Kat & Marty

It took a long time for a word to come to mind to sum up Cuba, it has to be confrontational. Cuba has been a country of mystery and romance to me and I have long dreamt of going there. Most are now familiar with the Argentinian Che Guevera from the Motorcycle Dairies and the story of how a doctor was moved to help bring about revolution for better standards of living for a severely oppressed people. Also with the story of Fidel Castro who came to power in Cuba with Guevera's support and who later threw in his lot with Russia. Cuban people were strongly affected by the collapse of the Russian Empire and still are greatly affected by the trade embargos placed on it by the US. Rumours of how even the most simple articles such as soap are difficult to procure pervade, so it was difficult to know what to expect in reality.

What I didn't expect to see was so many proud, happy people everywhere. Cubans are beautiful and they flaunt it. Despite the lack of material goods and deprivations suffered therefore, they are a rich people who hold their heads high. As the most educated population in the world with one of the best health systems they have good reason too.

I stepped out onto the land of Cuba on slightly the wrong foot. Trying to be cautious of our rapidly depleting funds I tried to take a cheaper taxi and ended up paying double the amount  usual for our taxi fare into town. Usually this wouldn't matter but paying the fare took all of the money we had changed so we were in a new city on dark with no money, and we soon discovered no place to go. The hotel we planned on staying in was booked out due to the diplomatic summit on in Cuba of the unaligned nations. Fortunately for us the receptionist knew someone who had a casa particular - a private home that has government license to rent rooms to foreigners. Moments later we were rushed off down the street by a friendly gentleman who was immediately stopped by the police to check his license. Normally Cuban people aren't allowed to interact with foreigners, but his license was in order and he took us to a house across the road belonging to a lovely Cuban family who agreed to let us pay in the morning and who showed us to a restaurant close by which our last few Convertible Pesos could afford. Although it worked out well the situation gave me a bit of a fright and I was suddenly not feeling so good about being there.

In the morning we woke covered in sweat from the hot humid air that moved languidly in the fans given for our use. The one air-conditioned room in the house was already let to a Catallonian couple (Spain) who spoke a spattering of English. This turned out to be a huge help as the Cuban family only spoke Spanish and we were unable to understand the Cuban colloquelisms after Mexico.

We had an enormous breakfast of fresh fruit and eggs with expresso coffee - Marty is a convert, after which we took our trusty Lonely Planet Guide and attempted a walking tour through Central Havana. The city has an amazing feel. Ornate and stunning, huge old Spanish Colonial buildings stand decrepid and falling down, or at times renovated into superb examples of that period of architecture. One outstanding example was labelled the Bicardi Building - it was a renovated Art Deco building that took the label for one of the best we have seen so far. Walking back down the street we bumped into our family's father who directed us down to a Cathedral in Old Havana. This area has been converted into a tourist paradise where the decrepidness, dirt and trash of the real Havana is polished away and Ernest Hemingway is held up as a local legend. Indeed, we drank a mojito in the bar which Hemingway frequented and first designed the now national cocktail of white rum, sugar, mint and lime juice freshened with soda water. Once we had seen all the sights we took a bottle or two of rum back to our casa particular where we had arranged to have dinner and mojitos. The other couple staying were there for dinner also so we had quite a party. In that one night I think that both of our Spanish improved immensely - however it is still difficult to go beyond the weather...

In the morning we got up earliesh and took a taxi to the tourist bus station - this time we managed to pay a normal rate. Cuban people don't really have a good public transport system and you can see people everywhere lining the road sides trying to hitch rides. But for tourists a luxury bus service is provided to get you around the cities on the day you want to get there. We took a bus to Santa Clara to see the monument built to Che Guevera. There is a muesem there as well but as luck would have it, it was closed on Mondays and that day was a Monday. I had a nice conversation with the security gaurd at the monument about the muesem being closed and about the weather (hot!) and Australia (hot too) and walked away completely stoked at completing my first conversation entirely in Spanish where the other person seemed to understand everything I was saying. We still had our packs with us so decided to catch a horse and carriage taxi to another bus station that we were hoping would take us to Trinidad. The young man driving treated his horse really well but understanding where we wanted to go was another story and he took us way out into the countryside to some hotel. Then he had to turn around and take us all the way back - it was a nice ride.

Back in town there were no buses going further that day so we asked a taxi driver to take us. He charged us the same amount for an 88km journey as our first taxi charged us from the airport - but this time we were pleased to pay. The driver had his brother in the front seat for company and on the long drive they spoke to us in simple Spanish and with our dictionary we had some really interesting conversations about our different cultures. We were given a proper peso with Che Guevera on it for a keepsake, treated to sugar cane juice and to some fruits bought off a young girl selling them on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. They were similar to lychee but the name translated in English meant 'stain'. We don't know what they were. In Trinidad our driver had an Aunty with a casa particular so he dropped us off to her care. I was feeling a lot better about being in Cuba now.

Our room this time had an air conditioner and was a lot nicer. It exemplified the difference between those who have American contacts and those who don't. However I was pleased to be in a nice room. I soon discovered I preferred the cold water shower of Havana though, when Marty showed me the shower head providing hot water held live electrical wires. We went out and explored the small town then turned in exhausted. At this stage I started feeling quite ill as my stomach upset got worse and due to everybody smoking inside for the last few days I started getting a smoker's cough.

In the morning we rented a scooter and went out to Playa Ancon, a beach about 12km away. After a good 5 kms of dodging people trying to charge us to use the beach we found a deserted strip past a big tourist resort (which Cubans aren't allowed to accesss - judge for yourself on the fairness of that), with white sand, large conch shells laying around and water as warm as a bath to lounge about in. And we did just that for quite a long time. A little later for a change of scene we took the scooter for a burn up into the nearby mountains into a national park where we climbed a lookout and had cold kolas - no coca cola here. Before giving the scooter back we went back to the beach for one last swim - it felt like the perfect day. After dinner at our casa particular we went to an outdoor bar called the Casa de la Musica. It was set on a flight of steps outside of the main church in the central plaza. On the landing in the middle a band was set up with a bar and tables in front. At the top of the steps another bar was set up then behind that was a small fancy restaurant. We got first row at the top bar before the band started playing. Once it did get going it was incredible. It was a  Tuesday night but the entire area packed out. On the stairs below us Cubans and foreigners alike passed around  bottles of rum rather than pay the exorberant bar rates. In front of the band, couples danced the salsa. Teasingly Marty asked me to dance knowing I would say no. I can hardly stay on my feet when I try to dance! At 11pm we regrettingly left - the place was going off! But we had another bus to catch in the morning.

Back up in Havana after a 5 hour ride on empty 3 lane highways, we decided to try and get a room in Old Havana. We  had the most amazing room let to us this time. It was described as Moorish architecture and it was exquisite. Our room had it's own corner balconey looking over the streets and into the window of a school classroom also. The bathroom and living room had chandeliers - it was bliss, though the shower pressure let the side down a bit.  We caught a 'helmet' taxi to Copellia, Havana's famous ice-cream parlour and had ice-cream sundaes, then walked back to our room. It was far and in the heat I puffed up like a puffer fish. I kept making Marty stop and rest in the shade with me. At one point we went into an expensive souveneir shop with air conditioning and pretended to examine a table right next to the air conditioner for a few minutes. We found a market and bought a painting there of some jazz musicians before ending back at our room. Two other travellers had shown up, an American and an Australian who had met travelling years before and where taking a month in Cuba this trip. The two ladies were great company and we went down for dinner with them. It seemed we had learnt a lot in our brief stay as we had so much advice to give them. Even how many pesos to put in the bathroom lady's coin dish.

In the morning we found ourselves translating between our casa particular host and our new friends. It gave us quite a kick to be able to do this in comparison to our complete incomprehension of the language at the start of our stay. Taking a taxi out to the airport was a very philosophical time for us. We feel challenged in our political and social beliefs, these people took a leap of faith and tried a different way. They face different problems to us but they do still have problems. What is the perfect way? We don't know but are thinking hard of an answer. Our best wishes go to the Cuban people with news of Castro's illness and all that that entails.