my life.
So what contributes to this? My answer is lack of "crack cocaine" and "Heroin"in Cuba. Is this "one" benefit of Communism???? My answer is a resounding "YES".
So, back to the feel. Old men play sit around and play chess in the parks for hours. The Kids play marbles in the street and throw around the baseball all day. As seen above, fishing in Havana Harbor is immensely popular. It really does feel like what it must have been like 50 years ago. Its like a "Leave it to Beaver" episode. Teenagers line the streets and hang out in small, unthreatening groups. When I would walk through the streets I would see literally hundreds of people sitting on their porches. Many, many people gather nightly around the harbor (which is surprisingly clean for a city of two million and the kids swim in it). Simply put, there are probably zero Sony Playstations in the entire country. All in all I am not sure if that is such a bad thing. The one thing that people seem to have is an endless supply of time.
Just watching Estaban and Barbara interact daily was an eye opener for me. They have so much time for each other and their family. Now, they are no doubt a part of a Cuban upper class (yes, there is a class structure). I am sure things are slightly different for poorer Cubans.
Nonetheless, things are so slow and so laid back and chill. The vibe is one of relaxation. Its not hard to fall right into the slow, laid back way of life. People walk around the streets with beers, talk, joke, and hang out. I did not see a single sense of urgency during my entire dream. There is no need to rush for anything.
The American Embassy (If that is what you want to call it)
There are almost 300 Americans working in the US building pictured above. The Cuban Government decided to have some fun. They took the parking lot from the US and put up all of these flags. I have heard mixed reports about the building. Most of the stories lead me to believe that at one time the US government tried to put American or Anti Castro propaganda on the exterior of the building. Therefore, the Flags were Cubas response. The building is also surrounded entirely by the Cuban Police.
The People in my Dream
Simply put, the people in Cuba LOVE Americans. Whenever I talked to any of the Cubans I had met and told them where I was from their eyes would just light up. Almost everyone that I talked to have some sort of extended family in either Miami or New York. The feeling between our two governments have nothing whatsoever to do with the attitude of the people. In one of my daily encounters, I was approached by a professional baseball pitching coach that over a Mojito asked me for money because his baby had a club foot or a broken leg (my Spanish sucks and they speak differently here, but something was wrong with his kids leg). If this guy was coaching in the US he would be a millionaire. Oh, and this was not a scam (I do not think). I gave him 10 bucks and he almost started crying. He was visibly shaken.
Some notes about the bad and interesting things I noticed. There were a ton of them.
> Hookers make more money than doctors. This had led to many of the doctors in Cuba to be used as actual national exports. Many of Cubans doctors are "traded" to Venezuela for extreme reductions in the cost of Oil.
> The Police are literally on every corner. They severely monitor how much the locals talk to the tourists. For example, if you sat down on a park bench and talked to a local for 10 minutes, after you left the Police would then come up and ask the local many questions about your conversations and such.
> At one point I walked by a store that rations out bread. They seem to be always running out of things. Cuba, being a huge sugar exporter, should not run out of sugar. Right??? Well, for the last three days of my stay at the Casa they could not buy any sugar and I had to drink my coffee black. However, the one thing they never run out of is booze. It seemed like everyone was constantly drinking. There are Rum stands on every other corner.
> All of the billboards that I have seen in Havana have one of two people on them, Fidel Castro or Che Guervera. Imagine what is going to happen when Coca Cola and Toyota can start advertising in Cuba.
> The average monthly salary of a Cuban is $12 dollars. They have to find extra ways to make money after there daily salaries. On one day of my dream, I met a Cuban couple and bought them a few beers. I must have been a bit drunk because I was communicating pretty well with them in Spanish and they did not know a lick of English. Anyway, they were talking about how much they made per month compared to what it would cost them to buy a pair of shoes. For a cheap pair of shoes for their 3 year old, it still costs 30 bucks. So, when both parents only make a combined 24 dollars a month things simply do not add up.
> The lines are long, slow, and everywhere. I feel like the entire country works like the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) in the states. It can be really frustrating. My patience was constantly put to the test.
> The above picture represents the local book market. This is pretty much the selection you get to choose from if you would like to buy a book in Cuba. I really wanted to read Hemmingway but could not find anything in English. However, all of Fidels books were for sale translated in English. Not surprising.
How could I not have a Big Night Out in Cuba? Yeah, so Saturday night of my Cuban adventure was my "ONE BIG NIGHT OUT". I saved up extra money and was ready to tie one on in a big way. Well, that was before I realized that 90% of the bars in Havana close at midnight and the ones that are open are all crawling with 15 year old hookers which is not exactly what I am into. I like 19 year old hookers. (JUST A JOKE MOM).
Sidenote: Cuba has a serious prostitution problem. However, the girls do not seem to be hooked on drugs like they are almost everywhere else. I think it all goes back to the $12 a month average salary in the Country. People in Cuba do whatever they have to do to make extra cash. It is a very sad aspect of life under communist rule (where travel is permitted as I am sure this does not happen in North Korea). I have heard that a lot of creeps travel to Cuba just for access to the cheap, young girls. I did have some good news on my night out as I got my pocket picked for the third time on this trip. Why is this good news you may be asking yourself? Well, it is because I caught the asshole in the act. My slick travel skills were apparently too much for the suspected thief to handle. I got loud, angry, and up in the dudes face. 10 seconds later my wallet reappeared on the ground. Note to self: If you are in any other big city in the world do not respond with the same antics as you will probably be knifed.
Sidenote: All I had in my wallet was a condom and 10 "daveforddoesearth.com" business cards. Maybe I would have prevented the spread of some terrible disease and gotten 10 new readers if I just would have let him have it. Still, after getting pick-pocketed twice before I cannot contain my sense of pride for actually preventing it. Ironically, I did not even have enough money to buy a new wallet.While violent crime is virtually non-existent, there are unfortunately a lot of reports of petty crime.
We hope you are enjoying Dave's "dream" of Cuba. It is a great reminder for me about one of the best places I have ever experienced. The third and final installment will be posted tomorrow.
