WELCOME TO CUBA #2 of 4- PIZZA SI, WI-FI NO

It may be too little too late to save much of Havana. The old city is crumbling and it may be too late to renovate. If a massive program of renovation were initiated immediately, I doubt they could save it all. Hopefully they can come up with a plan to save the most important parts. As it is, the only part of the old city that sparkles are Hemingway’s old haunts around the wharf. Even there some gaudy modern buildings have been unfortunately constructed, though some that look like genuine Gaudis fare much better.

Black ladies with fruit on their heads and cigars in their mouths pose for tourists and tips, and Cuba’s legendary Afro-derived music is played in tourist bars and restaurants. The newer (turn of last century) west-of-downtown Vedado buzzes with activity also, but there it’s the locals, not tourists. If Miami has its Little Havana, then Havana likewise has its Little Miami. There in the Vedado are the modern office buildings and busy streets and smiling people. It’s only the vast gray area between the old wharf and the new Vedado- aka Centro- that hangs in limbo, waiting to be rescued. I even find my Cubana airline office in the new quarter. They’ll change my flight for $100. Flights are all priced in USD, and even though they penalize you to cash them, they seem to be all you can re-convert your convertibles to. I decide to wait, pending resolution of the Internet problem. Stay tuned.

But there is no resolution to the Internet problem in Cuba, no good one at least. The few salas de navegacion that exist are Intranet only, with an ‘a’ not ‘e’, and that means Cuba only. No amount of Southern US accent will change that. And you thought China was bad, blocking sites and such, especially now that the Olympics are over? Here they just block the whole thing, pretend it doesn’t even exist. Intelligent people ask me what I need it for; they don’t even know. And even the local stuff’s not cheap for the locals, almost two bucks an hour. The ‘real’ Internet is available only in hotels, and at prices approaching $7 per hour, highest I’ve ever paid anywhere in the world. That smarts. Wi-fi does not exist, at least not complete with Internet, ‘local only’. Nobody told me that, not Lonely Planet, not volunteer sugar-cane harvesters, nobody. I can’t deal with it. I can suffer many inconveniences, but not that. So I go back to Cubana de Aviacion and change my return date, cutting my trip almost in half. Then I go to the bus station and get a ticket to Trinidad, the colonial gem on the southern coast.

After four days of getting my bearings greased and realigned, my trip is now one-third over. I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend it all in Havana, like I did in Port-of-Spain. There’s too much here to see and do. Problem is, without the Net I hardly know where to go or what to do next, much less be able to book a room in advance. When I go to a new country every week, I can hardly plan them all out in advance and to minute detail. I can’t carry seven guide books. So I work in real time, but without the Net I’m reduced to intuition, and that’s dangerous in high season in the Caribbean. I could get hit with some outrageous hotel prices. You laugh, but I’ve already booked an RT flight LA-Rome for next month, and this trip’s not even over yet. But I should have things finally under control here economically and philosophically, so time to book, an excursion that is.

Everything’s not cheap of course, just food. Beyond a few cheap hotels they rise in price quickly and astronomically, and they still don’t have wi-fi. I’m currently staying in a casa particular, which is good value, but it feels a bit awkward being in someone else’s home, though the homes themselves are nice enough. It’s good to know that behind some of the time-worn exteriors are quite comfortable interiors. I moved out of my first hotel to save a few bucks and because nothing worked right. Remote controls never do- dead batteries usually- but I expect the faucets to. I actually took an Asian mandi-style splash bath for two days, rather than watch them turn my room into a work-site for two days, or God forbid, loan me a screwdriver. That would’ve required another chapter on Marxist class struggle. At least they had cable TV and good coffee, b’fast included. Loud Chinese kids were taking over the place, too, ostensibly students studying Spanish, or so they said, but I could see that look in their eyes, planning the future invasion- “you open the grocery store, I’ll do the restaurant, and Zhou Blou here will sell trinkets; we’ll pool our money and labor to start…”

The casas buzz you up by dropping down a key on a cord. But still they aren’t THAT much cheaper than the cheap hotels, and they don’t have cable TV either. Commie TV sucks, lots of shows about cows and the weather, but at least it has no commercials. So I tentatively book a room here for next weekend and figure I’ll wing it this week, starting in Trinidad. At least I’ll see some countryside in central Cuba. I want to be in ‘new’ Havana on the return anyway, with few or no tourists. The ‘real thing’ comes in many flavors. Old Havana may be more romantic, but I hardly need to get romantic with myself. With myself I always get lucky. If I were single, though, I’d probably give the girls here a second look, azucar moreno, el chocolate que me gusta… Ironically the long-distance bus system seems to be segregated between tourists and locals. When I asked for information, they asked if I was a tourist (thanks for asking), then sent me to another area of tourists only, mostly back-packer types. Hmmm…

At least they’re real buses here, not the crowded mini-vans that pass for public transportation in Jamaica, among others, including the Guyanas. Since I’m returning early from Cuba, I’ll be obliged to finally see some of that Jamaican countryside, too. It’s a trade-off. At least Internet is not illegal there, and it’s free at the Bobsled Café in Montego Bay, though a bit erratic. Like I said, not everything’s cheap here. With maps $5 a pop, excursions here involve quite a bit of dead reckoning, looking at my downloaded map on the laptop and getting my bearings, then starting out, noting landmarks, and trying to remember to compensate for any unexpected changes. That cheap street food is not so exotic either, basically variations on the themes of grease and starch. Fortunately I brought vitamins, because the smoothies and juices aren’t enough to compensate for the lack of veggies in the diet, regardless of their status as vitaminicos in South American parlance and habit. I know that ‘camp-out’ feeling well, vitamin deficiency, not of scurvy magnitude, but enough to blur the edges of my perception, so I can’t think of clear and witty things to amuse you, my readers. I have responsibilities. I remember running out into the Mexican midnight once to search the pharmacies for vitamins. Now I come prepared.

To be honest there probably is a bit of resentment at selling to foreigners at dirt cheap prices, though it usually stays below the surface, reflected only in surly behavior. Cubans are not big on ‘Thank yous’ anyway; I guess it’s not Communist. That food is subsidized by the government, which means the blood sweat and tears of the populace. But those high prices are made with subsidized food, too, remember, meaning everyone’s subsidizing the new capitalists. Why not help the tourists a bit too? Good prices are a selling point. I decide here and now that if trade with Cuba is liberalized, I’ll become a trade-show geek one more time just to promote their handicrafts… but I could be lying, not to you, but to myself. There are some nice things here, especially wood carvings, including… MY FROGS! MY COMMIE FROGS BORN IN HANOI ARE NOW IN CUBA!! History and evolution follow strange paths.

There are some other nice crafts here also- especially textiles, leatherwork, and ceramics- and Cuba’s reputation in the fine arts and literature is notable without question, but you can keep the art naïve that fills the stalls in tourist districts. Though superficially interesting, it’s more naïve than art, especially if they think I’ll buy it, analogous to the street musicians here who can’t play their instruments and the poseurs with their cigars and heads full of flowers posing for tips. I suspect mass-production and the hiring of ‘local color’ to peddle it. They’re parasites on the true musicians and artists who deserve to be seen and heard. So there, I said it. Hopefully I’m wrong.