Cuba!

Just a taste of my flight into Havana 

Miguel

 My flight into Havana would end up typifying a lot of Cuba, in what I can only guess was a ex-Soviet plane, with its seats decaying and dents everywhere with painted over rust starting to creep back to the surface. It took a matter of minutes to witness how many Cubans, not all but many, hold much hatred for their northern neighbours. After a large man slammed the seat in front of him forward in order to squeeze into the tiny space allotted to him, a Cuban spun around screaming “What wrong with you, such rude!”...“Sorry sir, you said the seat didn't go forward, it clearly does, see?” demonstrating by pushing the seat with the man in it again. “AHH! So rude! You must be America, yes?!” The hate in his eyes quickly sat the other man down and shut his mouth for good. “you very lucky I have my wife and child with me for now”. Little did I know then the whole flight was a good sign of things to come. Everything in Cuba is falling apart (apart from the sickening '5-star' hotels), a lot of things are left over from the Soviet support received during the cold war. I was constantly amazed at how some cars still worked at I sat inside and watched the road fly by under my feet. However this tells a lot about the mentality of the Cuban people, for many years they were forced to live with next to nothing, they learnt to be smart with what they have and get everything out of what ever, or who ever, they can. Something that endeared me to most people I met there. I was by a stroke of luck that I was able to spend my ten days in Cuba living the life of the locals.

Miguel and Grandmother

Upon arrival at the airport I quickly ordered a local beer, somewhat of a custom for me now, before realising I didn't have any local money, 'No worries, I'll just go to the ATM and grab some'...nope, not quite that easy. Mastercards don't work in Cuba, leaving me to navigate the airport to find a teller that would accept my card and let me withdraw some Cuban convertibles. After much pleading with the teller I had some CUC's and caught a taxi to the cheapest hotel in Centro Havana. After settling into the room I went out to explore and get some Cuban cigars, a must obviously. After trying to understand the Spanish advice of one of the hotel employees, I left with no idea of where to go but did understand one thing: don't get ripped off! Advice I intended to follow, but failed to. After sharing a drink with a coupe of locals and teaching some English in return for some Spanish he offered to go and get me some cigars, 'good quality, he my friend in factory, so very cheap for you'. After saying my goodbyes I walked back to the hotel and showing the employee my purchase, he immediately was angry at me for unknowingly ignoring his advice. After spending all the money I'd gotten from the airport I asked him where I could get some more, after showing him my card he responded with 'no functional aqui, nessasita la hotel grande' while I understood exactly what he was saying he palmed me off onto his friend standing outside. This is where I met Miguel, my best friend and saviour for my time in Cuba. “You speak English, yes?, Me speak English good” an obvious lie, but one I let pass as he led me around town from one hotel to another none of them accepting my card. After my recent experience with the locals I didn't trust Miguel all that much, but didn't take to gain some trust and respect as he dragged me onto a bus and paid for it out of his own pocket to get to the only hotel that would apparently accept my card. After being denied their I was tired and stressed by Miguel wouldn't let me go back to the hotel before introducing me to his best friend and showing me to his place for straight rum and music. Miguel was very poor, like most locals in Havana, he woke me up every morning at 9am (at the latest) never took no for an answer and always instead on dragging me everywhere to meet his horde of friends and family. He would always get very angry at me when I spent too much for something always half yelling “John (he couldn't pronounce Sean) this is no good! Tell me something, tell me something!” then refuse to speak to me for the next couple of minutes, a long time for him! But he had a good heart and only wanted to make sure my time in Cuba was safe and enjoyable, I ended up spending every day with him and his friends/family.

My street in Havana

Before our expedition to find money, Miguel asked me how much I was paying for the hotel, after telling him he replied, “no, too much, you stay at Mami's casa now, this is Mami” he said introducing me to a small woman standing next to him “She give you good room and good food very cheap, come, see, come”. True to his word Mami's house was very nice and a lot cheaper than my hotel so I took it and immediately became part of Mami's family with her two sons and boyfriend constantly reminding me that nothing was a problem, “this is your house, your family, you my brother now”. This is how I was to spend my time in Cuba with locals, seeing how hard life is for them made me eternally grateful how easy we have it back home. I've often complained about how hard my job is but after my Cuban brother explaining that he worked in construction about $8 a week, I can never complain again.

After about 4 days in Havana with Miguel showing me around and insisting that we drink and party every night. We decided it would be best to hire a car that way we could see a lot more that if I were to travel by bus, and Miguel had a friend that could hire me a car, he had a 'friend' for everything, I later realised that the word friend to him meant someone he had met at least once. So we hired a car and headed off east along Cuba. It was my first time driving for an extended period on the other side of the road and in a left hand drive car, but was a lot easier that I thought it would be. After passing a sign indicating Australia was only 18km down the road I insisted we take a detour to visit, not much to the small farming town but still cool. After about 2 hours of driving the usual nightly storm hit, only this one was more of hurricane than a storm and after being smashed by flying branches and not being able to see out the windscreen we were forced to take refuge in a service station with about 30 other drenched Cubans. With Lighting crashing mere meters away, quite a scary experience, we sat there for about an hour before driving a further 10 mins into Santa Marta, the adopted home of Enesto 'Che' Gueurra. The next day we visited the grave and museum of Che, where I learnt a lot more about the Cuban revolution. Afterwards we continued on to Cienfuegos a beautiful old town with amazing architecture left over from when the French occupied Cuba. Unfortunately I was feeling pretty sick after too much Cuban rum the night before and couldn't enjoy the town to the fullest. So we jumped into the car and drove on to Trinidad for the night. Trinidad was very different to bustling Havana, while all the building were still falling apart at least they were painted a variety of cool colours, a eclectic mix of yellows, blues, purples, orange as well as well as many others. The following day the car needed to be returned so it was a long tiring drive back to Havana, broken up with stops at some cool beaches to go swimming.

Che Guevara & Camilo Cienfuegos

I quickly settled back into Mami's house and life in Havana. Miguel was still interested in making sure the last few days in Cuba were enjoyable and memorable. He took me to couple of museums, the museo de revolucion and an art gallery. The revolution museum was very interesting and I learnt a lot about Fidel's revolution. Even the art gallery was entertaining. Before leaving the museum Miguel warned me that when we leave he should walk at a distance from me, I was puzzled and asked why, he explained that he could get arrested for hanging out with tourists. I couldn't believe this to be true, we'd just spent 3 days travelling the country together, we must have both forgotten his waning by the time we walked out because we walked next to each other and true to his warning a cop came up and asked him for his id and Miguel sent me to run and get Mami to try and get him out of trouble. After trying to explain to Mami in Spanish what was happening she followed me back to Miguel and the three of them spoke with each other in Spanish for a while before Mami told me to come with her, we had to leave Miguel there. I was confused as to what exactly happened and Miguel tried to explain once released a couple of hours later that for the safety of tourists they weren't allowed to interact too much with locals, what a load of crap, Miguel was the one keeping me safe! I suspect this 'official' reasoning is to disguise the governments fear of the influence tourists may have on locals.

Last night party

 My last night (or so I thought) quickly came around and Miguel insisted on a 'fiesta grande' to say farewell. After a few drinks in Mami's house Miguel said he knew of a Rasta party going on nearby so, with my new brothers and Mami's boyfriend in tow, we headed off. After mentioning to Miguel earlier in the trip that I wanted to get dreadlocks he'd been on a mission to find someone to do it. Although I'd changed my mind and told him not to worry, there was no stopping him and at the rasta party he found some old rasta man to do it and with enough Cuban rum in me I was more than willing. A painful experience as the man just used one needle to pull, twist and rip my hair into dreads, my whole hair, which was well past my shoulders by this stage, took around 1 hour, super fast considering it would normally take the better part or 9-10hrs to do this.

My Cuban Mami

I woke up the next day to a killer headache and some hideous looking dreadlocks. After packing and saying goodbye to everyone, Miguel and I went to Havana Airport. Without the usual boards displaying flight times/gates etc. I asked the information desk where to check in and the woman said I'd have to wait a couple of hours and pointed me in the direction of a gate to check in when the time came. After about an hour of waiting I got a bad feeling and sent Miguel to check that everything was ok with my flight. He returned 15 min later shaking his head and my heart sank. He explained that my flight wasn't today and no one could tell him when I was, “maybe tomorrow, maybe Monday?”. After going to investigate myself I was told the same thing, “Not sure when sir, maybe tomorrow, maybe Monday, there is no one here today from your airline to help you.” Infuriated, I grabbed my bags and went to get some more pesos, as I'd spent all the ones I had, only to be informed my card had stopped working for an unknown reason. With stress levels ever increasing I managed to find out that my flight was due to leave tomorrow at the same time. Only problem is that I couldn't afford a taxi home, another night accommodation and a taxi back with what I had. Once I got to Mami's house, she was shocked and could see the worry on my face and offered to feed me and give me my bed for nothing for the night, a very generous offer, I paid her never the less expecting to get to the bank the next day.

One of the real ones!

 I did however accept her offer of a free breakfast the next morning before Miguel and I headed off to find a bank that would take my card. Miguel once again got arrested for being with me, this time I wasn't in the mood and started arguing with the cops, Miguel quickly shut me up, probably a smart move. However, 'for my safety', I was left somewhere where I had no idea where to go or how to get home. By sheer luck I managed to find a bank that accepted my card. Only to find out that my card still wasn't working. In a slight panic by this stage I somehow found my way home and asked Mami if I could use the phone to call the Canadian or British Embassy (no Australian Embassy in Cuba) but she hadn't paid the phone bill so the phone didn't work, nothing was going right. My Brother offered to take me to the embassy, but being Sunday there was a good chance it was closed. After finally finding the Canadian embassy, I was indeed closed but seeing the panic in my eyes, the security guard called a representative for me to speak to, after explaining I had a flight today but needed money in order to get to the airport he offered to come into the embassy. A few hours later I had the money I needed and will be forever in debt to Canada for helping me out. My stress levels began to subside, however all the stuffing around of the day meant I was running out of time to get to the airport. In a rush I made it back, stuffed the rest of the things into my bag and said a fond goodbye to everyone including Miguel. Upon arrival at the airport I had very little time to check in and make it through security, immigration and run to my gate, boarding with only minutes to spare.

My Pet Turtle

I learnt a lot, had heaps of fun and although I may never see them again made friends (and family) for life. However despite all this I never been more relieved to be on a plane leaving a country, at times I thought I would never make it onto the plane. As the plane took off it marked the end of my time in the Americas (for now). Bring on Europe!