In the end we decided to do not much with our time in LA. We got us a hotel room, had a rest, then decided we'd walk to Venice Beach. Our terribly unhelpful front desk dude gave us a map and circled an area of about 5km radius to show us where the hotel was, and gave us some vague directions.
After 2 hours of walking there was no beach, but we somehow ended up in Marina Del Ray, which was .... interesting. Sort of like a Docklands nightmare.
Not much else to report from the USA, other than in general the people are obscenely fat, the food is terrible, and the ruthless inneficiency of every single process they have is baffling (We had to deal with 8 different people just to check in for a domestic flight at LAX, which took an hour).
Cancun is so completely better than we were expecting. We're staying in the middle of town, which is far enough away from the resorts that we have to use Peso's and try to speak spanish. Walking through town is sort of like all the best bits of Asia without the annoying bits. The people are super friendly, the food is supremely good, Corona is 50c a bottle, and there's no hecklers in sight. Oh and there's VW's everywhere. Should have planned ahead and made a list of parts to buy.
We almost had a complete disaster today.
I nearly lost my terry towel hat.
It all happened when we walked up to the beaches where all the resorts are. There were dudes there with Jetski's so we figured we'd give them a shot. Pretty fun, they go fast in a straight line, they handle like fridges, and when Timmy ran into me at full speed the engine even cut out so I didn't have to swim to shore! But I did nearly lose my hat in that little incedent. I think I'll have some decent bruises tom morrow, but the hat's alright.
For those betting on how long it would take me to injure myself, enjoy your winnings.
Cancun is still fun, but there's not much to see, so we're getting excited about Cuba.
I think ifs about time I added to the terry towelling hat narrative.
I suppose what you all want to know is how i managed to knock nic flying with the front of my personal watercraft. if you've ever driven one you'll know that you can't steer a jetski when it's drifting, you need to be accelerating so the jet coming out the back directs you where you point the handles. without power it just keeps going straight. nic had turned in front of me, and neither of us were going very quick (about 10km/h i guess), and i was expecting him to accelerate and clear my path, but he didn't. so i was about to bash into the side of his jetski, and i couldn't turn, so i put on some gas and tried to turn it. it didn't turn, but it *did* accelerate, clipped the bottom of his ski and my ski pretty much went straight over nic's at right angles, and collected him square with a perfectly timed bit of jetski acrobatics.
It was quite spectacular!
So i had a fantastic view of nic wrapping himself around the nose of my ski. the expression on his face was priceless ...
Luckily i managed to save his hat from a watery mexican grave.
I feel rather bad having nearly killed him so early in the trip, but luckily nothing seems broken so the show goes on. but i don't think we'll be hiring motor vehicles again.
So we went to Chichen Itza yesterday, which is a 1600 year old pyramid built by the Mayans (built over the top of another smaller pyramid, which must have involved some engineering), They built it without wheels or metal tools, which is a fair effort really, And anyone that's ever heard me go on about the Mayan pyramid that lines up with the orbit of the moon and on the equinox's there's some cool shadow stuff going on, this is it There's also many other building around it, including a few sacrificial spots and a wall of stones with skulls carved in them to represent the captains of the winning soccer (sort of) teams sacrifice. Lovely.
Mexico is very different to my preconceptions. I had expected more poverty, more harassment, and having to be more careful and defensive. To our delight, it has turned out to be extremely friendly, the people are well-off, and they largely leave you alone when you want them to. Even the people selling stuff to tourists generally leave you alone when you shake your head and say no thanks, which is quite different to my experiences in Morocco and to how Nic describes travelling in Asia. The wealth and tourist-friendly attitude is surely a result of the massive number of tourists here, but surprisingly most of the tourists (at least in the town itself rather than in the resort zone just out of town along the beach) are mexican. There are heaps of mexican families here on holiday, so as a result you don't feel as if you're just one of the hordes of Westerners trapped in the exploitation loop (we exploit the locals culture and services and such, they rip us off for touristy junk and overpriced crap) that is common in these sorts of places. Things are probably different in the resorts, where americans pay about 4 times as much for everything and never have to leave the beach.
The locals here are mostly the descendants of the Mayan people, and they share a remarkable genetic resemblance to each other. For a start, they are all tiny. Standing in line for a bus a couple of days ago, we realised that nobody in the line was even up to the height of our shoulders. Even the men, The women would be lucky to reach my sternum. They also tend to be sort of round shaped, chubby, with heavy bodies. They also have large heads and broad shoulders. It's amazing how uniform their size and shape is, Of course, there are many mexicans of other ethnic flavours, and mixes of many different backgrounds, so not everyone here is short, but the Mayans tend to be (especially when we got out of town). They are pretty. friendly, and are happy to have a joke with us, so it's been pretty enjoyable just running
around here.
Yesterday, as you can see from Nic's post, we took a tour out to Chichen Itza to see the ancient Mayans'handiwork. The whole area is built on a platform of earth that stands about 2m above the surrounding jungle - it's a massive area and the amount of earth moved is quite astonishing. the site is near two large sinkholes with water, one to the north of the pyramid was for sacred purposes (like sacrifices to the rain god), and archaeologists have found many artifacts of the Mayan culture at the bottom of the water hole). The other sinkhole was for practical use. The site also has the largest playing field for the famous Mayan sport (its name escapes me) which involves putting a 3kg rubber ball through a hole high up on the walls at either side, without using hands or feet The playing field is about the size of a soccer field, but longer and walled in. The acoustics in it are incredible: you can hear someone speaking in a loud voice from one end to the other (more than 100 metres), and when you clap you can hear about 7 echoes). We were told that after the games, the captain of the winning team was sacrificed to the gods by decapitation (the carvings on the walls depict this). pretty serious game!
The yramid itself is pretty awesome. The total number of steps is matched to the number of days in the year (91 x 4 sides + 1 extra step at the top). it also measures the lunar year, and at the equinox apparently the shadow passes down the large steps in a serpent pattern, which looks like the Mayan sun god, the feathered serpent Kukulkan, climbing down the pyramid. A pretty impressive trick! We climbed the pyramid which was easy enough for us young fit people, but some of the older, fatter americans looks about to die ... i think they call that "natural selection". The view at the top was magnificent and stretched over about a hundred k's of flat, uniform dense jungle. They also have a Mayan observatory where they measured and catalogued the stars and worked out an insanely accurate calendar. For some reason the Mayan ruling class died out and the Mayan working class lost all the knowledge and moved out of the cities in about 1300AD, and nobody knows why Oh well.
Anyway i think this post is big enough. We head to Cuba tonight, should be very interesting. More when possible.
So despite the lack of communication, we made it to Cuba, and we are alive. The lack of communication is due to the only internet place being 4 computers in an Accor hotel, and there's usually a line. And at $3 for 10 minutes it's not super cheap, but people seem to sit on it for an hour whenever I'm waiting.
But back to Cuba. We arrived at the airport at about 10.30, and arrived at our Casa at 12.30 well and truly ready to sleep. It's odd arriving in any unfamiliar city at night, but arriving in a second world country you have no idea about in the middle of the night is ten times worse. There's no hostels here, and hardly any hotels, so we stay in Casa's, which are essentially private homes with rooms the owners rent out, while paying a fee to the government.
The next morning we were up and ready to make sense of this crazy city. First thing to sort out was money. Cuba runs on 2 currencies, convertible Pesos and national Pesos. We can't use national money, and the Cubans can't use convertible. It's far too confusing at first, but we're all over it now. Except Timmy ended up with a fake 20 peso note.
In the past 2 days we've pretty much done central and old Havana. Well we've tried to. It would be easy to spend more time here, as the place is just amazing. Our casa is about 100m from il Capitolio, essentially the US Capitol building. Opposite this huge, beautiful building, are 4 storey colonial apartments blocks completely run down, dirty, and housing hundreds of Cubans each. It's a stark juxtaposition and one we encounter everywhere we go. The
Spanish settling here (well it was more like invading and decimating and importing slaves really) means the architecture is amazing. And there is almost no modern buildings. While most are dirty and verging on derelict, it's still easy to look down any street and be amazed at such a streetscape.
We've done too much and seen too much to go into detail, but so far we're loving it. The food is tops, the people are insanely friendly, and our Spanish is abysmal. It all adds up to crazy adventures.
Our last day in central Havana is tomorrow, we're heading to the Plaza de la Revolucion, where Fidel gives his speeches to the millions and the famour Che mural is. After that it's Playa Habana (the beach side of town), then onto the rest of the country. Adios. (See!! I can speak Spanish!!!)
Havana. "You wanna buy cigar? Cohiba? I give good price!!" What a crazy place. It's hard to reconcile the obvious poverty and shortages of basic necessities (like toilet seats, bottled water, some foodstuffs) with the sometimes ostentatious wealth (the dudes driving audis). The city is dilapidated, the cars are ancient (stinking and held together with wire and santeria chants), the buildings are often in disrepair, but in contrast the place has this really great oldskool colonial majesty that can be quite breathtaking. Some of the old Spanish buildings are simply amazing, and the views over the harbour from the old Spanish fort (former
headquarters of Che Guevara shortly after the revolution) are breathtaking. Cheap mojitos, cheap cuba libres (Cuban rum and Cuban cola), cheap beer (Bucanero and Cristal) and cheap pizza. But some things are still pretty expensive, or just impossible to get The people are generally friendly even though we speak next to no Spanish (though it is improving rapidly). Very very interesting and I can't wait to show you guys some photos - unfotunately impossible on this internet connection and i don't know when i'll get a chance. Communications infrastructure here is not the best. .. but yeah, it's been a real experience, that's for sure. Today we bought some Cuban hats. We both got straw Fedora-style ones. I also got a "Che" beret and a "Fidel" hat with the Cuban flag. Brilliant Oh yeah, and we've been doing a load of walking and Nic's leg is pretty much back to normal (apart from when he tried to jump a fence and whacked it really nicely). That's all i'm out of time.
So we've been in the sleepy town in cuba's west called Vinales. Its population is about 10,000 people, most of whom rent out rooms in their houses to tourists, so we were very popular when we arrived on the bus! Vinales has no internet, so that's why we've dropped out of contact for the last few days. But it is lovely, it has these crazy limestone hills called mogotes, and the people were very friendly. the lady whose house we stayed in lived right on the main street, and we had rocking chairs on the balcony to sit drinking cuba libres and watch the town go past she also cooked us breakfast and dinner every day, which was great as there seemed to be no decent restaurant in town. and one of the pubs had no beer. but it did have one pretty cool club called the "Polo" which had a wicked salsa band on friday night, and the cubans who managed to get in can really dance. I was severely embarrassed by being asked to dance by a cute little cuban chica, and put up a pathetic effort at salsa, while nic pretended he was still injured from the jetski "incident" and declined to jOin us on the floor. which was lucky, because he got the chance to note the moves carefully, and discovered that salsa dancing actually has nothing at all to do with the music. during the days we hired bikes and rode around to ceck out the local caves, hills, etc, and on the second day hired scooters (violating our previously stated "no more motor vehicles" rule). As you can tell by my ability to type, we escaped without major incident, and the scooter guy didn't notice the new scratches down the left side of my ride, or the skin missing from my left hand, earned as a result of a failed attempt to brake quickly on a gravel road. the two cuban men trying to fix a bicycle tire on the side of the road were obviously concerned, but i've had many worse falls in my life: no problemo. i'm also told i supermanned pretty skilfully. and i didn't even lose my deposit. so that was vinales and our experience of rural cuba. some of the worst roads i've ever seen, some great people, and some really crazy ones. now we're in Trinidad which is much bigger. excellent
Hola!!!1
So the lack of communication over the last few days is the result of us spending 3 nights in Vinales. Vinales is essentially a 1 street town. It just happens to be in a crazy valley that's sort of like the Grampians viewed through a kaleidoscope. The town was cool though, and we were sad to leave when we realised we were leaving behind the characters we'd come across. Like the dude in the fully pimped Fiat that did laps of the street all night, or the crazy guy that thought he was a pro cyclist and rode up and down all day and night, or the grand poobah of the Freemasons (Yes, there was a freemasons's hall... we tried to spy on the handshake but with no success).
Aside from the whacky town, the valley was incredible, we rode bikes around on the first day, and then got scooters on the second. Scooters that went very slow, mind you. But I think Tim might be recounting that on the computer next to me.
So now we're in Trinidad, which is also a slightly small town, but huge in comparison to Vinales. We got a 6 hour taxi ride (definitely a personal record for a single Taxi trip) from Vinales that took us through a fair chunk of Cuba. Havana and Vinales were polar opposites, and the taxi ride pretty much confirmed what I was starting to think about this whole socialistlmarxist thing. It just doesn't work. The people are stuck in a time warp. Their education, health, housing and food might be good, but their infrastructure is literally crumbling arund them. I can't conceive how this place will get through the next 10 years without some massive changes.
Enough ranting ... hopefully we'll have a report on Trinidad shenanigans in the next few days.
In no particular order, these are the things we've noticed Cubans are absolutely mental for:
So we didn't come to Cuba for the scenery or the daschunds. We came because we wanted to see what this place is like. What it's like to be Cuban. How this country works.
I'd read a fair bit before I came and it was all conflicting, resulting in the view that a lot of what we thought we knew about Cuba was distorted via our good friend George W.
I'm starting to get my head around this place, but I can't help wonder why the people aren't better off. I'm not about to launch into a multi page rant, so I'll use the currency as an example.
Over here we use Convertible Pesos. The Cubans use National Pesos. A Convertible Peso is essentially pegged to the Euro, while there are 24 National Pesos to the Convertible (confused yet?).
So initially we thought this was a basic (and brilliant!) tourist tax. The government had worked out an exchange rate that made tourism affordable, but not ridiculously cheap. We pay for everything in convertibles, from buying a drink from a supermarket to paying for our accomodation. We figured the Cubans then took the convertible to the bank and got 1 national peso for the convertible, while the state pocketed the extra 23 (Cubans can't use Convertibles). But upon arrival in Trinidad we found a window serving beer whereby we got 14 national pesos change when we bought two 5 (national) Peso beers. So essentially they were proving they can take our convertible to the bank and get 24 pesos.
This double economy is completely baffling. At first I wondered why the state doesn't just correct the currency on a national level to put the national in line with the convertible. It wouldn't make a difference to the entire economy on a local scale. The only difference it would make is to it's exports. Cuba's exports are Cigars, Rum, sugar, tobacco, and a bit of fruit. All of it is controlled by the state. At which point it becomes obvious that the only loser out of a fair exchange rate would be the government, as the value of their exports would decrease 2300%.
So somewhere in this country, there is plenty of money coming in. And it definitely isn't being spent on the people or the infrastructure.
Cuba has had two wars of independence and two revolutions, all rebelling against imperialism. Yet I have never seen a population being ripped off to the extent these people are. Because of their exchange rate it is impossible for them to leave their country (and therefore they have terrible food!! Which I believe Timmy is canvasing on the computer next ot me). It is essentially impossible for them to outside their own economic bubble. And the more we see, the more it seems that's exactly what the government wants. Something is rottren in the state of Cuba. But I get the sense we'll never know the extent until Fidel is gone. I hope some of that made sense. It's a terribly confusing system, and only a tiny part of the big picture which is impossible to paint without actually coming here and experiencing it.
The food here is terrible.
I know they have lots of shortages of basic things like spices, etc, but we've decided that cubans really just have no idea what they're sposed to do with food. Most restaurant menus consist wholly and solely of the following:
The food mayor may not be served with some rice, some shredded iceberg lettuce, a slice of tomato and some potato. The seasoning consists of oil, and salt. And so you end up with a slice of fatty, gristly, oily dirty salty chicken or pig, that is so salty you need a couple of bucaneros to wash it down. it really is atrocious. we think there are probably two reasons for the quality of the food:
a) Cubans can't afford to travel overseas to learn how to cook properly, and so genuinely don't know any better (in fact i think this is a theme of cuban life, they are proud of their country because they don't know any better.
b) There hasn't been any decent immigration level since the revolution in 1959. If melbourne's food was stuck in a time-warp from 1959 our food would be pretty bad too.
but really we think food shortages are no excuse, seeing as how chicken is plentiful, vegetables are plentiful, and it doesn't take much imagination to do better than the saltencrusted muck that passes for a restaurant meal in Cuba. It's lucky we've been able to supplement our meals with cheap street pizza.
Further to Nic's post. .. the interesting thing is that a lot of Cubans seem to be making a lot of money relative to their own economy. The people that own casas particulare, who basically rent rooms in their homes to tourists for 10-20 convertible pesos per person per night, and who also score money for supplying breakfast, dinner and doing laundry, often seem to be making about 200-250 convertible a week. which, if you multiply by 24, which i can't do in my head, is a lot of cuban national pesos. These people should be utterly loaded in a country where basic living supplies are so so cheap. this is roughly the equivalent of running a couple of $500/night rooms in your house, and having roughly 80% occupancy!1
But they don't seem to be doing that well at all. all our hosts live in the sorts of hovels that would be knocked down, not even fit for the worst kind of student share house in melbourne. the houses are full of unbuilt sections, no hot water and little cold, haven't tasted painted for eons, with kitchens that would make my mother pass out cold. they can't afford a car, even a lada.
sS what is happening to the money? we figure it's either being squirelled away in overseas bank accounts until fidel kicks it and everything changes. at least that seems to be the hope. in any case, there is little sign of the relatively vast amounts of money that must be flowing in from tourists, and with my complete lack of knowledge of economics i have no good answer. but the question certainly intrigues us.
than sitting back drinking beers and discussing socialist economic policy. Honestly. It's just we can't upload photos here, and in the past we've found people's travel blogs which are dedicated to minute details of every single building/natural feature of a place to be ... well. .. boring. We promise we are doing stuff, seeing stuff, and generally having a ripping time. If you must know we're going horse riding into a national park tomorrow. So there!
We took a guided tour on a combination of horse and by foot to a waterfall, with a trio of Austrians (yes, the other Austria), where we could swim (but we didn't because we couldn't be arsed getting wet and it didn't look that impressive). The Austrians did crack out the budgie smugglers (or banana hammocks, if you prefer) and have a dip though. Europeans are so funny.
Anyway, I digress. This is about the horses. I was given a noble steed by the name of ·Tito··, who i am convinced is the direct heir of the famous Rozinante, whose famous deeds with the famous knight Don Quixote de la Mancha are the stuff of legend. I have no doubt that Tito has had a long and outstanding life of dedicated struggle supporting the Revolution. For all I know he probably went into battle with Antonio Maceo's Mambi soldiers in 1896!! He was that old and slow i literally thought he was going to die underneath me. and i think my shoulders were taller than his.
which is actually lucky, cos i'm not much of a horse person. Nic's horse was a bit better, which was lucky because that 3km of trail was so hard that a lesser horse may have struggled to carry his camera the whole way. When we arrived at 10am we were given a welcome drink of a mix of Creme de Menthe, Grenadine and something else alcoholic, with ice. It was terrible, and far too early even for seasoned Aussie drinkers like us.
The waterfall was ok, but just like the beaches here, not as good as the ones at home, so we're pretty much just snobs about most of the natural stuff.
And i don't think the guide was too amused when he pointed out the national bird and I asked if we could eat it.
So after the cracking bus trip Tim is recounting on the other computer, we've arrived in Santiago de Cuba. This is Cuba's second biggest city (well the book claims this, but it's only got 250,000 people) and it's at the opposite end to Havana (hence the epic bus ride). We've had a bit of a look around today and, much like Havana, it's a mix of some stunning old buildings, crumbling facades, crazy people and Marti busts. All viewed through a haze of exhaust fumes.
After almost a week in the Cuban countryside, it took a while to get used to the smog again, but now I think we're well adjusted to the mild head-spins as the trucks go past.
Thankfully we've found some good food already, with our $1.50 pizza and beer last night, and lunch today consisting of yet more pizza, this time with possibly every topping they could find. Cracking.
One of our aims while here is to see ourselves a baseball game. You walk through the parks here and there are bunches of old dudes arguing madly and waving their arms about. Apparently, it's all about baseball. If they're like this when they talk about the sport, it should be interesting when they're watching it. Thankfully we"re here for Friday and Saturday, so we reckon our chances of success are pretty good But our spanish thus far hasn't been, so all we know is that yes, there is baseball played here. And yes, it is on tonight and tomorrow. The rest are mere details I'm sure.
I'm going to try and get some photos up tomorrow, so you"ve got something pretty to look at. But times up now!
Our two days spent in Santiago de Cuba were, as usual, interesting. The city is quite large and spread out, with some hills (and old disused tram lines) that give it a look a little how i imagine san francisco. it's very different to Havana, in that it still has the old spanish charm, but is a little more laidback rather than Havana's grand old colonial attitude. It would be quite lovely if not for the usual foul smog that ruins the otherwise lovely ambience of the place. Oh, that and the hustlers, who were probably more persistent than anywhere else we've been. but still, it's not so bad compared to say Morocco or - Nic tells me - Bali or Thailand. We did realise that we're lucky to be guys, when two Danish girls that were on our bus into Santiago joined us for a few drinks on our second night there. It seems the favourite phrase of the locals is not "You want taxi?", "Where you from?" or You want cigars? Cohiba, Monte
Cristo ... Good price!!", apparently it's "Hey lady I love you too much ... ··
So i think we were basically very helpful to our new Danish friends, as two men as goodlooking and tough as ourselves *cough cough* are quite an effective deterrent to those seeking to marry (or even just score)a 'rich' european woman. I won't deny that it was an absolute pleasure to provide this service, it was great to spend some time speaking english, and having someone else (much better looking than nic, too) to talk to. So the second night in Santiago, after eating a pizza with some tomato sauce, cheese and three olives, we bought a bottle of rum, a bottle of cola and sat in the park, the four of us, drinking and chatting and watching the local kids teasing the cops. We had a few people try to sell us things, score some of our rum, etc, but on the whole it was very convivial. So Santiago de Cuba gets a good rating from me.
Even though the museum is the worst i've EVER seen (and i've been to a lot).
The other highlight was going to the cemetery to see the mausoleum of the greatest of Cuban national heroes, Jose Marti, complete with military guard and a contrived 'Changing of the guards' spectacle with lots of marching, military music and shiny rifles. It was pretty funny though and we got ticked off by the attendant for standing on the wrong side of the monument, or something, we know not what. Maybe he wanted a tip.
So we're in Holguin now, essentially on our way home. Albeit a 6 day, 4 country way home with one night on a bus and one on a plane. But our final stop has been Holguin. And we reckon Holguin is tops.
Once again the place we were staying here was organised by the last people we stayed with, and when we arrived this dude got in the car with us who it quickly became evident could 'get us anything, i have lots of contacts'. So we told him we only wanted to really see a baseball game. An hour later he's back .. the baseball game just started and he's got a car to take us there. Cuban's are cool like that. The baseball was way cool. They truly are crazy. Absolutely, completely, loco.
Anyway, we saw baseball, I went back to this dudes place to use dialup internet (all the geeks out there would be so highly impressed with the box this dude had built. Home made PSU, no case, hard wired everything spread out over three shelves) and teach him some photoshop (evidently as well as taking tourists aroudn town, selling cigars, buying and selling cameras, and probably breeding daschunds, this dude's real business is cheesey photo's of weddings photoshopped onto cheesey scenes). So yeah, it seems free enterprise is, in a small way, well and truly happening over here.
Then, last night we got some beers and then moved into the park when we noticed a huge PA being setup (they truly love a big speaker stack). I started talking to an old Cuban dude next to me who it turns out was a Professor of English teaching Bolivian medical students. Before that he spent 10 years in the Ukraine, Ireland, Spain and Mozambique as a Chemical Engineer. And wouldn't leave Cuba for all the money in the world (or the right to vote).
So yeah, we like Holguin a lot. Nice town, no smog, and officially the most interesting people we've met so far. Still no photo-getting-up possibilities, but we'll have a crack form Havana tomorrow.
So we're back in Cancun now, and it's strange to say that Mexico seems like a much more civilised, ordered and free place than when we left a few weeks ago.
We've spent most of the last 2 days travelling, and while sitting on and waiting for buses we've been trying to finally make sense of the crazy country. Trying to work out how exactly to sum it up. I think 'baffling' is the word I used most frequently.
The people are what makes the place. I don't know if they consider their country Socialist, Nationalist, Marxist or whatever, and I'm pretty sure they don't really care. They are amazingly strong and content people. I wouldn't say they are happy, but they are content. It takes a truly special people to not loose all hope while their country literally crumbles around them.
Every time we would try and get our heads around it, something would happen. We'd see something or meet someone that would blow our views right out of the water. And this morning was the final, and most potent example of that.
It took us an hour and a half to check in at the airport. There was a huge group of people milling around a few officials handing out white plastic bags. Every person who received one of these bags would slip off to the back of the group to a huddle of solemn looking family members. After a while I noticed that most of these people were pulling out a brand new Cuban passport from their bags, and I eventually saw one showing his family his freshly printed Certificate of Refugee Status. These people had no luggage. Some had a backpack. We were watching about 120 people leave everything behind to get out of the country. I'm sure most had no idea when they would see their families again.
I've got no idea how frequently this all happens, but it made a lasting and sombre impression. Cuba is an amazing place full of amazing people We're glad we came, because a lot is going to change in the next few years, Unfortunately I don't see how it can get better without getting a lot worse, but I really hope it does.
So Nic has already posted his summing up thoughts about Cuba on the whole, and I tend to agree with him in general, but I'll need to take a bit (a lot) more time to really sit down and think through my thoughts. Cuba has really been a challenge for us, both in terms of logistics (finding food, transport, accommodation, not speaking Spanish No habla Espanol), but the more profound challenge has been the one to our views about the role of governments, on the politics of the Cuban revolution (apparently it's still going after 47 years), on whether Cubans are really happy, or whether they even know any better, and on what we in our outsider's ignorance think would be the best thing for the Cuban people's future. It is the strangest place I have ever been. Every time we thought we had it worked out, a twist would come and shake our understanding to the core. From our posts it might seem like we had a bad time, we complained a lot about the food, the transport, the pollution, the lack of water and sanitation, the decay that envelopes the whole country and that we think will inevitably consume it unless something drastic happens. The country is in a time-warp, and we got a real sense of waiting until something happens, which is most likely going to be Fidel's death, until which real change is impossible. But the experience, though sometimes difficult and challenging, was a great one for those reasons. The difficulty reconciling Cuban national pride with our observations of the basic problems they face, of weighing social equality and integration; of true equal opportunity and solidarity as a community; of access to health and education and a safety net of rations and government support, against the lack of economic and political freedom that is a genuine problem and which even as an outsider is obvious and repressive. The police are obvious and control the lives of Cubans to an outrageous extent.
On the whole I think the best thing about Cuba is the Cubans. They are on the whole friendly, helpful and good-humoured. I felt very safe the whole time I was there. Even the hustlers took our irreverent piss-takes with a laugh and little bit of confusion (Hey buddy where you from? The moon. Mucho frio [very cold]). Of course we met plenty of shady characters, but we're pretty good at dealing with them (natural affinity you might say), and they're not as persistent as in other places We also met some really great people, who genuinely wanted to help us; to learn about our country; to impress us with Cuban hospitality and tell us about their country. Staying in Casa Particulares meant we did get to meet real Cubans and see behind the crumbling, unpainted facades, and see how they live.
I'm going to have to give some serious thought to my final post about Cuba, but for now, sitting in the relative luxury of Cancun, I simply haven't managed to sort out my thoughts about this strange and completely crazy country. I'm glad to be back in civilization, with my head shaken up, my political beliefs rearranged, my belly full, and all in one piece. I will post some photos (have some great ones) and more thoughts after our return.
Now bring on the 30 hours of flying.