Adieu Havana (Jun'12)

So I was back in Havana after having seen Baracoa, Santiago de Cuba, Camaguey, Trinidad, Cinfuegos, and Santa Clara. Now that I’d experienced the smaller towns of Cuba, I felt ready to take on the hustle and bustle of Havana. Even though I feel comfortable in big cities, I missed the intimacy of small town Cuba and the ability to easily walk to all the sights (more importantly, to the Casa de la Trova!).

Hemingway spent a good number of years in Havana and a number of bars claim to be where he spent a lot of his time (just like almost every coffee shop in Edinburgh claims to have had J.K. Rowling having written Harry Potter in their shop). Havana’s most famous bar is ‘La Bodeguita del Medio’ which, as per Papa Hemingway had the best Mojitos in Havana. Patrons at this bar are encouraged to write graffiti on the walls which makes it an interesting place to down a drink. So ‘La Bodeguita del Medio’ is famous for Mojitos, then which bar has the best Daiquiris. That honour goes to Floridita. Hotel Ambos Mundos is where Hemingway used to stay on his visits to Havana and, of course, that hotel doesn’t forget to remind the visitor of that fact (along with selling overpriced Mojitos).

The most famous building of Havana is the El Capitolio which used to be the seat of the legislature till the Revolution. This building is supposedly modelled on Washington’s Capitol Hill. Just behind this (fittingly) is the former Partagas cigar factory. I picked up a few of those overpriced sticks of tobacco from there. I also visited the ‘Museo de la Revolucion’ which was part history part propaganda but some of the photographs were interesting.

Most of the rest of my time in Havana I spent at the Nacional Hotel (a lovely sea front Hotel, where the rich and famous of Havana come to unwind) and at the Jazz Café. Like I said, music is never far away in Cuba.

On my last day in Cuba, I made a day trip tour to the western side of the Island towards Vinales valley – where a lot of tobacco is grown. The topography of this side of the country was very different from what I had seen on the Eastern side. Vinales valley has interesting geological structures called Mogotes (which are cliffs which look more than islands in the middle of the valley). Apart from going to a Cigar-rolling factory and a Rum workshop, I also visited this cave (cueva del Indio) where we were given a boat ride inside the dark and dingy cave on the stream that flows through the cave.

I was feeling a bit down that day knowing that it was my last day in Cuba. Oh well, I might return one day – but I’ll have to perfect my dance steps before that.

Che Che Che (Jun'12)

Before heading back to Havana, we spent a day in Cinfuegos, and passed through Santa Clara.

Cinfuegos was founded in 1819 by a Frenchman from Louisiana. It is an exceedingly pretty town with lots of lovely pastel- and brightly-coloured buildings. In the centre of town is the Parque Marti, which is very picturesque. This square has a cathedral, a Palacio, a Teatro, a Museo, and had lots of beauties when I went there - I’m talking about those cars from the 40s and the 50s.

Cinfuegos’ most well-known son is Benny More, a famous singer from the 40s and 50s - almost every Cuban knows most of his songs. There is a life-size statue of More in one of the main streets of Cinfuegos.

One of the attractions here is the Palacio de Valle, which is now an upscale restaurant bar. This Palacio was built in 1917 by a Spaniard. The Dictator Batista wanted to convert it into a casino but his plans never materialised as the revolution overthrew him. From the first floor of this restaurant there were beautiful views of the bay.

In the evening I went for a walk to Parque Marti – I was accosted by this man who wanted to know where I was from. He showed a lot of interest when I told him I was from India. This was followed by first a request, which turned into a threatening demand, for some money. That happened many times to me in Cuba - someone would come upto you – try to make some conversation and then either demand money or try to sell cheap cigars, rum, or women.

The next day we drove to Havana. On the way we stopped at Santa Clara which was where the last battle of the Cuban revolution took place when the ‘rebels’ derailed a train sent by Batista with supplies and soldiers. This derailment was the final nail in Batista’s coffin – after this the rebels attacked Batista’s troops in Santa Clara and the next day Batista fled the country and the Revolution was completed.

These days Santa Clara is known for another monument – Che Guevara’s remains are interred here. He was killed, and buried in, the Bolivian jungles in 1967. It was only in 1997 that his bones were transferred to Cuba and a memorial was built. There is also a small museum with photos of Che and many of his personal effects. It was the perfect day for us to visit the mausoleum as it was Che’s birthday that day (14th June) which also happened to be my birthday.

Che, though an Argentinian doctor, threw in his lot with Castro and the 'rebels'. He is somewhat of a demi-God in Cuba. Everywhere you see his images - on walls, on wallets, on belts, on t-shirts, and even on some Cuban notes. Omnipresent Il Commandante is.

That was the last bit of sightseeing we did before leaving for Havana.

More music and dance (Jun'12)

Our next two stops in Cuba were Camaguey and Trinidad.

A seven-hour drive from Santiago de Cuba brought us to to Camaguey, which happens to be Cuba's third largest town. If you’ve read the previous posts, you would have guessed that Camaguey is one of Velazquez's original seven settlements in the early-16th century. The town is named after one of the local Indian chiefs, Camaguei. Camaguey was often attacked so the original planners built labyrinthine streets to confuse, and stop, any potential attackers. This town is famous for Tinajones, huge water pots (sometimes more than two and a half metres high) for storing rainfall. These can still be seen outside many houses in Camaguey.

Ok enough about the town’s history. There are number of beautifully-restored squares here - Plaza de Carmen, Plaza de Los Trabajadores, and Plaza Agromonte. The latter was my favourite - it had beautiful buildings all around (including a Casa de la Trova) and a nice coffee shop where one could hang around and watch Cuban life amble by – at its own inimitable pace.

There is a lot of art (paintings especially) that comes out of Camaguey and the city is full of studios of local artists and their (rather colourful) modern art. Since my suitcase was full, I decided not to pick anything up but I couldn’t help imagining how these colourful paintings would look in my house.

At Camaguey I had my first experience in a Coppelia. Before you start getting ideas, a Coppelia is a local ice-cream parlour, one of those few rare places where a tourist can easily spend the local pesos. Local Pesos? Ok, a bit about the dual currency system in Cuba. There are two kinds of pesos – Local Pesos (to be used by Cuban nationals) and Convertible Pesos (called CUCs, mainly to be used by tourists). Crudely put, the former is for necessities and the latter is for luxuries. That was my understanding. The CUC has been in use since 1994 and is treated as equivalent to the USD (which is either not acceptable in Cuba, or has a very high commission attached to it).

Next we went to Trinidad (not to be confused with the country), which is the second most-touristed city in Cuba (after Havana). The town is quite well restored with beautiful pastel coloured buildings and cobbled streets. Almost every house in town seems to be a restaurant-bar or a shop selling souvenirs (trinkets, lace items, and colourful paintings being the most common of souvenirs being sold in Cuba).

On our first day there, I wandered into a nice wee open air bar called 'casa de la musica' (yes, in Cuba everything is music, music is everything). I was the only tourist there and I was pulling the average age down by about 20 but yet again (as is always the case here), I was the worst dancer as people (in different stages of inebriation) were getting up and dancing. I was forced to dance with this geriatric lady who was only about a million times better than me. Then I got talking to his elderly gentleman Julio who turned out to be (surprise surprise) a 'Professore de Salsa'. He was inebriated (naturally) and his English was as bad as my Spanish but we managed to have a beer and Rum-induced conversation for about half an hour (don't ask me about what!).

Later after Dinner, we headed back to the Casa de la Musica where a popular Havana-based rock band was having a concert. Though, there was a fair number of tourists, locals made up the bulk of the crowd and they knew many of his songs. While I did not participate in the sing-alonging and the air-guitaring, I did practice my cigar-puffing skills (A cohiba this time. The most popular brands are Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta). The good thing about a cigar is that you don't inhale so it is (I'm guessing and rationalising) less harmful thank cigarettes. Of course my new friend Julio was there - he had been packing in the rum since afternoon so he was in a pretty 'happy' mood and must have danced with about 20 girls - have to say, that despite the blood in his alcohol, he danced rather well. After all, Cubans have dance in their veins (bad pun!).

The next day we headed to the beach of Ancon (about 14 kms from Trinidad) which was a nice white sandy beach with not too many people around. So it was good to just have a waddle in the picturesque beach (yes, as most of you know, I don't know how to swim).

In the evening we headed off to Casa de la Musica again where an Afro-Cuban dance performance (rather energetic and with drums) was going on. This was followed by yet another band and much dancing (you get the picture of Cuba by now).

There was a 'sugar valley' near Trinidad where there were about 114 sugar plantations (in the days of yore). We went to one that has been restored to show tourists what the plantations were like. It was a nice half-day spent at the plantation surrounded by lush-green rolling hills. However the best part of this excursion was our taxi - a red-and-white Fairlane'500. A real beauty.

Sigh…

Rum in Santiago de Cuba (Jun'12)

From Baracoa we took a bus to Santiago de Cuba A bit about buses in Cuba, which are of two types - local buses (on which tourists can't travel) and luxury air-conditioned buses (mainly for tourists but locals can also use them, provided they can afford it). The four-hour journey from Baracoa to Santiago took five hours (Cuban standard time!) as the driver decided to do his personal shopping on the way. But since the buses were comfortable and air-conditioned, we were not complaining (even though terrible Mark Anthony music was blaring from the TV).

Santiago de Cuba is the country’s second largest city and one of the original seven settlements founded by conquistador Diego Velazquez. The city played an important role during the Cuban revolution. It was here that Castro and his rebels made an attack on the Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953. They were ill-prepared and the attempt was crushed leading to many deaths and arrests. Castro henceforth called his movement the July 26th movement and it was from the Ayuntamiento (town hall) from Santiago that Castro proclaimed victory for the Cuban revolution on 1st January, 1959 leading to the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship.

The Moncado barracks have now been converted partly into a museum (on the revolution) and partly into a school (which I thought was a great touch). Some of the original bullet-holes, from the 1953 attempt, have been restored based on a photograph of the original bullet holes which Castro had.

Because of his illness, Fidel stepped down from active politics in 2008 and his brother Raul became president. Raul has introduced creeping reforms – one of which allowed individuals to set up restaurants or bed and breakfasts (called Casa Particolares) in their homes. Most of our stays in Cuba were in such Casa Particolares which were great occasions to interact with Cuban families.

One of the 'lack of freedom' problems that the ordinary Cuban faces is access to the internet. Only government-run internet cafes offer internet and there the costs are prohibitive. So the ordinary Cuban, sadly, is deprived of something we take for granted (even on our phones). If you walk down any street, you’ll see everyone sitting in their porches or on their swings or rocking chairs, watching the world go by. Or they are glued to their TV sets. In the evening, as you pass one house after the other, you can literally follow the TV programme as everyone seems to be watching the same channel (with some sort of soap opera).


On our first evening, we walked to the main square in town – parque Cespedes - which has a lovely church on one end, a museum on the other – Santiago’s swishest hotel ‘casa grande‘ is also on this square. Lo and behold, there was an open air music performance that was happening on this square (what’s new you ask?). A rather picturesque setting for the lively performance. We then made our way to the – you’ve guessed it – casa de la trova. This one was slightly more sophisticated than the one in Baracoa and there was even a professional dancing couple who swayed to the music of the band and encouraged others to join in. The motley crowd consisted of Russian tourists with Cuban prostitutes, and group of Eastern Europeans who performed what can only be termed as a flash-mob-dance - they came on the dance floor for exactly two minutes and then disappeared as quietly as they had come.

One on of our excursions we were driven in a lovely 1954 Chevrolet – I couldn’t help myself and asked the driver if I could drive the beauty. The gears, brakes, and clutch were a bit stiff but I felt like a King driving the car on the streets of Santiago. That’s one more item ticked off the bucket list.

Santiago has a lovely cemetery - Cemeterio de Santa Ifigenia – where many eminent Cubans are buried. There is an elaborate tomb for Jose Marti who is Cuba’s national hero. We was responsible for bringing together the Second war of Independence from the Spanish in the 1890s. Sadly, Marti died in 1895 and did not live to see Cuba gain independence in 1898. There is a simple changing-of-the-guard ceremony every half hour. The tomb is full of symbolism and is built in such a way that the Sun always falls on his tomb. Another famous Cuban who’s buried in the cemetery is Company Segundo, a musician, who became due to the film Beuna Vista Social Club.

The Bacardi family also have their family tomb in this cemetery – this family managed the Bacardi Rum brand and the distilling factory in Cuba before moving to Peurto Rico in the 1930s. The old Bacardi factory now, of course, does not distill Bacardi but churns out Santiago de Cuba Rum and Varadero Rum.

There was also an interesting ‘Museo de Ron’ (Rum Museum) where, unfortunately, all signs were in Spanish so I wasn’t much wiser after my visit there (despite the free tastings inside me!).

About 10 kilometres from Santiago city centre is the Castillo del Morro construction of which was commenced in 1638 (this Castillo was rebuilt in 1664 after the pirate Henry Morgan destroyed it. Every evening at the Castillo there is a flag-lowering ceremony (canonazo) in which people in period costume lower the Cuban flag and fire a cannon into the sea signifying the end of the day.

My only complaint with Santiago was the weather. Temperatures touched 35° which made sightseeing quite a chore.

Next stops Camaguey and Trinidad.

Ba..Ba..Baracoa (Jun'12)

We took a (ridiculously) early morning flight from Havana to Baracoa which is in the Guantanamo province which, unfortunately, is famous for something that someone promised to close down in his election campaign. OK, no politics here! If you can visualise Cuba like a horizontal banana, Havana is at the north-west end and Baracoa is at the north-east tip.

From the flight we got our first aerial views of the Cuban countryside - lush-green with lots of lovely beaches (of course, this is the carribean). Because of sanctions, Cuba finds it difficult to maintain and service aircrafts, so safety standards are not exactly confidence-inspiring, but we made it through our flight anyway.

A flash history of Cuba – Columbus landed in Cuba in 1492 and claimed the island for the Spaniards. Cuba remained under Spanish rule for centuries – the first war of independence was fought from 1868-78 and it was only during the second war of independence during the 1890s that Cuba got independence from the Spanish (1898). It then came under the American sphere of influence till 1st of January, 1959 when the revolution (lead by Castro and Guevara) overthrew the pro-America Batista dictatorship.

Baracoa is the where Christopher Columbus first landed in Cuba. Consequently, it is the site of the first Spanish settlement in Cuba - there were seven that were set up by Diego Velazquez. Baracoa also happened to be Cuba’s first capital city. At that time, the area was inhabited by Taino Indians. One of the local heroes (Hatuey) stood upto the Spanish. When he was caught, he was told that if he converted (to Christianity) he would go to heaven. Hatuey responded that he’d rather go to hell if heaven was full of Spaniards! There is a menacing-looking statue of Hatuey facing the Cathedral. Talk about symbolism

This cathedral has a wooden cross which apparently Columbus brought from Europe (there is some dispute about the veracity of this story, though). Since the Cathedral is currently under renovation, this cross is housed in the local parish hall. When we went there, young girls were practicing for a quince party (when a girl turns 15, her family throws a lavish party).

Then we plonked ourselves at the local bar where one toughie with a huge Che Guevara tattoo on his arm tried to have a conversation with me (he speaking in Spanish and me responding in my tutti-footi spanish). Then we were accosted by the local drunk - whom I tried to ward off by saying non hablo Espanol but he kept on saying (someone translated) that if you say 'I don't speak Spanish' in Spanish then obviously you know Spanish. Well, you can’t argue with that! Reminds me of the extract from 'The Little Prince' where he meets the drunkard who tells that he drinks to forget. To forget what? asked The Little Prince. To forget that I'm ashamed. Ashamed of what? Ashamed of drinking. Sometimes drunks can use watertight logic.

Baracoa is a nice little flat town – there are hardly any buildings that have a second storey. Even though it is a really old town, it is planned into grids with perpendicular lanes. So it is easy, and simultaneously not so easy, to get lost in Baracoa. All the houses are painted in the brightest of colours. The city had no road / rail links till the 1960s so effectively it was cut off from the rest of the country but now it is on the itinerary of all tourists visiting Cuba. And not without reason.

It was in Baracoa that I was introduced to the concept of Casa de la Trova. Trova is a branch of Cuban music and is derived from the music of the Trovadores, or itinerant musicians. Almost every city/town in Cuba has a Casa de la Trova where upcoming and established acts play live music every evening. The Casa in Baracoa was literally on the street. Every evening chairs would be laid out on the street and a band would play and whoever felt like it could join the audience or even dance out in the open.

Something about Cubans and dancing. I spent about two and a half weeks in Cuba and the one lesson I took away was that Cubans have dancing in their genes. They’re so good at it and so confident about it that it puts non-Cubans to shame. Young children, of age two or three, are taught the basic Salsa steps and these remain with them for life. Any occasion where they can dance, they dance. It is a bit unfair to the rest of the world how comfortable they are with dancing.

The next day we did a wee excursion in the area near Baracoa. We first went to Playa Manglito (beach) where I did wet my feet (I don't know swimming, remember!) and we had fresh coconut water (straight from the source). Of course, this being Cuba we added rum inside the coconut to make a coco loco (literally: crazy coconut). From there we went up to the mouth of the river Yumuri and took a wee row boat into the interiors where we took a much-needed dip in a swimming hole.

Back at Playa Manglito, a local (called El Americano) had cooked up a meal for us. Apparently years back, when this sixty- or seventy-something man was a young boy, some Americans had come in their ship and when they saw his fair hair and skin they said that the boy looked American - since then he's been called El Americano. Anyways, he'd cooked us a great meal of fish and chicken and we had it by the beach (along with beer and coco loco naturally).

That night it was back to the Casa de la Trova again. After the usual round of beer, music, and dancing, we headed to a hill-top open air disco called El Ranchon. One girl tried her level best to pick me up (she even tried a seductive ‘will you come to my house’). In the end I just bought her a beer and a pack of cigarettes and she was happy.

One of Baracoa’s most famous hotels is the El Castillo - which is atop a hill, and used to be a prison, from where one gets lovely views of the surrounding countryside – including the airport which is right next to the sea. One can also see El Yunque - a table-top mountain, which I, in my laziness relinquished an opportunity of climbing.

The next day, we took a bus to Santiago de Cuba. More on that in the next post.

Getting into Cuba (Jun'12)

At Paris CDG, I shared a beer with this gentleman from Mali who was waiting for his flight to Bamako. Hearing him talking about his country reminded me how badly I've been wanting to visit Mali for a while. Hopefully soon!

Anyway, after a nine and a half hour flight from Paris to Havana, when we were about to land at Havana, the pilot announced that there was a tropical storm at Havana and Jose Marti airport (more on him later) was shut down so our flight was being diverted to a town called Veradero about 70 miles away. Then we were told that we had to wait in the aircraft since we couldn't exit at this airport (something about immigration and customs).

One German couple decided to raise a stink and wanted to know when exactly we would be flying back to Havana. Obviously, the aircraft couldn't take off for Havana till the airport there would not open and that was beyond the control, and knowledge, of the crew. But the German couple would have nothing of it - "No you have to tell us when. One hour? Two hours? Ten hours?"

While the Germans were being a pain in the backside, the Cubans in the plane were having a party - much laughing, story-telling and photo-taking. Well, that is the Cuban psychology for you. Fun loving in spite of adversity.

Finally, after two hours of waiting (and much head-shaking and pooh-poohing by the aforementioned German couple), we were finally told, amidst clapping, that the storm at Havana had abated and the airport was open.

So after a short twenty minutes flight, we landed in our original intended destination. Since the airport had been closed for a few hours and when it opened quite a few flights landed around the same time so the queue at immigrations was, i'm not joking here, forty persons deep. And naturally, as per I-forget-who's law, the queue I was in moved the slowest.

After two hours of waiting, my turn came. Now let me tell you something about Cuban visas. Most people are given a 'Tourist card' which is not stuck onto the passport so there is never any proof that you entered Cuba. But the Cuban embassy in Delhi issued me a stick-on visa - so I was an outlier in the queue. But that was not all, the lady apparently had never seen an Indian passport earlier (so it seemed!) so she asked me to stand aside and fill a landing card.

Not wanting to deal with my 'tricky' case, she passed me onto her colleague who made a couple of phone calls and asked me to wait. Then her boss came and she asked me all sorts of questions "why are you in Cuba? When are you leaving?" I was joining a tour group so I showed her my voucher and return flight details. Then she decided to go through my passport and stamps page by page. When she saw all the unconventional visas in my passport (Uzbekistan, Burma, Iran, Russia) she smiled and asked, "you like to travel?". I knew it then that my bonafides were established and she told her colleague to stamp me in the country. So now I have a Iran visa in my passport, and a Cuban one. Heaven knows if I'll ever be able to get into the US (not that I want to!). Maybe I need to visit North Korea to seal the issue.

The first day I just went to "Viejo Havana" (Old Havana) and walked around just to get orientated and used to the new country I was in. As a first timer into Cuba, there were three things that struck me about Havana (and Cuba, in general). Yes, I'm going to bore you with a list.

First are the colours. It's an explosion of colours. The buildings are all painted in lovely hues of pink, yellow, red, orange.....the colours really hit you.

Secondly, the old cars. Because of the trade embargo it is not easy to import cars into Cuba so they're mainly stuck with what they had pre-revolution (1958) and let me tell you, I just love the cars from the 40s and the 50s. They had character and life of their own (unlike the so-called ergonomic and efficient, but totally insipid and shitty, designs we get for cars today). So about 80% of the cars on the street (that's my reckoning of the percentage) are from the 40s and 50s which gives the country a very old-world feel.

Thirdly, and this is my favourite one, there is music everywhere. I know it sounds like a cliche, but it is totally true. You're walking down a residential street and there is music emanating from almost every second house - I'm sure Cuba has more bands per-capita than any other country. There's live music in most good restaurants and if there isn't live music, there is, of course, music playing. So you're never far away from music.

Those were my first impressions of Cuba, and in hindsight, they were not off the mark.