Cuba
December 2008

back to James' writings and travelogues

Persistent prologue: I write these travelogues for myself, so that twenty years from now, I will be able to remember as much about these trips as possible.  I include as much detail as possible so as to get it all fixed in writing before the memories fade.  I share these with friends, family, and any complete strangers who find them, because people express interest.  I know that these writings do ramble on a bit, but I do not require an editor; these writings are here as aids to my own memory not as attempts at serious travel writing -- although anecdotes from these journals have formed the core of my more formalized and proper travel writings, which have appeared in print and on the web elsewhere.

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Part One    Part Two    Part Three   Art Digression

 ©2008  James Teitelbaum, all rights reserved.
v.1.0

Part one, in which we spend some time exploring Mayan ruins before getting scammed in Havana:

This trip was difficult but astounding, educational but confusing. It ended up being a bit arduous for what should have been a low-key bit of travel (low-key compared, say, to my three weeks in Japan in 2008 or my trips to Easter Island in 2000 and 2004). I have never regretted a journey, and I do not regret this one. But the amount of effort this trip took, and the amount of stress that I had to deal with was jacked up a few notches higher than I anticipated. The first time I went to Cuba was in December of 2006. I was working with the actor Gary Sinise’s part-time rock band, and we were invited by the United States government to play a show for the staff and troops stationed at the U.S. military base at Guatanamo Bay. We spent the entire trip on the military base, and did not see a whit of the "real" Cuba. I cannot say that this trip was what inspired me to want to return to Cuba, to see it properly. My interest in Cuba goes back a bit further. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Havana had been growing by leaps and bounds, expanding  towards becoming the largest and most cosmopolitan city in the Caribbean. By the middle of the 20th Century, Havana had a thriving international art community, a varied array of world-class architecture, and was a vacation destination for tourists from the U.S, Europe, and all over South America. Outside of Havana, rural Cuba was dotted with tobacco and sugar cane plantations, making rum and cigars of a quality found nowhere else in the world. Smaller towns like Trinidad had been deemed world heritage sites. And all of this in spite of (or because of?) a dictator named Batista. When Fidel Castro, his pal Che Guevara, and their cohorts seized power from Batista on December 31, 1958, the nation just stopped. Cuba simply ceased moving forward, as if someone flipped a switch and ended all development literally overnight. I had been told by many people that visiting Cuba is about as close as one can come to visiting 1958. There are buildings in Cuba dating back to more than one hundred years before 1958, but few built since that year. I had been told that about half of the cars on the road in Cuba are lovingly preserved American vehicles (all pre-1958). An entire city functioning as a giant anachronism is too appealing to pass up; the city is a goldmine for architecture nerds like myself. But also, the real Cuban culture seemed interesting: the mambo music, the Afro-Cuban rhythms said to be heard coming from every cafe on every street. The rum, the easy way of life, the romance of the Caribbean. However, time seemed to be of the essence, and I felt a sense of urgency to get to Cuba before it all changes. It will, and soon.

I discovered that a lot of Cubans suspect that Fidel Castro is already dead. It seems as though the stomach ailment that was made public in 2007 is a common one that is said to kill most people within just a few months. Fidel has not been seen in public for well over a year. It seems likely that his brother Raul, who is currently running things in Cuba, will talk to Barack Obama sooner than later. At that point, Cuba will be opened up for development, and will once again become the American tourist magnet that it was in the 1920s to 1950s. The uniquely Cuban identity, preserved so well, will evaporate, as the nation makes way for Wal Mart, Dunkin’ Donuts, and The Gap. The astounding if crumbling buildings - Colonial, art deco, mid-century modern - will all be demolished as soon as money flows into the economy for shiny new ones. The Cuban lifestyle, insularly preserved in an hermetic bubble of Communism, will vanish in the tropical breeze as the smell of American dollars wafting down from Key West - a scant 90 miles away - erodes yet another unique culture.
I wanted to see Cuba as it is, before it becomes nothing but yet another destination for spring breakers from Massachusetts spending their parents’ cash at the inevitable Havana Hard Rock Cafe.

And the tabu factor: hard to deny.
Let's face it, I like doing things that I am not supposed to.
You may be surprised to discover that it is not illegal for U.S. citizens to visit Cuba. We have a trade embargo against Fidel’s little island, not a travel embargo. So, we can go there, we just can’t spend any money. The thinking is: if we’ve been there, it is more or less impossible to have done so without spending any money, so that’s where the trouble starts. The Cuban government have no problem with U.S. citizens being there: they rely on tourism from South America and Europe as a key component of their Commie economy. U.S. tourists represent more cash flow. Bring ‘em on, they say. The trouble is in getting back into the U.S. of A. after having been in Cuba. If one were caught while reentering the U.S., there could be fines or jail time involved (although I have been told that no one has ever done time for going to Cuba).
Also, the United Nations General Assembly has condemned the embargo as a violation of international law since the 1990s.
In 2002, for example, the General Assembly voted for ending the embargo embargo by 173 votes to 3.
The three nations voting to continue the embargo: U.S.A, Israel, and Palau.
Palau???
Even with all of this international pressure, America still insists on maintaining their grudge against Cuba, a grudge born of Cuba's association with Russia,  a nation who are now... well, if not friends, then no longer enemies, at least.

So, I had to see it before it all changes, and to do so also meant going there while it is still effectively illegal to do so.

I spoke to a lot of people who had been to Cuba. It wasn’t hard to find friends, family, associates who had made the trip. My uncle’s pal Erno goes every year, and takes tour groups over for the Cuban jazz festival each spring. He gave me a lot of advice, as did my friends Sven, Naomi, and Pete, who went there in 2007 to research Pete's book Havana Before Castro. My pal Lisa in L.A. has been to Cuba, and a couple of Chicago acquaintances gave me further advice.
All of the data corroborated, all of the advice matched.

Time to do this.

Preparation:
Americans can’t fly to Cuba directly, we need to fly though Mexico, Canada, or some Caribbean nation. I booked a flight to Cancun ($323.59), with the intent to buy a ticket to Havana at the Cancun airport. Erno told me to budget about $375 for that. Looking on-line, I saw flights for around $225, but that was the price for buying them on-line, and two months in advance (which I could not do: even if the travel web sites were not set up to block these transactions, and they all are, I didn’t want any electronic paper trails getting me into trouble). Buying the ticket in-person, at the airport, a day or two before I wanted to travel would cost more, naturally.

Cuba’s money system is strange; they have two currencies, pesos and CUCs (also called Cuban convertible dollars). Pesos are only for use by locals, and CUCs are only for use by tourists. The two currencies have different values, and some vendors will only take either one or the other, meaning that tourists are shut out from certain goods and services, and locals are shut out from other goods and services. Cuban banks will exchange U.S. dollars for CUCs, but will tack an extra 10% surcharge onto the exchange rate. Euros, Canadian dollars, and Mexican pesos can all be exchanged for CUCs without the surcharge. It seemed natural to get Mexican pesos from my bank. I’d need those anyway for the Mexican leg of the trip. I got 14,700 pesos for $1149.10. I brought some U.S. dollars along for emergencies.  I was about to go to a Communist nation where the U.S. has no embassy.  In Cuba, my credit cards, cell phone, and Yankee clout would all be worthless.

I watched some movies to get into the spirit of Cuba: Mikhail Kalatozov‘s classic pro-Communist propaganda film I Am Cuba (a masterpiece of cinematography), and the amazing Alec Guinness spy comedy Our Man in Havana. Both films have plenty of travelogue footage of Havana in the 1950s and 1960s... which has not changed at all. Of course, I revisited Buena Vista Social Club as well.

I re-read Pete Moruzzi’s book, and photocopied pages containing maps to the best architectural sites.  Naomi sent me some detailed notes on her trip, as well as a care package (aspirin, band-aids, toothpaste) to give to some people that her group had met during their trip. Having heard of food shortages, I packed lots of trail mix, jerky, and granola bars.

International Rebecca, my Gal Friday Night and travel partner for a few recent adventures, would be sitting this one out; her man in Havana would be a solo mission.  But, I did discover that a gal named Nadine (not her real name; you’ll discover why I changed it as you read this) would be in Central America around the same time as me. I had only met her twice (more than a year earlier), but she is an expert-level global traveler, and was interested in a trip to Cuba also. We agreed to rendezvous for a portion of the trip in order to share expenses.

The night of December 7, I could not sleep at all.
My stress levels, for some reason, were significantly higher than they normally are before I travel.
This was a portent of things to come.

Time to do this.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Left home at 8:15 am. Wanted to travel as light as possible, so I brought one small piece of rolling luggage and a small backpack. Made it to O’Hare in good time (the Blue Line is finally fixed) and left for Houston at 11:00 a.m. The trip was uneventful, I lucked out and got an emergency exit row seat (for readers who do not know me: I am six-foot-four; the exit row really makes a difference). After a two-hour layover in Houston, I left for Cancun, and was seated next to an Asian couple near the back of the plane, but in front of the most obnoxious kid in history. Let us pause and consider that. The most obnoxious kid in history. The screamingest, shriekingist kid you can possibly imagine. The flight was completely full, but I thought I saw one lone empty seat way up near the front of the plane. In an emergency exit row. Too good to be true. People always snag the emergency exit row seats if they’re empty. Someone did it this time too: me. The only empty seat on the whole plane, it had more leg room, and was away from the brat. Win-win. The flight landed in Mexico at about 7:00 p.m. The Mexican night was hot and balmy, such a change from the record-low cold we had been dealing with in Chicago. I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. Rolled up the sleeves and undid a few buttons. Nadine had been traveling in Argentina since the 3rd. She made it to Mexico earlier that day, and had rented a car. She met me at the airport. We went straight to the Mexicana airlines counter to get our Havana tickets. Mexicana has a daily flight to Havana at 1:15 p.m., and another at about 8:00 p.m. We wanted to go on the Wednesday afternoon flight, but they only had one seat left. We decided that I would get the ticket, and that Nadine would follow me on the evening flight, arriving at 11:00 p.m. or so. The flight is less than two hours, but there is a time zone change, so you lose an hour. Cancun is in the Central time zone (same as Chicago), and Havana is in the Eastern zone. The ticket was $367 (I found it amusing to pay for my ticket to Cuba with U.S. dollars in a Mexican airport). I will also have to pay a small fee for a visa at the airport on Wednesday. Nadine had selected a hotel, and had already been there. She said she knew how to get there, and that it was about a thirty minute drive. I was exhausted and starving. Roughly ninety minutes later, we finally found the hotel. Nadine got completely lost, and we drove a complete loop around the bay. The bay? Let me describe Cancun for you. Looking at a map, Cancun is basically a long vertical sandbar, about twelve miles north to south, and - at best - a quarter mile wide. It sits perhaps a mile out from the shore of the Yucatan peninsula in southeastern Mexico, in the Gulf of Mexico. The entire sandbar has been paved, and there is one road that runs along the bay-side edge of it. The Gulf side is filled up with a seemingly endless row of luxury resort hotels: twelve miles worth. Resort after resort, all lined up in a row. Each resort has its own little patch of beach behind it, on the Gulf side of the sandbar. Along the bay side (along the road), is mangrove swamp, mostly. One could walk from the Gulf side beach, through a hotel, across the road, and into the swamp by the bay in five minutes or less. The sandbar has been modified at either end so that at the “top” and “bottom” are access roads leading across the bay, to the mainland and to the airport. On the mainland is the town of Cancun proper. It is a crappy little Mexican town, with no reason for tourists to visit it, whatsoever. It basically exists as housing for the people who work the tourist trade in what they call the “hotel zone”. In fact, Cancun was created and built by the Mexican government as a draw for (mostly American) tourism. There is almost nothing to do there but to check in to an all-inclusive resort hotel, and gorge yourself on food and booze while laying on a thin sliver of beautiful sanitized man-made beach. Spring breakers and honeymooners are about the only people who have any business in Cancun. Tip: when pricing hotels, you will see hotels in the “hotel zone” or “downtown”. The hotels downtown are a lot cheaper, but you do not, under any circumstances, want one of them.

So, Nadine had selected the relatively affordable Ambiance Villas resort, about three-quarters of the way up the strip from the airport (which is on the mainland to the south), and had shot right past it when taking us back there from the airport. We ended up at the top of the hotel strip, and kept right going over the northern access road to the mainland. Then we were in the city of Cancun, cruising through crappy retail and local housing. We figured out what went wrong, and eventually found our way to our lodgings.

I’d been looking out for food once I knew we were finally close to where we needed to be, and finally, by 9:00 p.m. or so, we found ourselves all alone in a decent Spanish restaurant. Might have been called Correjos de Espana. Something like that. I hadn’t drank a beer in months, but I needed one, and then some.
Did it.
My rule when eating, drinking, exploring: never the same thing twice. Tres cervesas: Modelo Negro, Modelo Blanco, Montejo.
Do not drink Montejo.
Ever.
The muzak system was playing awful syrupy string orchestra renditions of When I’m Sixty-Four, among others, but the food was fine. Perusing the menu, I asked for quesadillas, and without thinking about it, also ordered a baked cheese appetizer. The app was basically a small crock pot filled with white cheese which had been melted and sprinkled with chorizo on top. It came with some little tortillas. The quesadilla entree consisted of the exact same cheese, but this time they put it in the tortilla for me. So I had cheese, cheese, and beer for dinner. Off to a great start on that idea of eating nutritiously. My share was 300 pesos, or a bit under $30. The rule of thumb here, when converting pesos into dollars, is to move the decimal one place to the left, and then subtract about 15%.

Knowing that this trip was destined to be a voyage into rum, Nadine brought me a little one-ounce bottle of rum from Costa Rica: Ron Centenario Aneja Especial (uh, ron means rum). It was actually a pretty good rum, smooth and sweet.

Nadine was sacked out by 10:00 p.m., but of course I simply had to go exploring a bit, no matter how tired I may have been. I walked along the beach, leaving Ambiance Villas’s property, and walking past a few other resorts. The three-quarter moon cast my shadow on the soft, white sand near clear pristine water. The whole vast hotel strip was strangely deserted. I suppose high tourist season begins during or after the Christmas holiday, after the kids get out of school. But I was surprised that things were as dead as they were. Cancun was a ghost town.

Three or four resorts south of Ambiance Villas, I came across the Riu Palace resort, all phony opulence and ersatz grandeur. A second rate imitation of what someone from the center of Iowa might imagine to be the coastal palace of some European prince. A vanishing pool with gazebos at each corner, with Roman-style statuary on pedestals poking up out of the water. Faux-marble palazzos giving the whole thing a pretend Italian vibe. In the lobby are amateurish reproductions of Renaissance art, such as Poussin’s 1634 Neptune and Aphrodite re-painted by one (I kid you not) Nacho Diaz (2003). The veneer of opulence fades fast: across the street is a souvenir shop selling t-shirts for $3.

A small show happening in the lounge featured Hispanic men dressed as Michael Jackson, dancing to Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, which segued into some techno music. Some guys in the adjacent bar are high-fiving each other and calling each other "dog".  Outside, two young artists worked under portable arc lights on the terrace. One was painting with spray paint on canvas, and the other did intricate designs with his fingernail in acrylic. A dozen people gathered to watch the boys at work; this was the biggest crowd I saw in Cancun. The audiences were rapt because (aside from the Michael Jackson imitators) there was absolutely nothing else to do for entertainment that evening in Cancun.

I decided that Cancun is like Las Vegas without the shows, the strippers, and the gambling. Not being a fan of either strippers or gambling, I am not much of a Vegas fan either. But Cancun doesn’t even have those things going for it. It is a neutered Las Vegas, with a beach. But there is nothing as chaotic and over the top as the Luxor or Treasure Island here either. A second-rate neutered Las Vegas, but with a beach. Or, perhaps, the intersection between Las Vegas and Schaumburg, IL (Chicagoans will get that, I suppose).
Aside from the beach, why come here? It is all Hooters, Hard Rock, and Rainforest Cafe. There is nothing exotic here, there is no culture here, nothing that makes it interesting or unique. Just a beach. Why not just stay home? Is a beach that amazing? Maybe if you really, really love beaches, and you live somewhere that is nowhere near a beach, you can say to yourself “my life sucks, but a beach would make it all better, so I am going to travel a couple of thousand miles to somewhere exactly like where I have come from, except for that it has a beach, and that will make it all better”.

I guess I do like some of the Mayan kitsch here. On the way back to Ambiance Villas, I walked through an abandoned shopping plaza that looked like the shooting set from an Indiana Jones movie. The place looked like it had been built in the 1990s, but it was completely empty. The next big resort had already taken it out of business.

I had been in Cancun for all of an hour when I decided that I had already seen enough and that I don’t ever really need to come here ever again. Well, this is to be expected. I am only here as an unavoidable stop on the road to Havana. I have seen Cancun now, experienced it, and have formed my own memories and opinions of it. First hand knowledge. Wisdom. No regrets, but it is time to move on to somewhere more interesting... such as the amazing Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza, the reason I am lingering in Mexico on Tuesday instead of going straight to Havana.

I had been awake and on the go for many hours. I hadn’t slept well the night before leaving Chicago, and was tired all day today. The room was quiet, the bed was comfortable. But for some reason, I slept poorly and fitfully. Not ideal.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Took a glimpse around the Ambience Villas in the daylight, and decided it was just as soulless during the day as it had been at night. It turned out that my flight back from Havana (a week from now) necessitated me spending another night as a layover in Cancun, so I had to book a room for one night. I waited for a group of German kids to vacate the single internet connection in the lobby, and then found a place called the Flamingo, which is closer to the airport, and cheaper than Ambience ($76.16). Booked it. Breakfast was a resort buffet of semi-fresh fruit, a sloppy omelet bar, cold pancakes, cold cereal... in other words American-style breakfast... in Mexico... done poorly. So much for local culture. Nadine told me that breakfast was included in the room price, but after she left the table and went back to the room to finish packing, I discovered that it was not ($8 each). We headed for Chichen Itza, but not before Nadine was pulled over by the Mexican police for making an illegal turn right outside the hotel, having misinterpreted the local road rules. The cop wanted to take her driver’s license and make her pick it up (and pay a fine) at the police station the next day. We were due to be far, far away by then. After pleading with the cop for quite a while, she persuaded him to accept “a small fine” of US$20, and we were on our way. Two roads cover the 250 kilometer (155 miles) distance from Cancun to Chichen Itza. The roads are 180 and 180D. 180D is the faster road, a well-maintained highway that describes a beeline from Cancun to Chichen Itza. There are no exits, no gas stations, no restaurants, no towns, no nothin’ for the first three quarters of the trip. Just a desolate road through flat swampy tangled mangrove land. The most interesting thing along the road were three-wheeled bicycles seemingly abandoned along the shoulder, each with a huge metal basket welded to the front. These baskets are low to the ground and can probably carry two people standing in them. But they aren’t used for transportation, they are used to harvest roots and fruits from the impenetrable tangle of vegetation. Upon close inspection of the landscape, I noticed a few dirt paths leading into the interior. Although no buildings were sighted along the entire stretch of 180D, people must be scraping out a living in small dwellings deep in the brush, foraging for enough foodstuffs to fill their bike-baskets, and then wheeling the goods into market. But this road is 250 km long, with no towns along the route. Where are these biker-farmers going with their goods, where do they come from, and what are their lives like? I never found out. The total tolls incurred in taking 180D are 202 pesos (a bit under $20), and then 50 pesos (a bit under $5), but the price is worth it: the toll-free 180 describes an arc, so it is a longer route, and it passes through several towns. Additionally, the speed limit is considerably slower, the roads are less well-maintained, and more care is needed to make sure one doesn’t turn off to the wrong direction at a fork. We found all of this out the hard way on the route home. The trip to Chichen Itza took about three hours. The day was sunny and balmy, but not too hot, low 80s, and with a slight breeze. All in all, a nice day to be outdoors exploring the artifacts of a vanished civilization. The sky did get cloudy later on, but it never rained. Piste is the town nearest Chichen Itza. We got some gas, and then headed to the Mayan ruins. I suspected that the parking lot (30 pesos, or <$3) and the modern entrance area of Chichen Itza were not built by the Mayans. In addition to cops with AK-47s, the first thing I saw were tourists. Busloads of them. Thousands of them. I became one more. Where did all these busses come from? They weren’t on the 180D. We had seen almost no other vehicles at all the whole way.

After paying 108 pesos ($9+) to get into the site (video cameras incur a surcharge of 35 pesos), I walked up a short gravel path lined with vendors selling cheap souvenirs. Nadine had vanished already (without a word about where we might rendezous later), and I was free to explore on my own. The path lead to a large, wide, and perfectly square clearing in the forest, a few hundred yards on a side. At the center of it was the iconic central ziggurat, surrounded by nothing but the perfectly flat field, and more grass than ought to be surviving under the feet of ten thousand tourists per day. On the very perimeter of the clearing are a half-dozen marginally smaller structures, including a walled-in stadium for playing a ball game. The rules of the game have been lost to history, but petroglyphs carved into the stone clearly indicate the fate of the losers: death. Metaphor, or a literal motivation? A set of petroglyphs on another nearby structure show birds of prey and jaguars eating human hearts. Yummy!

It didn’t seem as though I’d need more than an hour to see this whole place, even taking my time and absorbing it all in as much detail as I could handle. But just as I’d walked the perimeter of the clearing, checking out all of the ancient crumbling Mayan sites, I noted a small path going off into the woods. This path lead to an entirely separate series of structures, and another path in turn lead deeper into the forest and to still more ruins. With each turn, there was another fascinating construct. Amazing Mayan glyph-art decorates it all, and informative signs in English, Spanish, and Yucatec Mayan provide context.

Vendors line every inch of pathway between the main sites, but they stay away from the actual ruins. I don’t know how any of them make any cash -- there is too much competition for essentially the same merchandise: cast resin chotchkies shaped like the main pyramid, and mass-produced “folk art” passed off as local handicrafts... all made in China. Some of the vendors sell flutes or little hand drums, and the sound of Chichen Itza is the sound of these vendors relentlessly drawing visitors towards their tables with their hypnotic sonic lures.

   

Further wonders included the main cenote, or sinkhole. This cenote in particular was called by Xtoloc the Mayans, and is the second-largest cenote in the Mayan nation (by the way... in Yucatec Mayan, “x” is pronounced like “ish” at the beginning of a word, and like “sh” anywhere else). Cenotes are huge, bowl-shaped depressions in the earth, partially filled with water. Sinkholes. Water seeps up from vast subterranean rivers, keeping the mini-lake at a nearly constant level all year around. These were the primary source of fresh water for the indigenous peoples of Mexico. The cenote at Chichen Itza is surrounded by a small wooden fence; the slope down to the water is perhaps a hundred feet deep and the decline is rather steep. You don’t want to misstep here. The water itself is covered by a thin layer of algae. The surface of the water may as well have been moss-covered rock for all anyone could tell.
I didn’t even realize it was water, at first. 

No one was around; the cenote is at the back-end of the site, away from all of the whiz-bang monuments. I tossed a stone into the abyss and watched a hole open up in the algae when airborne geology hit aquatic biology. The hole expanded to maybe ten feet wide, and then, just as quickly, it sealed itself back up. Like some sort of mechanical iris, the brilliant green film over the water parted in a perfect circle, and then contracted again, a sphincter sealing the water’s surface without any trace of the rock’s penetration. The puncture wound closed itself up leaving no visible scars. The plants behaved like animals, a herd, a swarm, a flock of microscopic beings, instinctively and precisely realigning themselves after having been disturbed. It was kind of cool but kind of creepy too.

Naturally, a few more fist-sized stones were hurled, and when I was through, there was no trace of any disturbance whatsoever.

The Mayan observatory building was also very cool, so I rested there for a while and (fittingly) watched the mid-afternoon moon rise over the observatory. You will recall that the Mayan calendar ran on a sixty-year cycle, which was calculated many centuries in advance, and with great accuracy. This calendar ends on December 12, 2012 - only four years (almost to the day!) from my visit to a Mayan observatory.
Perhaps the Mayan masterwork of stellar observation was completed right here, at this observatory.
Many of the same people who thought that all of our computers were going to melt on January 1, 2000 are concerned about December 12, 2012.

  

Finally arriving at the very end of the maze of tangled paths to various wonders, I followed one last path, a mile or so opposite the entrance, and found myself in... a three-star resort! Bleh. I did see a(nother) vendor there, and this one had booze. Let us see if we can discover something unusual. He gave me a sample of Xtabentun, made with regional herbs. The brand name was Vallisoletano. It is a sweet liqueur, made here in the Yucatan peninsula. It is rum based, but with a honey flavor, and some notes of anise in there too. 30% abv. It is probably sippable on its own for some people, but it is too sweet to drink straight for my tastes.  Maybe bolster it with a bit of tequila or some sort of infused brandy, and some citrus...
Well, I didn’t buy any, since I still had to fly to and from Cuba, and then home, and I didn’t want to schlep this stuff around for a week, and through airports, no less.
Cuba... rum... soon.

I had arrived at Chichen Itza at about 1:00 p.m., and by 4:30 p.m., the sun was starting to set, the vendors were all closing up shop, and most of the other tourists were gone. My mind was thoroughly blown at having found gem after gem of ancient architecture, each of them strung together like a necklace via the forested paths between them. I spent about four hours at Chichen Itza, and that was about the right amount of time. I suppose that people who are really, really into Mayan culture could spend longer. The average bus tour will only give you about two hours.

    

Found Nadine near the entrance.  We hit the road.
Home that night was not Cancun, but rather Playa del Carmen, a smaller and more intimate mainland beach town about 45 minutes south of Cancun. Nadine had a pal who owned a condo there, and we’d been invited to use it. Chichen Itza, Cancun, and Playa del Carmen form an Isosceles triangle, with the drive between Playa and Cancun being the short side of the triangle. Consulting a map, it seemed that the best way to get to Playa was to take 180 (the non-toll road) about half way back to Cancun, and then split off onto a different road that would take us into Playa.

Seemed like a plan.
Sometimes, things are not as they seem.
It took less than three hours to get from Cancun to Chichen Itza, and it should have taken just a little longer to get to Playa del Carmen.
It took seven fucking hours; we arrived around midnight.

After passing through Pieta, we rolled through a series of small Mexican towns, driving a bit more slowly than we had in the morning. We were on the lookout for food, but there are no restaurants in towns cursed with the sort of poverty so commonly seen in rural Mexico. Dining out is one of the many luxuries that wealthy nations take for granted, and is one of the first things that the traveler to nations with smaller economies will find to be missing. Except, of course, in the tourist neighborhoods.
The road was lined with endless tiny square houses, many of which did not appear to have doors or windows. Or electricity. I also saw a festive and colorful little cemetery, lit in gold by the setting sun, that I regret not having stopped to photograph.
The only town that had any signs of life was the fourth one along the route, Valladolid.
No restaurants.
Then there was a long stretch of nothing; hours passed. We made it to a town called Ignacio Zaragoza, and and finally discovered a ramshackle little roadside eatery run by a trio of friendly women - possibly a grandmother, mother, and daughter. The restaurant was the only building around, a lonely shack next to the deserted highway.  Four small tables and Mexican soap operas on a television with bad reception. The entire front of the restaurant was open to the night. Venus and Jupiter were shining brightly in the sky outside. The restaurant was out of chicken, so I ended up with steak fajitas.
The food wasn't bad, and my meal was like $5.

So, this is where the fun begins.
The spur road leaving 180 and veering off to Playa del Carmen was supposed to be in a town called Vincente Guerrero. This town does not appear to exist any more, or it may have been renamed Cristobal Colom (Christopher Columbus). In the next town, Leona Vicario, I did find a road heading off into the darkness in the proper direction. It was the only such road I was able to spot, after driving up and then back down a ten mile stretch of 180 a few times. A cab driver that I flagged down finally confirmed that I was looking at the road to Playa, but he warned me: “don’t go that way, it is a very bad road”. I did it anyway. I was tired, and pissed off, and wanted to get to a bed by the most direct route possible.
The road really was that bad.
It was not passable.
I drove five miles per hour, and it felt too fast. Water-filled potholes were literally bigger in circumference than the car. Who knows how deep these cenotes might be?  After driving around these lakes, I dodged boulders. Within a mile, I had conceded defeat to this road, and turned around to head back up the 180, bound for Cancun (and then a 45-minute drive down the coast to Playa).

Nadine took over driving. 
Her first action as el jefe of the car was to run us off the 180 into a ditch.
It was especially weird because it had started to rain, just a little, and I noticed that the road looked a little slick. I was staring impassively out the window, glad that my four-hour driving shift was over, and I idly wondered how slick these roads might get when it rained. I wondered if Nadine was going too fast for the weather. Well, the road wasn't slick or slippery at all, and our speed was within safe parameters, and this road was perfectly maintained, but that didn’t stop us from ending up in a ditch anyway. She just wasn’t paying attention when the road veered to the right a bit. A quick driving lesson from me taught my dangerous new friend how to use the low gears on the automatic transmission, and how to rock the car gently back and forth until we’d freed ourselves from the muddy ditch and were back on the road. I pulled out my Mag-lite, and did a cursory damage inspection; things seemed to be fine.
Nadine continued to drive, and then got us lost again, driving us in the opposite direction from Playa del Carmen, north from Cancun toward Puerto Vallarta.
We finally made it back towards Cancun, and then an hour later, we were in Playa.

Bed time?
Nope.
We had to pick up the keys to the condo in the mailbox of a real estate office. We did not have directions to the condo at all (Nadine had left these directions sitting on the Mexicana ticket counter at the airport yesterday), and the directions to the office that we did have were poor. We found the office after a lengthy search, but could not find the keys. A phone call to the manager did not help. Nadine ended up arguing with this guy for like an hour, calling him back several times. He wanted to come out and meet us, but she insisted that he simply tell us where to go. After they yelled at each other for a bit, I am certain that he definitely wanted to tell her where to go.  He finally mentioned an address that we discovered was nonexistent. We drove across the small town several times. The guy finally came out (near midnight) and got us where we were going.
We were finally admitted into the condo.

It was a pretty nice pad, clean, modern, American-style, and I had my own bedroom and bathroom. Not that I would get to enjoy it much...
After a welcome shower, I tried to sleep in the new and comfortable bed, but for the third night in a row, even though I was exhausted (again), I slept restlessly.
No jet lag either: I was in my own home time zone still!
Grrr....

And yes, I do believe I have a cold.
I have been coughing like mad all day long.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

I suggested that Nadine get up early to have the car washed, so as to make last night’s adventures in dust and ditches less obvious. She did. And then, we drove back up to Cancun so she could drop me off at the airport. In a twenty-four hour period, Nadine got us lost twice, had been pulled over by the cops, drove us into a ditch, lost the directions to the condo, and (gasp) was mistaken about the cost of my breakfast. We’ll let her slide on that last one. She has been to something like fifteen Asian nations, most of south and central America, and a lot of Europe. How did she survive all of these trips? How did the people with her survive all of these trips? Also, this person never shuts up. Ever. At all. Every waking second, she is like a little yapping Chihuahua. There are no filters; every thought in her mind comes out her mouth, with no interest in hearing replies from the targets of her drivel.  I stopped trying to converse after she cut me off mid-sentence a dozen times; I adapted a mode of smiling and nodding like a belaguered husband after thirty years af marriage.  I was due to spend the next week in this person's presence (intermittently), but for now, I was really damned glad to be back on my own for a while. Note to self: choose travel partners more carefully. Foreshadowing: I went to a currency booth in the airport to see about exchanging pesos for CUCs. The girl in line in front of me was denied this very same exchange. Although she was amazingly pretty, a dead ringer for a 1990s Charlize Theron, I was in no way hitting on her or flirting with her when I asked her what the deal with the exhange was. It was just a local info question between two tourists. She looked at me as though I was shit and grunted something unintelligible. Later, still in the Cancun airport, I watched her and her friends gnawing on their gum like cows chewing their cuds, and she had the most haughty expression on ther face. Arrogant and trashy - is there a less appealing combination for a woman? Read on, this is going somewhere. On the plane, I considered that a trip back to the Cancun vicinity might not be such a waste of time after all. Certainly the tourist strip is plastic and without merit, but there are more Mayan sites to see: Coba, Tulum, and others. Isla Mujeres, a small island off Cancun, is supposed to be beautiful, but I suspect it maintains the same vibe as Cancun proper. There is a ferry that runs between them. I heard that throngs of sea turtles were in the midst of swimming in to lay eggs, and that there were diving expeditions to dive with the turtles. This is obviously not a year-round thing, but it seemed to be a very cool thing to do if the timing of a trip is right. Near Chichen Itza, in Piste, there are also cave exploring trips. The one-hour flight deposited me in Cuba by 3:30 p.m. (now in Eastern time). I discovered that there is no public transportation at all from airport to downtown Havana. No busses, trains, or shuttles, only cabs. It is a fairly long trip, and I wanted to conserve cash. I was able to change some pesos for CUCs in the airport. I think I’d been optimistic when I changed my dollars into pesos, as the amount of CUCs I now had would barely be sufficient. I’d have to budget tightly. I was now in a credit card free zone, also bereft of ATMs or any other sources of cash other than what was in my pocket.

I loitered by the baggage claim for a bit, looking for other solo tourists who might be going into Havana. I found a tall skinny guy, maybe in his late 20s; I pegged him as being from Spain. He didn’t really speak English but I made my point known to him: “share a cab, save money” is a universal concept at international airport terminals. He said ok, but then he vanished. Then I met a girl who turned out to be from The Netherlands, but who spoke very good English (having spent a year in Australia). We agreed to share the cab, but then the guy from Spain came back. All three of us piled into a cab. The trip would be 25 CUC, or 30 CUC if we were going to separate destinations. We were. 10 CUCs each sure beats 25 each. And speaking of CUCs, one CUC is worth about 93 cents (U.S.), but by the time I changed my dollars into Mexican pesos in Chicago and then my pesos into CUCs in Havana, I’d gone through two exchanges, and had been financially raped to an unknown degree. The only way to maintain fiscal sanity was simply to figure out how many days I’d be in Cuba, divide the CUCs I had on hand by that number, and to budget accordingly, trying to not to think about what things were actually costing me.

The day was warm, breezy, sunny, beautiful.
As the cab made the trip into town with windows rolled down, I really saw Cuba for the first time. People were everywhere in the rural area near the airport, and even more so as we began to get into the city. Havana is a city of 2.2 million people, and in many ways is no different than any other major metropolis of its size. I was immediately thrilled (and yet appalled) by the cars I saw: stinky, smoggy, polluting iron beasts all made within a decade of 1952 or so. They must still commonly sell leaded gas here, because most of the cars here will need it. Held together with sweat and bondo, cars that were already classics when I was born tore down the road, always filled with passengers in both the front and back seats. 
By law, drivers must pick up people needing a lift: hitch-hiking is encouraged by the government.

Our cab driver was a friendly chap, and was excited to hear that I was from “Toronto”. I’d decided that it would be best to be Canadian on this trip.  Having been to Toronto at least a dozen times, I can fake my way through a conversation about that town. Upon finding out that his other two passengers were from Spain and Holland, our cabbie was over the moon, pointing to each of us in turn (including himself) and naming our country of origin, as if we were some sort of United Nations delegation. I was a bit interested to learn that my cab-panions were named David and Ellen; those are my parents' names!

El Capitolo

Turns out that David was only in town for a layover. He and I both got out of the cab at my hotel, and he immediately disappeared into the crowds to spend just a few hours exploring. Ellen remained in the cab as I walked into the hotel, she was going elsewhere. The ride had been fun, but I knew I’d never see David, Ellen, or my cabbie ever again. Such is the traveler’s life.

The center of the city was busy and bustling, teeming with people on the streets, full of life. It was exciting to be in central Havana on a beautiful day. For every amazing old car, there were a dozen equally amazing old buildings, and two dozen people with their own doubtlessly fascinating stories to tell.

Just around the corner from the Capitolo (the center of Cuban politics) is the stately Hotel Plaza. Beautiful to behold, the hotel was opened in 1909 (as a major addition to a previous 1895 building), and was restored in the 1980s. For the Havana tourist, this central location could not be better, but I would only be staying here for one night. Two reasons for this: first, it is quite expensive, and second, the only way to visit Cuba is to stay in a Casa Particulare, or a sort of state-licensed bed and breakfast. I’d be moving to a Casa the following day.

The hotel had lost my reservation (made on their web site), so rather than paying something like 80 CUC for the night, I was hosed for the full published room rate, or 120 CUC. This is a lot of money for Cuba. In fact, 80 CUC is also a lot of money for Cuba.
The lobby is beautiful, with intricate century-old tile mosaics on the floors, and restored Colonial-style details on the walls and ceiling. The place smelled like history. And yet, this is Cuba, mister: one of the big brass handles on the front doors was hanging akimbo. I noticed this everywhere; the people here make such an effort to prop up their sagging but amazing old buildings, their cars, their lives. And for the most part they do a good job with what they have, but there is always one detail that is left unfinished, almost as if to remind themselves that their work will never be complete. My hotel room itself was the same: tiny but clean, if slightly run down. Even the four-star tourist hotels are just a little shopworn around the edges.

Left and below: Hotel Plaza lobby

Right across the street is a little pharmacy. I could see it from the window of my 4th floor room.  People were lined up (well, standing in a cluster) near the entrance. That’s how they roll in Cuba: they wait outside a business for their turn, not inside. Looking through the window, the shelves were almost completely empty. The place looked like it had been built in 1902. All woody and dusty inside. No fluorescent lights, no white metal shelves like you’d see elsewhere. The few lights they had were really dim; this was something I saw all over Cuba. Maybe to save electricity, maybe because they have no light bulbs, maybe to keep things cool... maybe all of the above. A few precious bottles were lined up behind the counter. The people entered the building from the sidewalk one by one when it was their turn to get whatever medicine was available.

In the same building as the pharmacy, two large upper floors were being used as a school.  So, looking out my hotel room window, I was looking directly across the street at kids in school.  The classrooms seemed quite crowded, but all the kids had their uniforms on, and it must be noted that they were still in school well after 4:00 p.m.  Cuba has a 99.8% literacy rate, and is ranked first in the world for literacy (tied with Estonia and Poland, actually; the U.S. is tied for 17th).  Their education and health care systems are trumpeted as "Triumphs of the Revolucion".  I can't comment any further on the educational system.  Based on the slim pickings at the pharmacy, I was skeptical about the boasts of great health care, even given that they export thousands of surplus doctors to the whole of South America annually. 
We’ll revisit the Cuban medical system later. 
Oh, boy, will we.

It was now about 5:00 p.m.
By 5:30, I had been to (and left) La Floridita, a famous bar located only a block from the hotel. This place was on my to-do list. Founded in 1817, it is known as the “Cradle of the Daiquiri”, and is in fact where this particular libation is said to have been invented. Hemingway spent so much time here that they erected a bronze statue of him in place of his favorite stool at the very end of the bar. I spent 6 CUC on a mediocre daiquiri, and not having been particularly impressed with either atmosphere or drink, I strode back into the busy central Havana evening. There had been a band playing in the corner of La Floridita. Once again in keeping with the tales of Havana told world wide, I discovered that it is all true: you cannot walk three feet in this town without hearing some live music. Every bar, every restaurant, every street corner, every back yard are filled with the sounds of people playing music.

I visited Bar Monserrat, half a block from La Floridita. Contrasting La Floridita’s dusky, woody, (formerly) elegant interior, Monserrat is a simpler establishment, with big wooden shutters pushed wide open (typical of Havana style), allowing the musicians playing in the corner to lure people in from the street, and allowing sunshine and air to permeate the premesis. The drinks here are half the price of libations at La Floridita, and Monserrat serves food as well.

It was here that I first began to notice that rum is indeed cheap and plentiful in Havana. In the first of many, many sharp contrasts to what I have observed in most of the other countries of the world, it is the mixers that are pricey in Cuba. Straight rum of decent quality can be had for almost no money, but if you want sugar, lime juice, or cola (not Coke, but a local substitute) things get pricey.

I like Havana Club rum, and that is a very good thing, because Havana Club has a near monopoly on the Cuban rum market. I observed a few other brands here and there, but you cannot walk a block in Havana without seeing the red circle of the Havana Club logo. It is unavoidable.
Cuba is otherwise almost completely free of advertising. You just don’t see the impenetrable layers of ads and logos every single place you look, like you do in Europe and the Americas. But Havana Club is the exception. Their logo is everywhere. When Cuba inevitably opens up to U.S. trade, Havana Club seems to be poised and prepared to run their business American-style. They will not only get the cash of every U.S. tourist who will flood into Cuba, but they will also give Bacardi a run for their money in the U.S. rum market. It is as if they are practicing here in Cuba, preparing to stage a massive assault on Bacardi as soon as Barack Obama and Raul Castro shake hands a few times. There is no, NO other company in all of Cuba that has any marketing presence, at all, to speak of. I don’t know why this one company is allowed to be everywhere, while there are basically no other companies that are allowed to be anywhere.

A guide to Havana Club rums... Havana Club makes eight rums right now, ranging from about 3 CUC per bottle (Añejo Blanco - unaged clear rum) to 1700 CUC per bottle (for their limited edition ‘Maximo’). They are: Añejo Blanco (White)          Añejo 3 Años (3 Years)          Añejo Especial (Special) These three are all just fine for mixing in drinks. You can get them for 3 to 5 CUC per bottle in Havana and about triple that price (still rather cheap by American standards) in duty free shops in airports around the world.  The Especial is a dark rum, the other two are clear. And then: Añejo Reserva (6 Years)        Añejo 7 Años (7 Years)        Cuban Barrel Proof These are the mid-priced rums, and all three are darker in color. The Reserva is about 7 CUC per bottle in Havana, while the 7-Year is about 15 CUC. They’re about $15 and $22 respectively in duty-free shops. The Barrel Proof is about 40 CUC in Havana and around $60 in airports - but I have only ever seen it in an airport once. The Barrel Proof has won numerous international awards and is considered one of the finest rums in the world.  And, naturally, like all of the Havana Club products, it is not available in the U.S.  In Cuba, it is not rare, but it is definitely scarce; most Cubans can’t afford to drink it, and most tourists are fine with the cheaper rums. So, the Reserva and 7-Year are what is commonly consumed straight or over ice during Cuban nightlife. I actually prefer the Reserva, which is also half the price of the 7-Year, so goody for me. I have carefully amassed a small stockpile of Reserva and 7-Year while in various airports on my way home from Spain, France, Chile, and Japan. I dole it out like liquid gold at home. And here... I can get a whole bottle for the pitiful little sum of 7 CUC. Less than the cost of one cocktail in Chicago. I am in rummy heaven. The mission: score some Barrel Proof, and get it home. As much as possible. Finally... Añejo 15 Años (15 Years)        Máximo Extra Añejo These are the two extremely high-end products for connoisseurs and/or chumps and suckers. The 15-year is about 150 CUC per bottle, and the Maximo is 1700 CUC in the one place in all of Cuba where it can be bought - the gift shop at the distillery museum tour. Don Jose Navarro, master blender for Havana Club, asserts that his creation is the most expensive currently-produced rum in the world, but he does not justify why it costs this much to produce. Most of the 1000 bottles made per year are exported to Europe where there are suckers lined up to buy it. I do believe in spending money for goods and services of quality, but I also think that there is a point of diminishing returns. I believe that Añejo Reserva is significantly better enough than Anejo Blanco to justify spending double the price: 7 CUC instead of 3 CUC. And in fact, I also think that Barrel Proof is significantly better enough than Añejo Reserva to justify spending six times that price: 40 CUC instead of 7 CUC. But, I cannot imagine how any rum can be so exponentially better than that so as to justify 150 CUC (roughly $140) for a bottle of booze. I just can’t imagine it tasting that good, good enough to justify the price. Barrel Proof is already nearly rummy nirvana. I suppose there are people who would say the same thing about my ascertations that the Barrel Proof is worth the price, and maybe there are people who wouldn’t even spring for the Añejo Reserva. It is all perspective, I suppose. But truly, if you spend 1700 CUC for the Maximo, you’re just a fucking dumbass. Sorry. It. Is. Booze. Give that money to all of the freakishly poor people living in Havana. There are a lot of them who could probably live for five years on that much cash (average monthly salary in Havana: $25).

All right, back to my evening...

I had two drinks at Monserrat (1.50 CUC each for a shot of Anejo Reserva and a horrid Bucanero beer - one quarter the price of the daiquiris at La Floridita), but there weren’t many people there (the night was still quite young), and I wanted to walk around some more and see the city, not just sit on my ass. And anyway, the band for the evening were not set up yet, so the radio was playing a song that used a sample loop of Just Can’t Get Enough by Depeche Mode but with some Hispanic lady singing over the instrumental loops, and it was cloying and irritating. So I hit the pavement.

I was walking around the corner towards the Capitolo when this Cuban couple fell into step with me. They asked where I was from. Canada. Their English was pretty good, they started making small talk. They were going to get drinks at the place where Buena Vista Social Club was filmed. Turned out they were brother and sister. They invited me to join them.  I agreed to follow them. It might be interesting to see one of the Buena Vista Social Club sites. We walked through a major intersection across from Capitolo, and then past the Casa Musica (music house), an elegant century-old building where all manner of music is performed. Around the corner, down a small street, and then down a smaller street, my guides told me to trail behind them a little bit since “the cops don’t like the locals to hang out with touristas”.
Yellow light: caution, children.
We went into a mostly empty restaurant, and then up a staircase. We ended up in a dark smallish room with about six tables in it, a bar on one side, and no one in the room but us and the bartender. This was all starting to feel very wrong.  We sat down, and my host ordered three Mojitos. I was told that a Mojito was a special drink that is not served outside of Cuba. I didn’t insult my host by correcting him.
The drinks came; mine was basically sugar water with a mint leaf in it. The brother and sister who had led me here sucked their drinks down fast, and ordered another round.  They wanted to take pictures with me, their new amigo.  We did.  I shan't post them here.  A minute later, as if out of nowhere, a girl with the blackest skin imaginable (but with Caucasian facial features) appeared. The girl sat down with us, put her hand on my thigh, and asked in very bad English if I wanted to buy her a drink.
Ah.
Now I get it.
Of course there was an ulterior motive to this hospitality.
I said no thanks, and began plotting the most graceful exit I could muster.
I have never in my life paid for a hooker, or even for a stripper, and I didn’t plan to begin tonight. Before I knew it, there was another sugar water in front of me, and this exotic harlot was whispering into my ear: “fuckie fuckie”. Time to leave, and fast. We'd been here perhaps fifteen minutes, tops.  I excused myself, but just as I did, our bill appeared. The bill was very deliberately placed in front of me, specifically, and it was for 51 CUC. Highway robbery.  I stared at it for a moment, a little bit unsure of what my next move was.
I am a better traveler than this.
I do not get scammed. I have been all over the world, and have always avoided these sorts of traps. Also, I was on a tight budget to begin with, and having been screwed for 40 extra CUCs at my hotel (due to their losing my reservation) wasn’t helping things. There was no way I was paying 51 CUC for two rounds of rumless sugar waters disguised as Mojitos.

This image is completely unrelated to the text you are reading.

No.
Just no.
I’d have to stand up to these people.
By way of clarifiying the situation before getting ornery, I said: “I pay for all drinks?”.
My host casually but firmly agreed that this was the case.
I stood up, and said in no uncertain terms: “I pay for my drinks only”.
The bartender was at my side instantly.
So were brother and sister.
Hooker looked a little taken aback.
One of them reminded me that the bill was my sole responsibility.
I said one word: “police”.

I had been told that under no circumstances do I want to get into any sort of trouble in a country where there is no U.S. embassy, and where I am not even supposed to be. I have never had any sort of trouble at all in any of my travels. And here I am, in Havana for like three hours, already telling a bartender that I’d rather involve the cops than pay his bill. But I also felt like there would not be violence: I knew that the penalties for violent crime in Cuba are particularly fierce, and that the crime rate in this nation is extremely low. Tourists are a prime source of income for this country. And, as is the case in any country, you just don’t mess with tourists. Governments hate that - they want to tourists to go home saying glowing things to all of their friends and family... and to readers of their travelogues.
The bar man went through the door and down the stairs, ostensibly to get a cop. I made to follow him, but brother blocked me from following by putting a forearm across my chest. I said “ok, I will wait here”, and then relaxed my body language. He relaxed his arm and took a half-step away from me. As soon as he did, I opened the door and trotted down the steep staircase. Bar man had just reached the bottom, and turned to intercept me. Brother and sister were right behind me. I plowed past bar man, and strode with purpose and confidence through the still-empty ground floor restaurant towards the front door. I said in a strong voice “police!”, to no one in particular. Just as I reached the outside door, just before exiting, the bartender said “ok! pay for only your drinks!”.

I had called his bluff.
At that point I probably could have kept walking and told him to fuck off.
On the street, I turned my body into an alcove so as to hide my pockets, and pulled a 10 CUC note out. This was still far more than my tab was worth, and had I happened to have pulled a fiver out, he would have been given that. I slapped it into his hand.
Back straight, chin out, and “don’t mess with me” look on my face, I waded back into the Havana evening street crowds.

I’d paid 10 CUC for a lesson... and for two shitty boozeless Mojitos.
I was nervous for a while after that. As I walked back towards my hotel, only a few blocks, I looked over my shoulder a few times. Every young Cuban man was now a potential source of trouble: which ones were in cahoots with my new “amigo”?  He could have alerted any number of associates as to who I was and instructed them to enact revenge. I had no friends here. I was going to have to be careful of these people. They walk a fine line - every single one of them - between being friendly and good natured people, but also being desperate. And that is the best way to sum up Cubans. They have good hearts, on the whole, but they are also not shy about taking a handout, or asking for a handout, or pressuring tourists to give them a handout, because they’re all right on the edge, every one of them.

Another unrelated image.

There was only one thing to do:
Stopped in a small and mostly empty store and bought a pint of Anejo Reserva for 3 CUC. While I was buying it, a man asked me to buy him some milk for his starving child. I was so conflicted. I might have bought this man some milk under other circumstances. But I had just been scammed by some locals, and I had only got out of it by the barest margin, and a little luck. I was not giving any Cuban person any cash at this moment. And yet... how can I buy rum - the most frivolous and worthless thing imaginable - when this guy’s kid was starving? If only the timing had been different, if only I wasn’t still pissed off and fuming over the scam (and maybe also pissed off at myself for falling into what had clearly been a trap), I might have done it.
Then the guy pulled out is wallet and showed me a picture of his kid. Supposedly.
It was a little tiny picture, like a half inch by a half inch, and it could have come from anywhere, perhaps even cut out of a magazine. Well, maybe this picture was of this guy’s starving kid and maybe it wasn’t. My scam-sense level was jacked up to 1000, and the only way I was going to feed this kid would be if the tot were collapsing on the sidewalk in front of me.
But not right now.

Still amazed at getting this amazing rum in a funny ghetto-ass pint bottle (I felt like I needed a paper bag to hide it, and a front stoop to drink it on), and for so very, very little cash, I carried it towards my hotel. Crossing a street packed full of people, whom did I spy across a crowded intersetion but my new scammer friend and his "sister". They were already back on the prowl, looking for new victims. We were both about to cross the street, but from different corners, perpendicular to each other. We were about ten feet from each other, and we locked eyes. I stared him down through the crowd, and as we passed each other, in my crappy Spanish, I said “no amigos”.
This struck me as being so hopelessly simplistic and almost childish, that I started laughing as soon as my erstwhile new non-amigo had vanished, and I then enjoyed the hell out of my rum.
It was an adventure, a recipe for disaster, and I came out 10 CUC poorer and a little jittery.
But...
I win.

Except for this cough, which is getting worse.

Keeping my eyes out for trouble, I walked around some more. I spotted the art museum just a few doors down from the Hotel Plaza, and the revolution museum across the way from the art museum. Saw the national opera house, and the lovely Hotel Sevilla. Poked around inside the latter. A band were playing in the lounge, once again banging out local rhythms with little or no amplification. Cool intricate Spanish or Moorish tile mosaics decorated a lot of the lobby, and I liked a Deco davenport that was probably eighty years old and still in service. An art show was up in the lobby, featuring twenty-some wooden sculptures by Serie Danza, reminding me of Hans Arp or Barbara Hepworth, plus strange little color photos by Diego F. Lastre Rodriguez. His pics were of weird little unidentifiable shapes, like either legumes or car wiring, either carrots or copper wire encased in rubber, filling little holes in concrete. Impossible to describe, a visual is mandatory.
Found some completely different photos by Rodriguez on the internet when I got home: black and white nudes submerged in water creating blurred distorted shapes.

Took a leak in the lobby bathroom.
I share this tasteless and personal bit of trivia because it is another chance to reinforce my observations about Cuba: even in this grand and elegant hotel, a fifteen-foot long strip of 100-year-old molding is missing from the joint between wall and ceiling. There are puddles on the floor, and it stinks in here like the john of a gym. And yet, otherwise, this hotel is gorgeous. 
This is Cuba, mister.

Then I talked to two girls from Taiwan who were on their way to Mexico to study Spanish. They were nice, but one of them had a serious moustache. You don’t see that many Asians with moustaches, but especially not the teenage girls.
This is what I notice when I am drinking rum and walking around a big city on a forbidden island.

A walk on the Prado was next. This boulevard runs from the Capitolo to the sea, maybe a half mile away. It is a wide tree-lined sidewalk in the middle of the road, with a lane of motor traffic on either side. Kind of like the Ramblas in Barcelona, but narrower, and less commercialized. Fewer mimes too.
Everything is better with fewer mimes. 
Fewer mimes and more rum. 
Good.
The whole thing is paved in black, red, and cream mid-century terrazzo decorated with great diamond shapes and sort of four-pronged pseudo fleur-de-lances. The buildings on either side look like the best parts of New Orleans, but the walkway up the center looks like 1956. I am also reminded of artist’s lofts in big cities, which are invariably located in great old buildings that have been abandoned and left to rot. The artists move in because the rent is cheap, but then the developers see that there is cash to be made by kicking the artists out and rehabbing. When Raul Castro and Barack Obama have their little chat, this is going to happen to the entire city of Havana. The locals will flee town, and all of these amazing century-old homes will be gut-rehabbed and filled with Americans.

Saw a group of people toasting each other, sitting on the stone benches placed every few yards along the Prado. They looked like they were having fun. I want to believe that I met the bad Cubans first, that I stepped into the tourist zone and met all four of the assholes in this town, and that the rest of the Cubans were going to be nice.

This bit of optimism was actually more or less justified.

Made it to the sea. Where the Prado meets the water and where it also meets the Malecon (the major road that runs right along the water), I saw a bunch of statues of lions, a lighthouse, a gazebo, and more monuments and memorials. Hiked all the way back up the Prado, back past where I started, and then out the other side of the tourist zone. Here it is all locals, spending a non-CUC currency that I wouldn’t be allowed to spend, even if I had some. There is not much to buy, however -- really grubby looking sandwiches from a street cart, and that’s about it.
Sat in a park across from the Capitolo. Watched a big pile of people herd into a bus that had no destination indicated on the front or the sides. Not sure if they thought they knew where it was going, or if they were just happy to take any bus they could get. Then another bus, a much nicer one, pulled up and forty women got off. All ages, from elderly to teenagers. No men. There was a monument in the park near where I was sitting, and they all started taking pictures of it.  In the dark.  So I moved out of their way.   Why were they on a sightseeing tour at 9:30 p.m.?  Two of the women were near me and speaking English. Turns out they were from Uruguay on a big group tour.  Perhaps one day I will visit Uruguay and you can visit my-a-way.

Tonight I spent a total of 22.75 CUC all inclusive (including the scam bill), and it was near 10:00 p.m.
I’d just been wandering around for hours. But I hadn’t had dinner yet. I went back over to Monserrat, which was just getting going. The place was full of locals and tourists, and the band were throwing down some acoustic Afro-Cuban vibes. Five players: trumpet, bass, acoustic guitar, guiro, and congas. There was one small table left, so I grabbed it and got some food. Another 7.50 CUC for a plate of bony fish served with salad, rice, and beans, plus a drink and a tip. Enjoyed the music, watched the crowd.

Then I discovered that if I walked in the opposite direction that I had been walking in, I’d be in a part of town called Havana Vieja (old Havana). This reminds me of the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona (if we may continue with the comparisons to Spain), in that it is made up of lots of very old and very narrow stone streets, and has been fixed up and restored for the tourism industry. There can also be comparisons made to the French Quarter in New Orleans. All of a sudden, the number of restaurants has doubled, the number of bars has doubled, the number of obvious tourists has quadrupled, and the percentage of buildings caving in on themselves has halved. 
This is a large area with a lot to see... tomorrow.

Through and out the other side of Havana Vieja, one ends up back at the water again. Found myself at another fort, Castillo de la Real Fuerza (Castle of the Royal Force), the oldest stone fortress in the Americas, built between 1562 to 1577. It was a library for a long time, a museum for most of the 20th century, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Enough.
Brain overload.
Many miles of walking.
Rum.
Time for bed.

I needed to sleep off this cough, this rum, and these past three sleepless nights.

Part One    Part Two    Part Three   Art Digression

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