WELCOME TO CUBA #4 of 4- LIFE BEHIND THE IRONIC CURTAIN

Sundays are not bad here, more to see and do than many places in Latin America. I run across an active cathedral while walking the old city, so decide to stick around for Sunday mass, my first ever. That’s typical me, waiting to attend my first mass in a Communist country. Before this I’ve only attended a small one in Gualupita, Mexico, up in the mountains close to Toluca, where my sweaters used to be made, maybe still are. There we slit chickens’ throats and made mole’ and paraded through town with an image of the virgin of Guadalupe just like the most normal thing in the world. This one on Sunday is a little more involved. It drags on so long I’m getting really hungry towards the end. So when everyone goes up for their holy wafer I sneak out to go look for a holy hot dog. My stomach rumblings threatened to disrupt the service. Aqui estoy, Senor, para hacer tu voluntad.

It’s good to finally get out into the countryside. This whole trip has had too little of that, and too much city. This is something of a life’s thesis for me, that civilization is not limited to cities, and northern European cultures have proved that, they the barbarians of the Roman outback who eventually superceded and surpassed it oh, say, around 1700. The larger synthesis of course is that cities CAN be very nice places, green and clean and not so mean. My current life thesis is similar but with a different emphasis- that nomadism (nomadicism?) is not only normal but healthy, put of our psychological and biological makeup, of vast frontiers and open skies. We didn’t just accidentally disperse all over the globe- we were driven, by the powerful engines of our imagination. Obesity is not much of a problem with this lifestyle, nor are mortgages. True, cities are a great repository of great art and the great artifacts of culture; let the clerks handle that. This is dialectical materialism in real time- thesis, antithesis, followed by a more complete synthesis, hopefully.

There’s nothing spectacular about the Cuban countryside, but still it’s nice, rolling fields with agricultural plantations and the occasional wilderness. We pass through Cienfuegos, a small city on the western coast, where half the passengers, mostly backpacker types, disembark. I notice scads of touts hawking rooms on the periphery. I breathe a sigh of relief. As much as I prefer to avoid touts, I prefer to avoid expensive hotel rooms even more. I assume the situation may be similar elsewhere. When we finally pull into Trinidad an hour and a half later, I gulp audibly. Uh-oh, I’ve been here before, not here exactly, but many other places like it, most recently San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. The rot sets in first where the fruit is ripest. It’s too small, a tourist enclave and little else. A lady on the sidewalk holds up a sign reading “ROOMS $15”, looking for all the world like a cute little webcam ‘performer’ with a sign across her bare midriff reading something like “$.99 min.” They swarm me like flies on shit, even though I explain that I’ve already booked a room. The problem is that my place knows nothing of it, even though I’ve paid a deposit.

So now I need the barkers and their colored balloons and their cheap cheap rooms. That’s no problem, but I immediately book onward transportation, just two nights and one full day here. That should be enough, considering there’s no food, or should I say ‘only expensive food’. The street scene in Havana, limited though it is, at least has some variety. Here there’s pretty much only pizza and sandwiches, though still only a quarter US a pop. Then prices for Gringo food go straight up from there, $8-10 a plate and on into the stratosphere. It’s no wonder everybody wants your lunch money, as if I spend money like that every meal every day for something as common as fried chicken. But that’s the big deal here, hawking you to come to their house to eat. I tire of the routine quickly. “Open a restaurant!” I bark back. There is some good music here, though, just like the Hemingway quarter of Havana. That’ll soothe frayed nerves. There are good deals to be had, too, it just takes time to familiarize myself with them, the guy with the coffee, the old lady with the fruit, etc. I went crazy when I found coconut custards and cakes for a dime a pop, buying a bag full for the onward journey.

All in all Trinidad’s okay, with a lively little late-night music scene, though I can think of probably a dozen places in Mexico just as colonially charming without a UN plaque. But this ain’t Mexico; this is Cuba. I travel onward to Santa Clara. This gives me not only another view of Cuba, but also a different route back to Havana, so as to avoid backtracking. It certainly doesn’t have the charm of Trinidad, but compensates with diversity, lots of local theatre, and I even manage to catch a concert. At least neither’s got the bombed-out feel of much of Havana. Comparisons to Hanoi are okay; comparisons to Phnom Penh are not. Only problem is that buses stop through on their way between Santiago and Havana, so the availability of seats depends on how many people get off. Ouch! This is what happens when you don’t have Internet, but they don’t seem to know that, or care. Long distance taxis do good biz in Cuba btw, claiming prices no more than the buses for foreigners, but I haven’t tested them yet.

The only guaranteed seat leaves at 3am the next day so I take it, figuring to save a night’s rent, too, since I don’t usually sleep too well anyway. This whole trip’s way over budget thanks to that flippin’ ferry in Suriname and the generally high cost of rooms in the Caribbean in high season. Thank God for the low-budget Melbourne Inn chain in Barbados and Port-of-Spain! If Cuba had wi-fi I could balance my budget here over the next three weeks, but I can’t go incommunicado for that long. That’s not negotiable. Cuba’s starting to get on my nerves anyway, and I’m sick to death of pizza, so that’s good. Otherwise I might feel some regret. Too short of a travel time gives false impressions, too. I’ll try to find something cheaper than Montego Bay in Jamaica, with wi-fi hopefully too, maybe Negril. At least I finally get through to Thailand on my world phone. I’m not behind an iron curtain after all, just an ironic one.

What else do I need to tell you about Cuba? Oh yeah, they’ve got $3 bills, both local currency and convertibles. That’s notable, especially the local ones with Che’s picture. What else? There seems to be very little racism in Cuba, blacks and whites freely intermixing and seemingly unconscious of it. That’s good. What else? Travel is easy, plenty of hostales and casas privadas outside the capital, so nothing to worry about there. They’ll find you. These people also smoke a lot, especially cigars, though cigarettes, too. Going to a concert in an auditorium? No problem. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. They drink a lot, too, mostly rum, available almost any time almost any place. The analogy to the Russian’s vodka is too obvious to ignore. My most communistic friends back home are usually the most pharmaceutically experimental also. Religion’s far from perfect but it’s better than all that I reckon. The three most common items at any street stall are: cigarettes, rum, and condoms, in no certain order, whatever gets you through the night. Now that sounds like my kind of dialectical materialism.

For some reason Cuba imports Gallo Beer (that’s a rooster, not an Italian) from Guatemala, reflecting new realities and trade relationships (ssshhh! Don’t tell Uncle) that got severely severed in 1954 the year of my birth and my taxi driver’s car. I thought about trying one for old times’ sake, but… naaah. Beggars here are creative, freely offering to show you their disease, bandaged back, third eye blind, etc. Pragmatic women are not to be outdone. They’ll follow you back to your hotel and THEN approach you, as if proximity implies acceptance. After a quick inconclusive chat in the Paseo del Prado, one even snuck through the door of my apartment complex while I was holding it for a key-less elderly lady. They’re quick, and stubbornly persistent. And oh yeah, Cuba’s got a long hard road ahead. They’re good people, I think, but they’re out of the loop. Some feelings are going to get hurt. Except for North Korea most all the other old Socialist bloc nations have long reverted to market economies with its ensuing growing pains. Their newly capitalist sons and daughters now come to Cuba out of nostalgia. When Cubans go to the US they probably look for lines to stand in, just to feel normal.

Cuba and the US attitude toward it is an anachronism. Communists and capitalists here and there have both fed on polarization and non-rational behavior for far too long to prove points that are no longer even valid, much less necessary. There are other more valid issues facing us today. But for me, this trip’s almost over, seven countries in as many weeks including Jamaica thrice. That’s not bad. Fortunately I got to stay in most of the countries long enough to go through the full range of emotions, in the case of Cuba: surprise, shock, disgust, adaptation, love, hate, and acceptance in that order, the other countries with probably fewer steps. That’s realistic. Always stay long enough to get sick of a place. Anybody who is totally in love with a place probably doesn’t know it very well or doesn’t know many others, or is fooling himself, one. So now I’m off to Jamaica then back to the US then on to Europe while the dollar can still hold its pants up. Life’s a beach, but I persevere.

WELCOME TO CUBA #3 of 4- HELL FREEZES OVER

It’s cold here. Who’d’ve thought I’d be wearing my goose-down vest in Cuba? My taxi driver says he’s never seen it this cold before, at least not this year. There are some cold winds blowing down out of the north, or maybe it’s just George W’s last breath of hot air now turned cold. Nevertheless the tourists out at Varadero are probably clamoring for refunds about now. This isn’t what they paid for. Maybe that’s not surprising considering its location a half degree north of the Tropic of Cancer. Those lines are no joke. In a couple days I’ll be a half degree south so we’ll see if there’s any difference. That’s the same stretch of water that Montego Bay sits on the other side of, and it was plenty warm and sunny the same day I boarded the plane for cold gray Havana. I’ve always thought of communism as cold and gray, but not Cuba. The tourist brochures advertise its luz, color, sabor y alegria, but that’s for you, not them. They get poverty, deprivation, promises… and long lines. Nothing defines Communism like long lines and the lack thereof implied, and the limits and rations therefore imposed. Now that may be very rational, but that doesn’t mean that it’s right.

Communism made a gamble, that the world was already developed fait accompli and that the only problem was one of distribution. Communism never foresaw DVD’s, PC’s, and cell phones, much less FaceBook, MySpace, and TravelPod. They certainly never foresaw that the consumer revolution would be manufactured in Japan first then China, leaving Western ideologies in the dust. Cuba is still there, clucking defiance. It’s sad, Fidel claiming on Obama’s inauguration that the West’s problems are ‘insolvable’. He may be right of course, but you don’t prove it by shutting off all dialog. That’s contrary to the spirit of dialectic. Cuba shows no news of the outside world, zero zip nada- just buddies Venezuela and Bolivia, the club growing ever smaller. If you perceive a world of limits, then the world is limited, admittedly also the mistake of many Western ‘small planet’ ideologists in the Seventies, myself included. I stand corrected.

Cuba’s got a hard adjustment to a market economy ahead and the longer they wait, the harder it’ll be. The dual currency system is only the most graphic illustration of such. China gave their dual currency up long ago, and Laos and Vietnam are slowly moving beyond dual-pricing, though you can expect Vietnamese to overcharge foreigners for as long as they can get away with it. Leaving prices un-marked facilitates this. Even Thailand does it sometimes, trying to overcharge me for something with the price written in Thai, absolutely refusing to believe that I can actually read it, even as I recite it to them word by word. Old notions die hard. At one point Vietnam even had prices for returning Vietnamese, in addition to foreigners and locals. It’s cumbersome to say the least, and subject to much abuse. When Thailand tries such nonsense they never check identification, just apply racial and facial criteria. A flight attendant in South America once explained to me how they’re trained to know what language you speak by looking at your face, Sociolinguistics 401.

Nevertheless, there is an emerging middle ground between ‘local’ mn and ‘foreign’ cuc currency, and that means reasonable prices in cuc, something that is slowly occurring in the places designed for upscale Cubans and emerging restaurant chains, such as El Rapido. There an espresso costs $.25-.30, instead of the ridiculously low nickel or overpriced (for Cuba) dollar. That’s still the best price I’ve had since late ‘70s post-devaluation Mexico City, when a good US wage was $4/hour. Good prices draw tourists, but so do simple open systems, such as integrated transportation and a single currency.

Fortunately the war’s over, almost. I thought a policeman might not let me go yesterday, but that was because the guy wouldn’t stop talking when I asked for directions, not because of any imcompatible overt offense (now there’s a trivia question for ya’). The gendarme at the airport weren’t so friendly. First some guy pulls more over straight off the plane and quizzes me about my intentions, presumably because I’m American. Then the nice Immigration lady seemed concerned that I was just ‘going all over’ as if that were suspicious in and of itself, acting as if Cuba were just another country in the Caribbean. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I guess I should be some bright-eyed little wannabe socialist or a fat-bellied tourist, one or the other, just for the sake of clean neat categories. Then the Customs guy started looking at my notes, as if notes imply plans imply covert activity, or so I imagine, and still do.

The big surprise here is that it seems no one’s ever met an American. I thought it was way past all that by now, what with reasonably priced flights from TJ and anywhere in Canada. It’s not.

“I’m fifty-one years old and you’re the first American I’ve ever talked to,” a friend of the house I’m staying in just told me.

“We’re not much different, are we?”

“Not at all, five fingers, two hands, two arms, two legs.”

We trade travel stories, he telling me of his trips to the Warsaw Pact countries and Angola. That sounds like a tour of duty to me. They make no attempt to hide their Communist connections, even a bit nostalgic I sense. I tell him my stories, and he gets excited when I talk about Hanoi. We have common ground. There are people named Hanoi here, or at least one who’s now a celebrity. I guess the Sixties affected everyone differently, we with our Dylans and Elvises, they with their Hanois and… Warsaws maybe? Havana reminds me a lot of Hanoi, similar latitudes and similar attitudes, the same ambience of revolutionary doctrine and military discipline and faded glory and pedicabs and… that edge, that psychological edginess that cuts both ways.

We have more common ground- a history of plantation slavery and resultant cradle of African-American diaspora culture. Cuba gets high marks for maintaining its African traditions, but in fact it’s probably the whitest place I’ve seen in the Caribbean so far, or Latin America either, except for Argentina. I haven’t been to the US Virgin Islands. If my Trinidad theory is correct, the culture defends itself most intently where it’s most threatened. But the ‘traditional’ dress here of Mammy-style pure white and lacy fringe, similar to that of Salvador, Bahia, Brasil, surely refers to the colonial time and place, not Africa itself, doesn’t it? You don’t see such in other predominantly black Caribbean countries. Or maybe it’s a religious thing, with connections to santerismo similar to Brasil’s candomble or N’awlins voodoo. You can see little stalls devoted to such in the back alleys, similar to the hechicerias shops I used to see in Oaxaca, Mexico, some thirty years ago. And of course Cubans are as anxious, and as hopeful, about what Obama’s going to do, as we all are. Still his first impression of an actual American comes from me. Now that’s truly scary.

So I finally bite the bullet and sit down and do some Internet. Sounds easy, right? It’s not. Many hotels have got the machines, but few sell the card with the code you log in with. They tell me any card will work on any machine, so I go buy one at a hotel I know has them, but they also have a waiting line. It turns out the card won’t work anywhere else, so I end up waiting two hours to finally log on. Real Commie queues, just like the old newsreels! Cool… TWO HOURS WAITING FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF USING INTERNET AT THE RATE OF $7 PER HOUR!! And then I can’t even get into my bank account, reserve a room with my credit card, much less Skype anyone. It’s barbarous. My world telephone won’t call through to Thailand either. I’m cut off. I’m glad I shortened my trip. I like Cubans, I think, but this is ridiculous. I get into the queuing aspect, though, becoming the traffic cop for Gringos ‘out of the know’, since lines are not always linear. I even took the pizza out of a local’s mouth after he called his order in over my head. I read him the riot act, and then left casting aspersions on his upbringing. When natives get restless, the tourists get even. Good fun was had by all.

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.

WELCOME TO CUBA #1 of 4- LAST COMMUNIST STANDING (ALMOST)

Humans crawl through the ashes of a forgotten world, living in the ruins and going about their business as if nothing had even happened. What did happen anyway? Who knows? Who built the original structures, magnificent and pretentious at one and the same time, the stuff of dreams and the stuff of nightmares? Official government history says it was an evil empire, bent on domination. They sucked human blood for sustenance and reduced the populace to slavery to sustain their extravagant lifestyles. Other legends say no, that it was a time of plenty and opportunity was open to all, only limited by your time and imagination… and faith. If you believe in an expanding universe, then that universe will expand, and so will the economy, getting bigger and better continually. Belief is crucial. Once you stop believing, then the castles crumble. Sound like science fiction? Welcome to Cuba.

If you’ve never been to a Communist country, you should go. But hurry; they’re a dying breed. There’s nothing like it, the cold gray architecture, the suspicious glances, and the general lack of… anything. The hard part is timing. You want to see the “real thing”, i.e. real Soviet/Bolshevik-style communism, but you don’t want to suffer (too much) from lack of facilities. You want to see them on the cusp of their coming out. Frankly I was surprised- even shocked- to see Cuba in the backward state it’s in. We’ve all seen the pictures and heard the stories of the old 50’s cars, like stepping right into a Hollywood movie, but experiencing it is another thing. It’s a trip, pure time travel. Hey, they’ve even got horse-drawn carts here, and not just for tourists. Cuba’s been getting travel press for so long now that I assumed that the time-warp was all long past. It’s not. Cuba is crawling into the future on all fours, and I don’t think anything Obama has to say will change that any time soon. Tourism is way up for sure, but that’s all out at Varadero, destination of almost half the tourists flying in, most of whom will get only a day tour of the “real thing.”

When I check the Lonely Planet web site before visiting a place, then actually go there, sometimes I wonder if we’re talking about the same place. Maybe their local experts have little experience elsewhere so are without a point of reference. Regardless, LP talks about the ‘increasing congestion’ of Havana traffic. That’s a joke. This is like Communist SE Asia c.1995, maybe Phnom Penh or Vientiane, vacant streets and people camping in the ruins. That’s all changed there now. Laos is almost a little mini-Thailand now, and Phnom Penh is re-inventing itself (with Chinese help) as fast as it can. To be honest, so is Cuba, but oh so painfully slow. My first feeling is one of shock, then sadness. Then as I slowly readjust my point of reference to the reality here rather than the reality I come from, my mood starts improving. There IS life here, and lots of it, however subdued and tentative.

And then there are the underlying economics for me as a traveler. You have to book a hotel first for them to even let you in, so that’s not so expensive, but hardly indicative. When I first walked the streets looking at prices for street grub, I was shocked. Then I realized those were prices in local currency (mn), not the convertible currency (cuc) I was holding. Judging by price differentials for similar items I figured one cuc must be worth about six or seven mn. It’s actually twenty-four. At first I thought they might not sell the local stuff to me, but no problem. Shit’s dirt cheap here, at least street food. How about a glass of fresh fruit or sugar cane juice for… better sit down… a nickel? I haven’t seen prices like this since the late seventies. You remember that kid making smoothies for a quarter down on the strip in Puerto Escondido, right? He’s probably the president of Jumex now, what with his experience and all.

How about a sandwich here for a quarter, or maybe your own personal pizza? Sound good? The pizza is no great shakes of course. Nobody in Napoli is going to roll over in his grave but hey, it’s fresh pan caliente. That’s worth plenty. The trick is that you gotta’ get the local currency, or otherwise you’re de facto segregated from the populace by currency and cuisine. Some things only come in cuc of course, like filete Cubano of something or other. Prices in cuc are usually not bad either, just not dirt cheap, and mostly limited to the tourist places, and grocery stores. How about Uruguayan steak for $6? I don’t remember it that cheap in Uruguay, not that I spent any time looking. Harder to find is good espresso, notwithstanding all the little jiggers of café Cubano being sold on the streets, but the street stuff is sweeter and not fresh pressed, though still not bad for a nickel a swallow. I’ve found it as cheap as a penny. I also found a couple places with good espresso and nothing illustrates the pricing dilemma better. One charges one mn, the other one cuc, a nickel or a buck, take your pick. I’d be willing to bet some tourists don’t know the difference and happily lay down the buck instead of the nickel at the mn place, not even knowing the difference.

Still there can be money problems for the independent traveler. For one thing, your ATM card won’t work, or at least mine won’t, though a European one might. My Thai card doesn’t work either. European credit cards are supposed to work, but that’s good only if you can find places that accept them, not likely budget accommodation, certainly not private houses. If I stay the full three weeks I booked this could be problematic. I think I have enough Euros, but it could be tight. I better change an AmEx traveler’s cheque just to make sure I’m covered. Cambios won’t take them but a bank should. They don’t, but send me to some place that should. They don’t, but gave me a list of locations of the bank that does. Being my first day in town, none of these locations looks familiar, so I decide to put it on hold, being something I shouldn’t really need anyway. This is not a problem limited to Cuba either, for that matter. Fortunately I have no problem with money, just cash. Even in thoroughly modern Argentina, many ATM’s only give the equivalent of $100 US. That doesn’t last long. Fortunately I’m carrying traveler’s cheques for the first time in a decade, so the only problem is finding the bank that cashes them.

I decide to take a long walk to find the bus station and accidentally find one of the bank branches I’m looking for. With minimum hassle they indeed cash me one, so that little spot of bother should be mitigated. There’s only one problem remaining- Internet (sound of needle scratching long and hard against an old vinyl LP). The hotel I’m staying in has no wi-fi and charges $6-7 PER HOUR to use the rental box downstairs. They all do. This apparently is the standard, and gringos queue up for the privilege. It’s barbaric, not a cyber café to be had on the streets. What do the locals do? I’m moving to a casa particular to save a few bucks, but it looks like any savings will quickly get squandered in Internet charges, if I stay, that is. I doubt that Cubana de Aviacion will let me change the date of my return will such a cheap flight, but that doesn’t mean I can’t buy another one-way. I can hardly travel without Internet now, booking for the next stop a few days in advance. Otherwise I might get stuck with no place to stay or only at an outrageous price, with no useable credit card even. Usually I don’t worry about such things. In the high season in the Caribbean I do, especially here. Chill, Hardie, chill.

I don’t mind paying a few bucks extra for a place with Internet, but that’s per day, not per hour! Cuba is in the dark ages with respect to Internet, not a wi-fi signal anywhere. Other ‘Communist’ countries are replete with them. Other commodities are similarly lacking. What passes for groceries here is pretty pathetic. Ever bought a box of cookies from a jewelry showcase? Fortunately the street is ahead of the shops. They learn capitalism from the ground up, flea enterprise, buy two sell one buy two more ad infintum until rich. Bamako in Mali is no different. That’s the difference between Marxism and village Communism. The main breakthrough here is with food. Half the city walks around with a sandwich in hand in the mornings and a pizza in the afternoon, all sold from tiny home-based outlets and restaurants selling on the streets as well as inside to compete. Now that’s my kind of communism.

Everything is weighed and measured here, from bread to espresso, or at least advertised as such, one of the lasting legacies of communism apparently. I saw the same thing in Romania only a few years ago. Business is swift and the lines are usually orderly. The legend of Commie queues always emphasized the shortages, not the orderliness. That’s like talking about suicide bombers and focusing only on the bombs, never the suicide. There are no plastic bags though, or only available for sale in markets, never just handed out. My great point of pride is that I intuited this, and brought along my growing plastic bag collection rather than trash it, as I caught myself almost doing. Thus Communism has common cause with environmentalism. They act like they have common cause with Palestine, but obviously that’s only a case ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ Remember Soviet Afghanistan.

S. CARIBBEAN REDUX- BROKEDOWN PALACES AND BODY COUNTS

“Full soft” means “ripe” in Caribbean English and I find myself using it frequently since I first heard it, as if softness were the natural state to mark the passage of time, certainly as opposed to hardness. And so should travel be as well as your chosen destination(s), soft and fluffy to break your inevitable fall(s). It’s become my metaphor of choice. And so as I sit at home in Montego Bay waiting to catch a flight in a few days (always leave yourself snafu time), it’s probably a good time to pause and reflect on my recent trip to the South Caribbean and Guyana coast, arguably a continuity of culture with the possible exception of Suriname, it not being an English-speaking former colony.

So here’s how the score stacks up. For beauty I’d rate Suriname highest easily, but I’m not a beach guy. The colonial architecture of Paramaribo is unlike anything I’ve seen anywhere else in the world and is truly something of world heritage. Gold shops line the streets like something right out of SE Asia. For cheap thrills there are casinos that’d rival Winemucca. Outside the capital Hindu temples dot the landscape. Then there’s the sparsely populated Amazon outback; I’d love to go there. The beach isn’t of pure white sand, but IS site of one of the largest tortoise migrations in the world. Trinidad has some nice spots but the mix of heavy industry in the city center is a bit of an eyesore, and the country is densely populated compared to the others. I hear the beaches are okay. Barbados is classic Caribbean, gingerbread houses and fancy resorts, blue skies and sandy beaches, not like the muddy ones you find on the northern coast of the continent. When I’m feeling beachy, this is what I dream of. Georgetown and Guyana also has some nice spots but the overall plan (or lack thereof) renders any beauty lost in the chaos.

For food Suriname probably ranks lowest, not that it’s bad, but the others are better. There’s really not much difference between the Indonesian warungs, Chinese wok spots, and so-called ‘snack bars’ there; i.e. they all have pretty much the same things, mostly rice and noodles and a few other egg-roll-like items, in addition to some bread rolls and cakes, ho hum. The ‘creole cuisine’ that exists throughout much of the Caribbean and into the US Deep South is entirely absent in Suriname. Even the roti is pretty lame compared to Trinidad, and prices are no cheaper. Gastronomically Trinidad takes the cake, literally, with good bakeries in addition to killer rotis and Chinese and Indian food that goes beyond the most basic of basics, all at reasonable prices, though Guyana is not bad. There they’ve even got something called ‘cook-up’ (I like that name) in the Halal eateries (huh?) that consists of black-eyed peas in goopy rice, not to be confused with sticky or glutinous rice, a different breed entirely. Growing up in the Deep South I never knew I was part of the Caribbean culture; now I know.

Being a major tourist resort Barbados may indeed have the best food of the lot, and the local stuff doesn’t look bad, but the prices and the fact that I had a kitchen mostly kept me away. Interestingly they all get their apples from New York. The situation with coffee is similar, plenty of espresso in Barbados but London prices. Trinidad’s better with its Rituals chain and reasonable prices. Paramaribo in Suriname has got a branch of Rituals also and another espresso joint conveniently located right next door, but that’s it. Georgetown, Guyana doesn’t even have that. I was reduced to Nescafe there, reduced and rendered helpless. Ditto for entertainment, Trinidad is on top with a lively street scene and many bars and clubs that seem attractive and inviting, not to mention a world-class Carnaval. Paramaribo has potential with its attractive historic district, but it’s largely untapped. The lead-up to New Year was great fun, though, lively and rambunctious. I haven’t been to the Sheriff Street party district in Georgetown, but it doesn’t sound too compelling. Downtown certainly isn’t, what with its dark murky streets. Barbados might rock out, but it wasn’t obvious from my vantage point. John Barleycorn and I have a deal that I don’t drink unless there’s something else in the offer, so my observations are mostly just that, and from a distance.

For transportation Trinidad wins hands-down with a terminal and buses with signs, real civilized, not that I actually went anywhere. The two Guyanas are still in the dark ages of vans and hustlers. Barbados isn’t bad, especially since it’s so small, with frequent terminals in the populated center. I heard there’s even a Sunday bus that loops the island with on-and-off privileges, great for the picknicking locals. For hotels Paramaribo probably ranks highest with a decent selection reasonably priced and easy to find. You’d do okay without a reservation in Paramaribo, but not so the other three. You might even have to pay a small fortune to find last-minute accommodation in Barbados. Ironically that’s where I had probably my best deal, private entry and kitchenette for less than U$50, so almost like an apartment. The music scene parallels that of entertainment in general. Trinidad’s got it definitely, steel ‘pans’ (drums) and soca, the others only so-so, though there is potential there.

For security Barbados and Suriname probably rate equally, Barbados too comfy for crime and Suriname too busy gambling. Guyana’s got a bad rep and so does Trinidad. Though murder rates don’t tell the entire story, they don’t lie either. Paramaribo has ATM’s right on the sidewalk, so that says something. That’s not something you see often outside the US or Europe. For Immigration and Customs formalities, they’re all about equal. I’ve seen worse, but I’ve seen better, too. I don’t know what it is about English-speaking countries that make them think they need to interview every single tourist. Aren’t there impersonal standards that apply across the board? Are they testing your English proficiency? What can’t they just stamp you in like most of Asia or Europe? Trinidad was definitely nicer to me coming in from Jamaica than coming back from Suriname, where I got scrutinized three times in the course of as many hours.

If it weren’t for the snafu’ed ferry business, I’d rate Suriname and Trinidad a toss-up, depends on what you want. As it is I’d rate Trinidad highest overall, probably cheapest to get to also. It even has a ferry to Venezuela and flights all over. The Guyanas have real problems of connectivity with glitched border crossings all around. One traveler on the ferry from Guyana to Suriname was not allowed because his stamp at the other land border with Brazil wasn’t right. He had to go all the way back and that road is notoriously bad. The ferry of course depends on a terrible road on the Suriname side, so that remains to be improved. Passengers could cross without it in small boats of course, if Immigration and Customs were willing, so the problem is as much one of will and motivation as logistics and money. They seem oblivious to the problem even though passengers like me are inconvenienced to the tune of $300 and I was lucky. I could’ve been stuck there for days or weeks. It’s not surprising considering the laborious entry even on a good day, as if only one Customs lady is qualified to search dirty underwear, and that only when she feels like it.

Language department again depends on what you want. If you want to be the English-only bozo then Suriname scores lowest, though many people speak quite well. I think there are quite a few native speakers from other places going there to fill the gaps. For me the opportunity to study and use some Dutch is a treat. There aren’t many places you can do that, and the similarities to English are profound. For exotic ethnicity Suriname probably also ranks highest, though I would hesitate to overrate it. Most of their ethnic groups drop their affectations on arrival and blend into a more generic ethnicity, though I didn’t get a chance to visit the so-called ‘Bush Negroes’. They might offer an invaluable glimpse into the African past. Trinidad &Tobago has an overt ‘African consciousness’ related to dress and culture but I suspect that’s an aspect of its economic and educational ascendancy, in addition to the cultural competition from the local Hindus. Still it’s nice to see Nigerian fancy dress on the racks in Port-of-Spain.

What else? If you want to watch TV once again Barbados and Trinidad are most modern, with many cable selections and US broadcast stuff from the US Virgin Islands, while the Guyanas are pretty bad, local only, with whatever international shows they can get on the cheap. You’ll be watching stuff you’d never watch ‘back home’. That’s not important, you say? Not if you’re on vacation, no, it probably isn’t. For those of us with nomadic lifestyles approaching serial residence, it can be certainly. Looking for girlie action? That’s not my game, but I assume they’ve all got their share of pragmatists, though none too overly overt. For simple friendliness from the locals I’d probably rate Barbados on top and Trinidad lowest, with something of an attitude problem sometimes, possibly racial. Barbados seems genuinely friendly, but that could be due to my vantage point in an apartment-like close proximity to many of them, and/or the fact that I didn’t stay long enough to get tired of it. Though small, Trinidad has the highest population, while all the others are sparsely populated enough that Sarah Palin could probably govern while juggling a baby. Overall I’d probably recommend Trinidad the most with honorable mention to Suriname and Barbados. Thus Guyana is probably the most problematic of the lot with little to commend it, to be honest. Sal si puedes.

BARBADOS AND THE GOOD LIFE

For all the pyrotechnics of the classic movie Apocalypse Now, the scene I remember most was the opening scene with the Martin Sheen character’s stream-of-consciousness… and that ceiling fan. Fans like that have followed me throughout my life, silent stalkers of the memory. That ceiling fan symbolizes more than tropical climes, hot and muggy, Spanish moss watching like dirty old men from Mississippi out beyond the window. Those ceiling fans symbolize something existential, flickering consciousness, thoughts and images struggling to maintain a speed of thirty frames per second so as to imply continuity. In these hot humid climes you’re lucky to maintain anything, including yourself erect. A short walk in the midday sun can mean a drenched shirt and a decreased will to live and an excuse for an unscheduled nap. A cloudy day might offer some cooling shade or it might offer something else. In the south Caribbean it doesn’t just rain… it precipitates. Expecting storms maybe? The air thickens until it reaches 100% humidity and then water just seems to ooze out from everywhere like someone squeezing a sponge. And that ceiling fan just keeps slapping air around as if to keep the mosquitoes honest. I lie here exhausted, finally succumbing to a higher power, that fan turning in my mind’s eye.

The book says the rainy season should be over by now and the dry season beginning. Tell it to the Equator, which is more than just some imaginary belt holding in the Earth’s midriff bulge. The same forces that widen the belly and flatten the poles also dump torrents of rain in the center and create desserts along the tropics, gravity and inertia and Coriolis forces spinning off. It’s no accident that the Amazon and Congo Rivers and the Sumatran rain forest lie smack on the line. Air currents suck humidity off the flanks and dump it on the center in a pattern that defines our existence, extending through the atmosphere almost to the stratosphere. Flight attendants will ask you to fasten your seat belts when flying over the Equator without even consulting Mr. Doppler. It comes with the territory. Talking about a ‘dry season’ along the equator is probably a whole lot like talking about a ‘rainy season’ in the desert. It’s all relative. That’s all behind me now anyway, the sweat and the constant rains and the swamps.

Barbados is the Caribbean proper again, a pleasant change after all the rough edges and inconsistencies of the Guyanas and Trinidad, itself geologically if not geographically part of the South American mainland. The beaches are sandy not muddy, and the air is fairly dry at this time of year. It seems fairly clean and serene, a bedroom community of mostly middle-class residents, without the grinding poverty and crushing crime of some of its ‘edgier’ neighbors. It’s also a country of religion, the Christian sort, though whether that’s cause or effect of its overall liveability I couldn’t say. Gospel music here rates equally with reggae and soca and hiphop in popularity and is commonly heard in places where you wouldn’t expect it in, say, Mississippi, arguably the home of such with its Malaco recording studios among others. There is a genuine friendliness in the people, not fawning like Jamaica or aggressive like Dakar, but just a genuine connectability that doesn’t necessarily include or exclude you on the basis of race. There’s even a standard line in Jamaica where the hustler approaches you because ‘you’re obviously not a racist’. This itself is racism of course, just like Thailand’s over-friendliness to ‘Farangs’, usually more meretricious than meritorious. The very existence of a slang term for a people is the best proof of racism towards them, however benign or even superficially friendly it might appear.

Barbados is prime Leeward Islands acreage, clear turquoise waters as far as the eye can see. You can take the bus from Black Rock to Speightstown and see nothing but sandy beach on one side and grassy lawns on the other. Much of the beach is public, too, but that seems endangered with luxury beach homes literally on the rise all over. They haven’t totally displaced the locals, however. Small gingerbread cottages line the other side of the road and locals congregate at a myriad of local pubs without resentment nor rancor towards the half million tourists that find their way to the island every year, notable considering the locals themselves only number a quarter million.

There are only a couple problems. For one thing Barbados is pricey, not just US pricey, but more like Manhattan pricey. Ironically I’ve got my best deal of the trip here- room with kitchenette for under $50. So regardless that meals are Buenos Aires café prices, I don’t care. I cook at home. Cable TV’s decent here too. Then there’s another problem- I don’t know if they want me here. Package tourists, yeah sure, I’m sure they’re welcome, as long as they’ve been bought and sold like slave-ship chattel being led to auction, but independent travelers like me, dropping in and hanging out, and then moving on as the mood strikes, well I’m not sure. Maybe they’re scared that if they let people in on their own, they just may not leave, as is a major problem in Thailand right now. Here’s the story:

On my walk through downtown Bridegetown, the capital, yesterday my first full day here, I just happened- quite accidentally btw- to pass by the office of Air Jamaica, the airline I return to Jamaica on. On a whim I decide to drop in.

“I’m flying to Montego Bay on the 12^th. Do I need to re-confirm?” I haven’t re-confirmed a flight in years, though frequently change return dates to Asia, so similar in effect.

“Yes you do,” the nice man said almost condescendingly. “The 12^th of this month?” He looks up at my dumb nodding stare. “That flight’s been cancelled. You’ve been put on the flight for the 11^th. They tried to contact you.”

“Not by e-mail they didn’t. I checked yesterday.” Isn’t it logical that a flight booked by Internet would notify of changes by e-mail? Where would they call anyway?

“Is the 11th okay?”

“Do I have any choice?”

“Not unless you want to go on the 15^th.”

“No, that won’t work.” I’m supposed to be flying from Jamaica to Cuba on the 15^th, and anyway, I don’t know if Barbados Immigration gave me enough days for that. Later I decide to check. After searching for about an hour, I finally found the stamp. If I’m reading it correctly, they gave me one day. Huh? I had asked for five and had a pleasant enough chat with the nice lady, so assumed everything was fine. Did she make a mistake? I knew I only got one day coming through, but I only needed one day then, so didn’t think much about it. Maybe it’s a good thing my trip got cut a day shorter, since at worst, now I’ve just got a two-day overstay to account for, hardly the stuff of police action. Hell, for all the hassle Trinidad just gave me in transit- as if somehow they KNEW I was winging it (luckily I booked an onward flight by Internet the day before), checking my itinerary twice at la migra going and coming, once at the airline counter- at least they gave two days in the country JUST TO MAKE AN ONWARD CONNECTION THE SAME DAY. I remain optimistic, just like I was at the ferry crossing from Suriname to Guyana, what, some four days ago? It seems like four months. By analogy to Einstein’s theory, I guess time slows down when you travel at the speed of light.

So I sit in my room eating corn pone, I born in the Caribbean periphery some fifty-odd years ago and not even knowing it, eating the food and talking the talk. Annie’s soul food kitchen in downtown Brandon, MS would be right at home here, as would Big Daddy’s catfish parlor along San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley. Those old connections, however far-flung, are dying of course as Afro-Americans enter the mainstream more and more. No one talks about the ‘Ebonics’ language any more, nor should they. Though Northerners and Southerners, including Blacks, may still accuse each other of ‘talking funny’, any problems of mutual intelligibility are long gone. TV and rising education levels will do that to you.

Regardless of Immigration’s final disposition toward me I like Barbados and feel cheated at only getting a few days. It’s better for your visit to be a couple days too long like Guayana and Suriname was for me than too short like Barbados. That way there are no regrets. Maybe I’m right and they don’t want you to think of their azure waters as your waters. A country of a quarter million people could get overrun by foreign bozos quickly. The irony is that two of the three countries in the world where you can buy citizenship outright and legally are here in the Caribbean, Dominica and St. Kitts/Nevis. Can’t guess the other? How about Austria? Cambodia’s another story, subject to negotiation, and they’re probably not alone. As always it’s the people who make the place, and they seem genuinely nice here. It whets my appetite to see more of the Caribbean, especially the Leeward Islands, and see what I’m missing. Maybe I WILL buy citizenship somewhere. What’ll Immigration tell me then? Si se puede.

So I pass through Immigration bpam bpam bpam (that’s Thai) without a word, so who knows: do they not know that maybe I overstayed? Do they not care? I didn’t want to ask for fear of getting the wrong result, so the mystery will remain so, at least until the next time. Still it’s bothersome. The last thing a traveler wants to worry about is his Immigration stamp. But that’s okay, since otherwise I’d feel pampered. If I admit to having AC, can I still keep my street cred? Without it that ceiling fan would have to be a Havilland Dash-8 turboprop to keep the air moving, like the one that kept the air moving beneath me last Thursday on the flight back to Barbados. Hell, I haven’t been without AC since Christmas in Guyana. Most of the places have cold showers, though, I swear, at least not very hot anyway. The TV really sucked, honest. Sometimes I disgust myself.