Cuba #3: The Operatic Walk

There are no signposts in Cuba and you should always take a local guide with you on even the simplest of walks; otherwise, you could become lost in the fields and end up chopping sugar cane and living in a rural commune for the rest of your life.

The overture of the walk meant finding a muddy spur road at the top of the hill. The air was clean and the sun was comforting. We stepped into our first orange puddles with a feeling of calm, brave stalwartness. As the path became a lake, mild adventure took over and barbed wire fences were crossed as the path disappeared. We were mildly lost and got fearless soakers.

We were saved by a group of riders as they bumped and splashed along on their rented horses, losing objects from their pockets and grimacing in terror. We followed them and broke out onto the upper plateau: Butterflies, birds, vistas. I sang an aria that expressed my exuberance in the midst of such great natural beauty.

After the first intermission (where beer was served) the trails then converged and, suddenly, there was a plethora of horse-tourists. All politeness had vanished, and a cowboy brushed too close and kicked me in the backpack.

A word was spoken to express annoyance and the Cuban horse-tour primo uomo became deeply, darkly angry. His solo from the saddle expressed Wagnerian rage, hatred, and macho supremacy. His gesticulations became so wild (as he demonstrated the size of his own personal private parts) that he dropped his horse whip.

We continued, sadder but wiser, on our way.

We followed the deep hoof prints along the rolling river and up a steep muddy bank to find a farmer smashing beans beside his hut. We asked the way back and he gesticulated towards a far-off hill. Calm slowly returned as we slogged through the heat and the dust towards the Mirador—a shed with stools that offered us a vista, shelter, and drinks.

Nice young men (horseless) pointed out, with pride, an apartment tower rising from the tobacco fields. It had been built by Chile’s Allende back in the day in support of the Cuban social system. They found maps on their cell phones and pointed us in the right direction (6 km) through the underbrush. I gave them Swiss chocolate. They gave me plant-stem straws.

Half way down the hill, we were caught by the glittering eye of Viñales’ very own Ancient Mariner, and he showed and explained his collection of fossils, meteorites, medicinal plants, tobacco, honey and home-made liquor. He told us his tale of being a professor in Africa for the Revolution. It was poco difficile. I fell asleep.

Trudging the last few miles along the paved road, the finale was filled with testy fatigue and boredom and we sang a duet of sore feet and dissonance.

In retrospect, though, it was a most enriching, endearing and entertaining walk. Bravo!!! Encore!!!

 

 

 

 

Cuba #2: Shopping for Nothing

As a tourist, one of your obligations is to shop. You do this for yourself and for others. A delightful scarf here, a lucky temple bracelet there, and sculpted frogs wherever you find them. You quietly shop and you collect and you forget. This is tourism at its very best.

Japan is probably my favourite tourist-shopping destination. You head off to your local suburban Peacock Department Store and you are sure to find curious and unusual treasures—a dried pack of seaweed, a porcelain bowl with painted fish, a vacuum-packed octopus, an elegant ink brush or knife—all delightful and inexpensive.

In Thailand you look out for bamboo placemats and silk underpants with green elephants. In India you find intricate metal cows and beads from the Nagaland. In Egypt you buy parchment, dusty antique jewellery and camel-bone miniatures.

In Cuba you buy nothing, as there is nothing to buy. Their best cigars and finest rum are all exported, so you are left with banana-leaf cigars and run-of-the-mill, bargain-basement Havana Club.

In certain towns where the tourist groups are bused, there are millions of identical Ché Guevara t-shirts, hats, licence plates and posters. In front of bakeries and drug stores there are constant line-ups as Cubans wait patiently to see what can suddenly be purchased.

In front of supermarkets, however, this is not the case.

Our first supermarket was in Viñales—an idyllic countryside town set in the middle of tobacco plantations and picturesque rock formations. Tourists come here to relax and do a bit of horse-riding along the unmarked trails. Everyone stays in the casa particulars (bed and breakfasts) for about two nights before heading back to their beach or boat worlds.

The supermarket there was picture-perfect: shelves were filled with bottles of rum, beer and wine which sold merrily at good strong Swiss prices. There were packs of chips, cookies, and cheese and the ubiquitous (expensive) bottled tourist water.

The second grocery store was outside the city of Cienfuegos and we were quite excited when we encountered a uniformed security lady at the door who made us remove our packs and put them in a locker. This was obviously a first-class, though sadly undiscovered, store and theft was rampant.

As it turned out, all the shelves in the whole shop held the same item: miniature cartons of pineapple juice. These towered up to the ceiling along all the aisles. It was a stroll through a pineapple juice castle.

At the back of the shop was the fresh meat section. This consisted of two pigs that had been butchered, boiled, and packaged into two oblong plastic sausage cases about the size and shape of a real live pig. The colour was bubble-gum pink and there were foreign objects added for interest. This is Cuban ham.

Anticipation, exultation, disappointment, epiphany: Cuba in a nutshell. We bought enough pineapple juice to keep us in piña coladas for the rest of the trip.

 

 

Cuba: Back to the Future

In every country, a tourist has to energetically perform specific tasks within a relatively short time-frame. This is the tourist imperative. There is surprisingly little Hobbesian free will in a good tourist’s world.

For example, visiting Switzerland you have to see the Matterhorn, buy a watch, and eat a cheese fondue. In Canada you have to dine on Nova Scotia lobster, see Niagara Falls, buy a bear-bell and go walking in the Rockies. In Bali you have to run away from the monkeys, buy ikat weavings and go to a gamelan orchestra evening show. Your actions are prescribed. You spend your money and stay focused on your touristic endeavours until it’s time to get back to where you came from. It is, frankly, quite exhausting.

In Cuba this is not the case, because there are no tourists. Anyone who manages to escape from their all-inclusive resort, gets separated from their cruise-ship crowd, or is just out and about on their own is NOT a tourist. She is a “punto”.

The punto is cash-rich with wads of Euros and Francs falling out of her pocket. Most of Cuba is dirt poor but many of these people are working in the fields, living in rural communes and never have the good luck to come into contact with a full-blooded punto.  The Cuban game is to try to separate the punto from her lolly. This is not done on a criminal level so is not dangerous. It is simply a national pastime and hugely entertaining.

The punto is hauling around so much cash because there are no cash machines in Cuba and when you come across an open cambio, you have to change some of your international currency into CUC’s – the tourist pesos (worth a dollar). This must not be confused with the local currency, which is also a peso (but is only worth five cents). For example a coffee costs 5 pesos. Does this mean 25 cents or does this mean 5 dollars?

Having recently paid 8 euros for a coffee at St Mark’s Square in Venice, I know that $5 is a POSSIBLE coffee price. But sitting in the squalor of the Malecon in Havana with buildings reduced to rubble all around you, it is a highly questionable situation.

A good tourist will pay the $5, and quietly ruminate that Cuba is a very expensive place. A wicked tourist will calmly put 25 cents of local money on the table, and then start laughing when the waiter says he wants 5 tourist dollars. The waiter will not be able to resist the magnificent joke and roll around the floor laughing that a good tourist has just paid $5 (about the price of a rotten old Cuban car) for a little cup of coffee.

This is the grease of Cuba tourist life—puntos, salsa, and mojitos—a simple world free from the modern nuisances of plastic, time, and fattening foods.  And most stimulating for the wicked tourist.