The Rain Came Down and the Floods Came Up

14/10/10 But thankfully, Otto and Mylena's House stayed firm.

It was the most spectacular wind a rain shower I've ever seen and as we peered through the shutters the street started to run like a river. Occasionally Mylena brushed the water out to stop the house filling up as well but told us that it was actually a tropical storm and NOT a hurricane (it had actually been demoted) and sometimes the winds were so bad that they had to hold the doors close and put metal bars accross them. Inevitably, the power went off - it's quite common for the authorities to turn the power off in these situations before it gets taken out by a falling tree. Quite sensible really if you think about it. We were concerned abour Otto who was supposed to be coming back from work on his moped. He did eventually arrive telling us how the wind had blown his helmet off as he'd been riding along. It certainly wasn't moped-weather. We'd planned to go to the cheapo restaurant that evening but with no power we reckoned it would be closed. As we never expected to be there anyway we had no food so we threw ourselves on Otto and Mylena's mercy and they shared their dinner with us. I played some tunes and gave them the chat about Scottish music in return, kind of literally singing for my supper. It turned out to be a really pleasant evening despite the circumstances. Otto and Mylena were extremely kind and welcoming to us, partucularly in our hour of need. We really felt we made some friends there and we'll always be grateful. It was great to have another experience of the trials that Cubans regularly go through and there was definitely a feeling of cameraderie with the locals that we'd all survived a crazy storm. It did however give rise to the second part of our Cuba video with the band in Santa Clara as well.

15/10/10 A Chinese Graveyard

The power stayed off all night and didn't come on until next morning after Mylena had made us a small-but-perfectly-formed breakfast with the little food they had in the house ('hurricane bread' and 'emergency quail eggs'). We had a look out the window and saw part of the reason we didn't have any power - a tree that had fallen and hit the power lines. A guy with a machete was dilligantly chopping branches off it while a bunch of other folk watched. As we walked around the town that day there were trees and branches down all over the place.

We'd really got all we wanted out of Havana by that point but we had spotted an interesting looking graveyard from the airport taxi the previous day so we decided to investigate. It turned out to be a graveyard for Cubans of Chinese origin and they all had really interesting Spanish/Chinese names like "Fernando Wong Dovales" and "Alejandro Chui Wong". There is a reason that there's a big Chinese diaspora here which I read about but I can't remember it now. At some point I'll check it out.

We decided to brave the market again in order to live and eat like Cubans but the money change place was closed due to the lack of power. The market was open though so we managed to buy things by converting the price (in pesos) they gave us into CUCs (at a rate of 24 pesos per CUC) and giving them slightly more than that. It seemed to work.

After that we headed back to the big hotel with the super-expensive internet as we still had no idea what the story was with our flight. We knew that we were booked on the flight to the Bahamas on the Sunday but we still had our (re-arranged and paid for) tranfer flight to Miami. The lady at Bahamasair hd said that she would contact Bahamasair in Nassau and they could speak to American Airlines there who might (might) be able to re-arrange a new flight for no cost but it was by no means certain. I was wondering that if American Airlines heard the word "Cuba" mentioned in connection with us they might just refuse to cooperate altogether. We'd also contacted our travel agent who was also trying to sort things out but with all communication being difficult and expensive it was very frustrating trying to find out what the story was. Eventually after much emailling and thrashing around I came up with the idea of checking the American Airlines system with our original booking number and lo and behold, we found that we were booked on a flight to Miami at 7.18pm on Sunday 17th October, just as we wanted. Someone had been working in our favour and at the moment it looks like it was the Bahamasair lady as she'd left a message on Otto and Mylena's 'phone back at the Casa.

We managed to make ourselves a reasonable tomatao/okra/spring onion/pasta/GARLIC concoction and ate it before settling down to watch Dr. Who on the wee computer for the evening.

Our last day in Cuba was pretty unexciting with more Dr. Who watched, books read and stuff listened to on the iPod feeling a little like refugees. We went to bed feeling a little nervous that we might be cancelled again (you know how your mind works in such situations!) but thank goodness, that wasn't the case. The next morning our taxi arrived far too early for us but Mylena said it didn't matter and we should continue to have a leasurely breakfast. Otto spoke to the taxi driver to make sure we were charged CUC20 and not CUC25 as the opportunistic taxi driver had charged us two days before. It turned out that the deal was sealed with a few of the "Old England" toffees (with an interetinly uber-Scottish decorated bag) that we had given Otto and Mylena as a thank you gift. Inspired! Our flight took off a it late but at least it took off this time and after some spectacular views over the Carribean we landed in the Bahamas. We were a bit concerned about crossing the US border having just come from Cuba. We thought we'd be doing that when we landed in Miami but it turned out that there's a border crossing at Nassau Airport. After a few questions from the humourless border guard (who didn't seem to notice "Cuba" on the list of countries we'd visited or chose to ignore it...) we were in the departures lounge and off to the US of A and the next section of our adventure.

Our memories of Cuba will always be mixed. Once the regime changes we'd like to go back and maybe explore more of the island but, despite it's best efforts it remains a bit of a challenge for tourists and especially the impoverished backpackers like us. We will however have extremely fond memories of the lovely Casa owners we met to here's to Carlos and his wife in vinales, Maria and her lovely family in Trinidad, Mary and her family in Santa Clara and the ultimate stars of the Paul and Charlotte in Cuba show, Otto and Mylena.

Miami here we come!

Too much avocado?

13/10/10 Last night in Havana

I'd always thought it was received wisdom that you can never have too much avocado. But as Paul and I made our way through a whole giant avocado this evening, it went from being yummy to just soft green stuff, and I found myself thinking 'I don't want to eat any more avocado right now.' Perhaps the world has turned upside-down.

On another note, Otto says we might not be leaving Cuba as a hurricane is coming to Havana. No!!! Must... Get... to... Miami...

14/10/10 Hurricane

So we got ourselves to the airport just as they cancelled our flight. There were other flights cancelled as well, but not all - so I had some hope we'd still be able to get away, somehow. We waited in the queue at the Bahamas Air office, and as I heard the word 'Sunday' bandied about despair hit my stomach. Then the words 'nothing else we can do.' When it all sunk in I felt dead and couldn't quite bring myself out it again. We'd built ourselves up to escaping Cuba (finally), but now we weren't even stranded a day. We were stuck here for 3 more nights. It just felt like a sentence. I didn't want to be just 'surviving' any more - I wanted to go back to living. I couldn't bear the thought of spending any more time trying to get through the segregation system and avoid being hassled on the streets. All I could feel was nothing. There was nothing we could do and there was nothing to do here. It was the worst possible place to be stranded. I didn't want to move, let alone find another expensive taxi to take us back and see if Otto and Mylena would have our room still (I suppose we're practically family now). It took a lot to lift the spirits and finally get out of the airport. Mylena was at home (luckily) and sympathetic (although she kept saying it was only a little hurricane. I hope it's huge). Now we wait, and continue to survive.

...Here comes the storm. We're hauled up here like refugees. The wind is whistling ominously, and the rain is downpouring torrentially. It's pretty spectacular. I hope it cancels other flights. I feel like the too much avocado thing may have become a metaphor for Cuba.

Cuba - an Incomplete History

OK, so after much reading and asking questions, here's the run down of Cuban history as I see it and my opinion on this country and it's state of affairs...

Cuba gained independence from the Spanish in the late 1800s but not really as a result of a Cuban uprising (there had been one prior to that egged on by José Marti, now regarded as a Cuban national hero). The US had already shown an interest in acquiring Cuba and in early 1898 A US battleship called "The Maine" (obsessively sent "to protect US citizens") anchored of the coast of Havana mysteriously exploded and the Spaniards were blamed (since then it's been suggested that the US blew up the ship themselves to give them an excuse to intervene in Cuba. It's probably not a coincidence that the Captain and crew of the ship happened to be safely ashore at the time...). The US offered to buy Cuba for $300M as recompense, Spain said "no", the US declared war, blockaded Cuba (how things change...) and in summer 1898 a peace treaty between the US and Spain was signed in Paris (no Cubans invited) saying that the US should respect Cuban self-determination. The Cubans were now independent from Spain but under US military occupation. The eventual withdrawal of the US was accepted by means of the "Platt Agreement" which stated that the US could still intervene militarily in Cuba's affairs whenever it saw fit. This allowed them to acquire the famous Guantánamo Bay naval base which of course, they still have.

A number of fairly dodgy puppet regimes governed Cuba over the next wee while including an army sergeant called Fulgencio Batista, who seized power in a coup in 1933 and later that year, the Platt Agreement was repealed (but the lease on Guantanamo extended for 99 years with the stipulation that both sides would have to agree before it was ever terminated. Yeah right.). In 1944 Batista's preferred candidate lost an election and after a few years of governments who ran the Cubans into the ground, he re-took power with a vengeance in a second coup in 1952. He then ran a seriously corrupt and unpleasant dictatorship trying to gain legitimacy by means of rigged elections in 1955 and 1958.

Now names that you'll recognize start to crop up. A revolutionary group formed in Havana led by the bearded Fidel Castro. He organised an attack on Batista's army on July 26th 1953 aided by 119 rebels. The attack failed and a number of Castro's army were captured and tortured to death. Castro himself escaped but was captured a week later by an army general who defied orders by taking him to jail instead of shooting him on the spot. Fidel was sentenced to 15 years in jail but was later released when Batista tried to gain popular support by releasing all political prisoners following the dodgy election in 1955. Castro fled to Mexico leaving a couple of supporters in Cuba to organise things there while he trained folk up as his revolutionary movement, now named M-26-7 after his failed coup. At this point enters the face on the T-shirts and posters, a young Argentinian doctor named Ernesto Guevara or "Che" for short. (“Che”, incidentally was the generic name Cubans called Argentinians, like calling a Scot “Jock”.) He had spent some time travelling Latin America on a motorbike observing the people and the poverty there and forming some fairly seriously left-wing views (no doubt influenced by recent events in China and Russia). He was young, intelligent, handsome and idealistic and as far as I can make out wasn't power hungry but was genuinely well-meaning. He ended up in Mexico after being chucked out of Guatamala for being a leftie. He'd heard about the Cubans in Mexico on the grapevine and you can imagine him riding up on his bike, flinging off his helmet, shaking back his hair and saying "hey boys, I hear you're planning a revolution, can I be of any assistance?". It’s not how it really happened as the motorbike was knackered and left in Chile but you can begin to see why he's become such an icon. Post revolution (once he'd helped establish socialist Cuba) he left Cuba and tried to instigate revolutions in the Congo and the Andes. He was captured in Bolivia where he was shot by the US-backed army there.

Anyhow, Guevara, Castro and co took a ship over to Cuba called "Granma" in 1956. It was filled with his trainees who started a guerilla capmaign which lasted for the next two years with success coming on January 1st 1959 when Batista fled. Castro became Prime minister and started setting up Cuba as a socialist republic (meeting then US vice president Nixon in mid-1959 who accused Castro of being a commie, something he didn’t admit ‘till a lot later and probably then only to win over the Cuban Communist Party). Socialist reforms in Cuba followed, including the nationalisation of all US businesses in Cuba with no compensation and as a result the US instigated the trade and travel embargo which continues to this day (this made our visit to Cuba trickier and more expensive - a US citizen who visits Cuba is still liable for a US$25 000 fine if found out and US businesses such as American Airlines will have nothing to do with Cuba). Cuba then inevitably made friends with the USSR (also seriously pissing of the US) and allowed them to plant US-aimed missiles on Cuba aimed at the US (the famous Cuban Missile Crisis). The US did try and wrestle Cuba from the reds by means of an invasion in 1961 at the Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) but that failed and the US was eventually distracted by events in Vietnam.

The fall of the Iron Curtain in the early 90s crippled Cuba beyond belief as it removed it's most important trading partner. A period of particular hardship began called by now President Castro "the Special Period" which the Cubans we've spoken to talk about as a particularly hellish time. In 1993 Castro attempted to end the hardship by allowing a double economy to develop with one in Cuban Pesos and the other in US dollars. The dollar economy was eventually replaced by the “Convertible Peso” (CUC - with one CUC roughly equivalent to a dollar) and US dollars were taken back out of circulation. There remains now the Peso economy (generally for Cubans only and particularly the poor) and the Convertible economy (for tourists, richer Cubans and those who want to make serious dough). Pretty much all industries remain state-owned including the hotels and tourist resorts but in 1998 Cubans were allowed to rent rooms to tourists as Casas Particulares (albeit for a very high tax) and many have entered the tourist market this way as it's one of the few ways they can make serious CUC cash (as opposed to earning ~£8 a month in Cuban Pesos). Tourism has flourished and now Cuba's even seeing the impoverished backpacker tourist (like us) arriving as a result of the cheap accommodation now available in Casas. The rise in tourism has however led to the unfortunate side-effect that many have found that there's more money to be made begging money/clothes/soap etc. from tourists than doing something productive. A further echelon of society have become "Jineteros" who hassle tourists in the street offering restaurants/cigars/casas/taxis that they then don't provide themselves but lead you to demanding a hefty commission from you or the establishment providing the item/service.

Castro is now 84 and retired from public life after a bout of diverticulitis being replaced by his brother Raul. With Obama in place the US is showing vague signs of extending an olive branch with for example the US National Ballet being allowed to take part in the festival here in Cuba this year. After both Fidel and Raul die, who knows what will happen here. If you ask the Cubans they just shrug - it's very much a wait and see job. It's been very interesting being here, particularly as Cuba is probably on the brink of a radical change. Most countries have a history which is complete but here you definitely get the feeling that it’s still in progress. Cuba does live up to it's reputation of feeling like the 1950s with the crumbling buildings, vintage cars, fairly bland (an unavailable) food and lack of the modern technologies we now take for granted (long distance bus tickets are written out by hand a rung up on old-style mechanical tills) and all of this is as a result of the US embargo. Arguably, the embargo has kept Castro and co. in power as it’s given him a good “bad guy” to unite the Cubans against. In the US’ favour it’s true that rights of free speech here are iffy, there are political prisoners who we’d describe as “prisoners of conscience” and the Cubans have little to no say over who’s in charge but the embargo has certainly kept your average Cuban in unnecessary poverty so who’s human rights record is dodgiest? Take your pick.

So if and when the embargo is lifted what will happen? Will Cuba suddenly become just another Caribbean island with only the rich coming for the sun, sea, sand, salsa and expensive hotels? Will it get a high-speed broadband network with Skype, Windows Messenger and will all the Cubans suddenly own iPods? Will the vintage cars all be scrapped and replaced by Ford Mondeos? Who knows? Certainly, it's been a pleasure being here and I'm sure the ever resourceful Cubans will embrace whatever future they have and try and persuade it to take a taxi/buy a cigar/go to a restaurant.

Viva la Revolucion!

The Cuba Diet

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