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.