cubablog

Sat, 20 May 2006 07:01:33 +0930

cubablog 2

Sat, 20 May 2006 06:54:42 +0930

our trip to cuba - part 2

wednesday 6th

we had a big day at the pool at the hotel riviera today, steve and i did the internet stuff at the hotel melia cohiba next door and the rest of the time was spent poolside. norma brought another baby and a little girl from their house so we had 3 babies and an eight year old which was a bit of a handful!

thursday 7th

danys met us this morning and we went to the parque lenin, he brought along a 2nd cousin of his, daiay who is 9 and she was great with kai.   we caught a taxi to the parque which is about 20km from town, the whole area covers about 600 hectares and we went first to the area of the amusment park and kai went for a ride on a merry go round and another ride which he loved, he then went for a ride on a real horse with daiay.

kai & daiay on pony

i made an executive decision that we should walk towards the botanical gardens in the middle of the hot, humid, sunny day so that we could have lunch at a restaurant i knew of. after walking about three kms the rest of the crew mutinied and danys flagged down a local bus which by chance took us to right outside the cuba expo site and the botanical gardens.

cuba expo was built in 1989 for an international expo of cuban technology and products and is a large sprawling site with buildings still containing much of the exhibitions from the expo, it is typically cuban, crumbling, decaying, falling to bits and quite interesting!
we followed directions from the entrance to a restarant, air con in an old railway coach, unfortunately every table was taken, although ominously not one person had food in front of them so i suspect the service was a little slow!

next we were directed to a bar/restaurant that looked nice with tables under a large roof and not many people inside, but they informed us that they had a large reservation for a school group and it would be at least 1 1/2 hours before they could serve us!

by this stage we were ravenous, hot and grumpy but there was apparently one more option so we trudged off to the third restaurant in the expo, the ‘don cuba’. it turned out to be a real oasis and one of the best we have found in all of havana, they had a big air con restaurant and a lovely coutyard with tabless also, we sat out in the shady courtyard and had their special of the day which was chicken, congri (rice & black beans), french fries, salad and a glass of white wine for $2.90!! we lashed out and ordered a lobster as well because danys had never eaten lobster and we were keen to try it here.

the white wine was very good for a house wine and i asked the waitress where it came from, she told me china – which i put down to my terrible spanish so i got danys to ask another waiter, and yes it was a chinese wine, great wall white wine!! according to the bottle it had won some impressive medals in european wine shows!

after lunch we went across to the botanical gardens and went on a guided tour in wagon pulled by a tractor – much to kai’s fascination.   it was fantastic, there was a small group of italians on as well and the guide talked us around the gardens in italian, english and spanish!

it is quite amazing how many plants in cuba are also in australia, particularly in nhulunbuy, i guess the fact that they are both in the tropics is a partial explanation but everything from ground covers to palms and trees we saw so many familiar plants.

so we have had two big days and they must have had their effect on kai – last night he slept from 7 40 until 4 40 this morning and then went back to sleep for another hour. so 9 hours straight which is a world record for the little monster!

friday 8th

well kai is 18 months old today and to celebrate hurricane dennis is set to visit havana, it is a doozy, a category 4 with winds to 215km/h rising to 240km/h, 950 hp pressure and currently belting the oriente or eastern end of cuba.

everyone is batterning down the hatches and the panic buying is in full swing – just like home! we have joined in the party, stocked up this morning at the markets and i have boiled heaps of water so we have enough to drink. we have bought a couple of torches and it is just a matter of waiting now.

it is hard to imagine what a category 4 hurricane will do to havana if it hits with its full strength.

already the footage on the tv of the area around santiego de cuba is pretty scary.

it is about 3 00 in the afternoon and the gas has gone off – before i had a chance to cook the beans and meat i was going to use as hurricane food! we went out with danny to check on a reggae concert that was meant to happen today but the building has been turned into a cyclone shelter so no luck! walking back to havana vieja in the afternoon it was obvious everyone was preparing, most of the shops were closed and removing stock from the display windows and taping up the glass.

we finally found a bar open and so we sat drinking beer and listening to a cuban band as the hurricane rolled nearer. kai had some food there as i was starting to worry about what we had for him to eat and it was obvious everything was going to be closed soon

we put kai down about 7 30 and danny and i went to try to find some food for us, the only thing we could find was a restaurant near us that we have never bothered going into because it looks like expensive tourist food – which we soon discovered it was, $27 australian for 3 little crappy pizzas!

danys was really upset because he didn’t understand how something that costs maybe 20c in the street could cost nearly a months wages for him.

we took one home for sal and not long after getting back the power went off. i had managed to buy a couple of torches during the day and the iopd and computer were fully charged plus we had plenty of rum!

the winds and rain increased steadily during the night and we could here things flying around outside, the eye passed about 20km east of havana at about 3 00 am and as lluck would have it we were spared the full fury as it weakened as it passed over land and was down to a category 2 when it hit us.

i think that much stronger and the results would have been awful, i was pretty sure we would be alright up to a point but even this building in 260km/r winds would have been very likely to be torn apart.

saturday 9th

last night hurricane dennis cut a swarth of destruction through cuba, there are at least 10 dead and over 2 million evacuated. most of the provinces have been effected with only the very north west tip being spared.

as i said it was not too bad here but there is no sign of the power coming back on or the gas for that matter, the rain has come in behind the hurricane and we a prisoners in the house for now.

the rain has eased this afternoon and we managed to get out in the street for a while. there is not too much destruction, mainly trees and branches down, not much obvious damage to buildings

the power and gas are starting to be a concern, we have very little food and nothing is open still. it is impossible to know when they will be restored, the winds are gone, the rain has eased and we can only assume there is a lot of damage to the transmission lines between the power stations and the city.

we found a hotel with a café and generator so we were able to get some dinner and while we were there the power came back on at about 8 00 pm so all is well – although no sign of the gas!

sunday 10th

hurray! we have gas again this morning – and therefore café expresso!!

looking up our street

thursday 14h

well i have missed a few days, i have been very sick with some sort of evil flu, first i got a bad head cold on monday and then i developed a hacking chest cough. monday night i had a raging fever where i felt freezing and i had to sleep wrapped in a blanket.

i felt a little better on tuesday afternoon so i went with sal and kai down to the plaza armas for a while but when we got home i was too weak to carry kai up the stairs and when i collapsed in bed i was sweating so much i saturated the bed underneath me, the sheet on top of me and the pillow. despite this i still felt freezing and had to wrap myself in the blanket.

all my body ached and every time i coughed it felt like i had broken ribs – not much fun!

yesterday i felt much better although i am still congested and the cough has not gone completely, last night kai woke up coughing and this morning he is now really sick also, he has a fever and the cough and also had a huge projectile vomit over the bed and sally after his morning feed.

we were to go with danys to the aquarium today but it is not to be!

street theatre

had saturday 16th

kai seems a lot better today, the fever is gone and he is running around like his usual self, still very congested and still has the rattly cough – but then so do i!

we will go to verdado this morning to update the website, check the emails and do a bit of banking, this will be the last update before we leave cuba i expect.

it is hard to believe our time in cuba is up next friday, there are still many things we have not got to do in the time we have had!

one of the surprises to me has been finding out how much ill feeling there is towards castro, virtually everyone i have talked to has been very critical of fidel and the system. of course they are careful about what they say and where they say it, but the feeling is widespread.

this week there was a significant protest outside the spanish embassy against the government, i say significant because there were about 1500 people there and the repecussions for them would be very strong. i imagine they were all arrested – there were stories of local police stations overflowing with them being processed – and they could end up with lengthy jail terms and harrassment and intimidation of their families.

of course in a more hardline regime like in much of cental america they would be lined up against the wall and shot, but this sort of public demonstration of protest is rare in cuba and a sign of rising discontent.

there is no news of this sort of thing on tv or in the papers, the media is completely controlled by the state and so there is absolutely no coverage of anything critical of the system.

i think a lot of the dissatisfaction is agitated by the US funded and trained cuban dissidents from miami, it is part of the US terrorist activities against cuba which continues to try to undermine the government here as it has done for the last 45 years.

the reality is that there is also widespread and real dissatisfaction with elements of the system, the main issues being the total control of the media, the lack of free speech, the excessive police powers combined with a police force with very low levels of education and mainly recruited from small regional towns, (perfect for training as thugs!), punitive and excessive laws such as the potential of 4 years jail is you are not working or a student, freedom to travel, and freedom to access the internet .

people would also like a reliable electricity supply, medicine when needed, and a supply of basic food stuffs without the need for ration cards – and I think it is around these things that the US backed agitators try to portray as being the fault of fidel.

in reality the reason for these problems is more than anything else the US embargo on cuba and the secondrary boycotts on other countrys trying to trade with cuba, the irony is that cubans don’t believe this is the cause because its what fidel says is the cause on the state run media! the irony being that when you have total control of the media people stop believing what they hear or read because there is no alternative point of view or critical analysis!

people also want what people the world over want, more money, more material possessions, although i think they are a lot less greedy and materialistic than western countries because cubans have not had nearly as much exposure to the capitalistic culture of the ‘me’ generation and ‘greed is good’. family and community values are much stronger and 45 years of a quasi marxist/leninist system has suppressed the ‘happiness via material possession’ syndrome.

monday 25th

fast forward time! we are flying over the snow covered rocky mountains as we leave vancouver. the last few days in cuba went at a hectic pace as expected, the rush to do a few final things like a ride around havana in a horse and carraige while still battling to get over the flu for kai and me!

we also decided to throw a party on the roof of our casa on our last night in havana, we invited everyone in the building, the owners of our casa, martha & isidro from our first casa and various other friends. we bought a couple of cases of beer and 4 bottles of rum as well as mixers.

memo – don’t throw parties the night before you fly! sal got to bed at 4 30 and it wasn’t much earlier for me so the hangovers were good!

we had a dramatic time in the middle of the night when danys and humberto went out to try to find some food and i gave them the keys, they left our casa unlocked so we could get into kai if he woke up, ilsia, the owner of casa meanwhile left and on the way down locked the door to the casa! it was a nervous hour or so until danys returned with the keys with both of us beside ourselves in case kai woke up and we would have been unable to get in to him!!

anyway he slept the best he had since getting sick and didn’t wake up so all was well.

me, cigar, daquari and hemingway!

the day before the party we had another nasty incident with the police, we were down at plaza armas talking to danys and juan carlos, another friend manelo, was also sitting with us. manelo is an older and very quiet gentleman rasta, in his ‘60’s and every day he comes and sits and reads in the plaza. he speaks no english and i never saw him speak to another tourist other than ourselves. the police came up and asked danys, juan carlos and manelo for their id cards and after a few minutes gave them back to the others but told manelo that he would have to go to the police station with them.

we all tried to find out why on earth they were doing this to this quiet, gentle old man, but it was obvious we were all going to be arrested if we said too much. the next morning we caught up with manelo and found that after making him wait for 2 hours a car finally come and taken him to the police station, when he tried at the station to find out why they had arrested him and taken him away, he was fined 60 pesos for not showing respect for the system!!

our roof party

the trip home has so far been fairly eventful, we arrived at the havana airport 3 hours before our scheduled departure at 3 35pm but the plane was delayed coming in from toronto and we ended up not boarding until after 5 00 pm and then spent another nearly 2 hours in the plane on the tarmac with communication problems between the control tower and the plane!!

this meant we were too late into toronto to make our connection to vancouver so they put us up in a crappy hotel near the airport, with a dinner voucher that was useless because of course the restaurant was already closed. (it was nearly midnight by the time we got to the hotel.) they then wanted us to take a connecting flight at 6 30 the next morning! we convinced them to change this to an 11 00 flight so we could have some sleep.

this flight to vancouver was also late and the service, food and delays convinced us that air canada are actually a worse airline than qantas – quite an effort!!

vancouver was nice, we rushed out to eat some different food and to get a bit of spice! spent time in the parks with kai and he of course made some new friends.

the big disappointment was finding to our dismay that our video and digital still cameras had both been stolen! i had packed them in the camera bag inside one of our checked-in bags because we had problems coming over with our carry on luggage being overweight.

it seems that what happened was that when the bags went through the x ray in cuban customs at havana airport they have seen the cameras and taken them out of the bag, leaving the camera bag inside the other bag. that meant we didn’t notice they were missing until we were repacking the bags just before leaving vancouver.

there had really been no other time when there was any opportunity to steal them, and even if someone had got in the room in toronto or vancouver without breaking in, the shiny laptop was sitting out in veiw, whereas the cameras were inside a camera bag, inside another bag. so it is hard to believe someone would not take the laptop in that situation.

we just have to hope that our travel insurance comes good! at least all the pictures were already downloaded on the computer and although we have lost some video, we had only just started the tape in the camera so we have not lost too much.

so i think we leave cuba with some mixed feelings, it is a fascinating country – for all the reasons i have described over the last 2 months and of course most of all because of those funky, happy, loving, warm amazing cuban people! but! their police stink, and their customs officers really stink! cuba truly is different to everywhere else in so many ways and that was certainly one of the great attractions, i am very happy to have fulfilled a long term ambition of seeing cuba before the end of the castro era and before the US moves in and destroys the culture and unique qualities of cuba, i am a little disappointed that my hopes of seeing a truly sucessful socialistic system were not met, the old lefty in me is sad about that – especially given the shameful, lying, war mongering, self serving right wing trend in western governments – particularly my own country australia, a place i am no longer proud to call home.

anyway enough ranting, we are happily cruising along on air china flight c131 towards taipei, we have just had the best meal i have ever had on any flight including business class, qantas and a few other airlines should take a flight with air china and learn about service and quality. the meal was a spicy salad with chicken in it, rice, prawns and vegetables – all yummy and fresh, a hot bread roll, a to-die-for dessert a bowl of fresh fruit and a couple of chocolate biscuits. as well they still use real metal cutlery instead of that plastic shit.

friday 29th

well we are on the plane to cairns, bound for nhulunbuy tonite, home after 2 and a half months! we spent a couple of days in sydney, sal’s mum flew out in the evening for japan the day we arrived so as hard as it was we stayed up for the day with her. it was probably the best thing we could have done as it got us back in the time zone.

we caught up with our dear friend koen who is over from belgium   setting up an exhibition of the casts of arnhem land termite mounds that i helped with 2 years ago. the opening is tuesday night at our friends steve & bridgets gallery in redfern. the other guy that worked on the project with koen & i, nick, is flying in from melbourne tonite and it would have been amazing to be all back together for the opening. unfortunately with my commitment to working at the garma festival which starts next friday, there was just no way we could stay till wednesday next week.

at least i have seen the first plasters to come out of the moulds, it was a spine tingling sensation to walk into grantpirrie gallery and see the sculptures on the floor.

koen came over and had dinner with us last night, geoff cooked up a feast and we had a fantastic evening remembering the 2 weeks spent making the moulds for the termite mounds and generally talking about art and travel!!

well i think it is time to say, adios amigos, i have loved writing my thoughts and impressions in my spare moments, i hope you have enjoyed reading them.

thanks cuba, thanks habana vieja

chao, rick, sal & kai.