February 5th-February 12th
One of the things that I have been thinking about recently being surrounded by this socialist experiment that is Cuba and the pervasive anti-imperialist sentiment rippling through Latin America is the future of this government. Castro has done a superb job at quelling opposition, while keeping Cuba modern (being a leader in biotechnology) and succeeding when faced with imminent failure (bouncing back after the fall of the Soviet Union). People love him, for the most part, and he has kept this revolution and this country going for more than fifty years. But anyway that spends any time reading about Cuban politics or a few days talking to the comrades of this country can intuit that Castro is the only reason that Cuba is still the way it is. His intelligence or his despotism, depending on how you look at it, has kept the country in check and his system of government in place.
This is all old news however. What had me thinking is that no matter how things work out, he will inevitably fail, and because of that, I know part of him must be a very sad man. Whereas many US Presidents have claimed that they would only wish the responsibilities and work of their position on their worst enemies and never on their friends, and that is the loneliest position of power, Fidel has held that same position for over forty years, and has undoubtedly had many more responsibilities than a US president does. Furthermore, even if he lives another ten years, he and everyone else knows that his time on Earth is limited, and with that limit comes the limit of Communism. Though other Latin American nations may transition to a socialist system in the next ten years (I’m looking at you Venezuela, although a very intelligent and respected Cuban recently told me that he knows that Hugo Chavez is nothing more than a dog that is being fed by his master, Fidel, and without a master, the dog, and thus the country, will become a stray), this social-governmental experiment is an inevitable failure.
No one else is committed to carrying on this society, and thus the past forty years of absolute dedication on the part of Fidel has been for naught, in a sense. Think about knowing that soon after you are buried, the one thing you have worked on for your entire adult life will be abolished (though not forgotten). It’s impossible to not be saddened at the thought. It also seems impossible not to be tempted to give up now so at least you can be responsible for two of the world’s most radical government revolutions. Fidel Castro’s dedication is beyond admirable. We all ought to find something in life worth that selflessness.
We went to the Feria Internacional de Libros (International Book Fair) on Tuesday with Delio. We had to stop every five or ten minutes for him to say hello to someone he knew or to ask someone where something was or how much something cost. Diana remarked that it was like going out with her Ecuadorian grandparents in their village because they have to talk to everyone.
It is held every year in one of the large forts of Havana, which is an amazing setting. I was looking for more English books to read while I was here, so I found a copy of The Once and Future King to replace my misplaced version, The Pearl, and an English/Spanish compilation of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Wednesday we learned about the architecture of Cuba, and then took a walking tour of the old part of town in order to see what we had learned about. The changes in the architecture is very interesting, and the reasons for the changes are a total reflection of Cuban history. For instance, many two story buildings were split into one office floor and two floors for living space, after the sugar industry took off in Cuba following the Haitian revolution.
This whole country, is full of paradoxes. For instance, many guidebooks warn that Cuba really isn’t a cheap place to visit. And if that’s what you want to believe, then it will be true. Many of the restaurants will charge between $7 and $15 for a plate of food; clubs can cost between $5 and $15 for entrance, and the charter buses and Cubana Airlines can cost between $30 and $150 one-way.
On the other hand, we find a new place every day to buy a cheap lunch, anywhere between thirty cents and $3 for a full belly and a cold drink. A tangential point was made by Alex the other night: Cuba is like a ten year old’s dream. All of us here eat pizza daily (usually the size of a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut), some of us more than one pizza a day (my record is four). Afterwards, we usually eat some ice cream (once again, my record is six cones in one day), which is so much creamier and better than American ice cream. Then you can head down to the Malecon on a hot day with a rough sea and get splashed by giant waves, just like a water park. If it’s still hot, you can go get an orange for one peso (1/24th of a dollar) and it eat like you would at a youth soccer game. And the best part is that all of this can be had for about $5 a day, which is around what you would make for allowance as a ten year old. Hell, it’s just as much of a dream for budgeting college students who still like the finer things in life, such as alcohol which can be purchased for a dollar or less for a beer or about $3.80 for a bottle of Havana Club rum that makes Bacardi look like the cheap imitator it is – alternatively, you can buy peso rum which runs about $2.50 (60 pesos).
Ask a taxi how much it is to such and such place, and they’ll tell you. What you don’t realize is that they’ll tell you a more expensive price than what the meters would run you. Such is the life of an extranjero. Last Sunday, when Valerie and I took a cab back to Havana from the International Book Fair, we knew how not to get screwed over – we asked the cab driver to run the meter. The difference this time in how he ended up screwing us over was by taking a roundabout way that tacked on extra kilometers to the meter. A ride that should’ve been about $3 ended up costing $4.50. When I took my cab on Saturday to Casablanca to take the Hershey Electric Railway to Playa Jibacoa, he quoted me $6, but forgot to turn off the meter. When we arrived, the meter only read $4.50 but at 7AM I wasn’t ready to argue in Spanish about getting taken advantage of. Similarly, charter buses run daily to Playa Jibacoa, but they run a much more expensive price than the trains that I took. For a 55km train ride, I paid 1.65 pesos, less than ten cents.
When I arrived in Jibacoa, I still faced a 9km walk to Playa Jibacoa. After a couple of kilometers, I heard a truck rumbling behind me, so I waved them down and asked if they were headed to Playa Jibacoa. They told me to get in the back and they drove me into town in the bed of their bread truck. At one point, a bread basket turned over, so I righted it and put some of the fallen bread back in – I figured it was the least I could do for a free ride that they would not take any money for, not even fifty cents. On the way back to Havana, I took a twenty cent (pesos) train to one station, hitched a ride to another town, got on a guagua (Cuban public bus) for three pesos, then switched to another guagua for two pesos to Havana. The total cost of my transportation for over 100km of travel was essentially ten times less expensive than just the 5km taxi ride to the train station.
The good thing about going to Jibacoa this weekend was that Saturday was the first day I spoke only Spanish. I compare Saturday with this past Wednesday, when I realized that I had spoken less than ten sentences in Spanish the whole day. This is again an example of the problems with American University’s enclaves. To finally become immersed, I had to travel by myself outside of Havana. Whether or not I should celebrate my first day of only Spanish or I should be embarrassed that it’s taken me three weeks to achieve that, I don’t know.
This was also another week of crazy weather. It seems that we have finally entered into Cuba’s winter, with warm days, between 70 and 90 degrees, and cool nights, usually in the 50s or low 60s. As another example, when I came into Jibacoa on Saturday, it was hot – at least 85 degrees, and I was more than ready for a swim in the cool, crystalline waters. I ended up getting a little sunburned on my shoulders, but I headed back to the casa particular I was staying at around 4 because large clouds were rolling in. Around 9:30PM that night, the clouds broke and brought cold winds and a light drizzle all through the night and into midday, meaning I had to walk the drizzly 9km back to the Jibacoa train station with nothing more than a light sweater, and two trash bags. For the rest of Sunday, it remained mostly cloudy, chilly, and windy.
Playa Jibacoa was beautiful. It was exactly what I was looking for in a Cuban beach. It is demeaned as having poor, yellow sand, and smaller beaches than places like Varadero and Playas del Este, but the water more than makes up for it. It was clear as bathwater, much smoother waves than at Playas del Este, and teeming with life. I played with a crab on the shore, chased lizards with tails like a pig’s in the trees on the waters edge, saw urchins, fish of all possible neon colors, a barracuda, incredible corals, and teeming schools of fish. I was glad to discover in my travels that it was definitely doable as a day trip in the future.
The first hotel I had intended on staying at didn’t take walk-in reservations from foreigners. The second hotel required your physical passport, not a copy (the copy of which I had incidentally lost on the bread truck when my backpack came undone), and all of the casas particulares on the beach were occupied. Thankfully, I found a sweet couple fifteen minutes out of town who took me in. The husband was 31, and a speargun fisherman. His wife was an 18 year old Jessica Simpson lookalike who grew up on the beach, although she told her husband after hearing all about the jellyfish and the manta rays that he has seen that she was never going back in. They very illicitly took me into their house (they told me that if while I was at the beach anyone asked where I was staying that I should say at the hotel, not at their house), and while I paid a little much ($35), I had my very first lobster tail for dinner that was caught that same day, had a wonderful breakfast, and was very well accommodated in their house. They both stayed with the wife’s mother that night and allowed me to stay in their bed. The price was more than worth the experience and the knowledge of the sea that the husband passed along to me. Plus, he offered to take some of us speargun fishing if we called him ahead of time.
Friday night I spent the evening with Delio Cuevas, the much mentioned university historian. He told me a ton of incredible things, many of which were told to me in secrecy and thus I cannot relate most of them. He did tell me that he was friends with Fidel Castro in their school, and because of this and his dedication to Cuba, he has been allowed many freedoms in travel. He also told me that he has Fidel Castro’s cell phone number if something important ever comes up. We talked about politics, movies, the United States, and education while we had a daiquiri at Floridita, one of Hemingway’s haunts, and a mojito at La Boguedita, the other of Hemingway’s most famous bars. I shared that I felt that I may never meet another person as intelligent as him in my life, and I stand by that. He spoke to me for fifteen minutes or so entirely in Latin. He also knows at least seven other languages (including Esperanto!). I feel very lucky to have a connection such as him here in Cuba, and he told me that his car and any of his knowledge or connections are at my disposal whenever I should need them.
We’re still being taken advantage of here, but it’s occurring less and less as we learn more about la vida cubana. Our passports were finally returned to us on Thursday, after two weeks, so we can now withdraw money from our TransCards, and also travel. On Friday, we gave our fingerprints for our Carnets, the cards that show us as temporary Cuban citizens, and when we receive those (fingers crossed for sometime in the early part of next week) we will be entitled to better prices on almost everything. Essentially, when we think we’re getting screwed on a price, we can show our Carnets as if to say “Now give us the real price.”
It looks like next week is a trip to Camaguey. This week I’m going to try to explore a bit more of the city, as well as once again trying to keep more up to date on the journal, as I’m sure I’ve already left things out that should’ve been in here. Til next week, think of the world.
This is all old news however. What had me thinking is that no matter how things work out, he will inevitably fail, and because of that, I know part of him must be a very sad man. Whereas many US Presidents have claimed that they would only wish the responsibilities and work of their position on their worst enemies and never on their friends, and that is the loneliest position of power, Fidel has held that same position for over forty years, and has undoubtedly had many more responsibilities than a US president does. Furthermore, even if he lives another ten years, he and everyone else knows that his time on Earth is limited, and with that limit comes the limit of Communism. Though other Latin American nations may transition to a socialist system in the next ten years (I’m looking at you Venezuela, although a very intelligent and respected Cuban recently told me that he knows that Hugo Chavez is nothing more than a dog that is being fed by his master, Fidel, and without a master, the dog, and thus the country, will become a stray), this social-governmental experiment is an inevitable failure.
No one else is committed to carrying on this society, and thus the past forty years of absolute dedication on the part of Fidel has been for naught, in a sense. Think about knowing that soon after you are buried, the one thing you have worked on for your entire adult life will be abolished (though not forgotten). It’s impossible to not be saddened at the thought. It also seems impossible not to be tempted to give up now so at least you can be responsible for two of the world’s most radical government revolutions. Fidel Castro’s dedication is beyond admirable. We all ought to find something in life worth that selflessness.
We went to the Feria Internacional de Libros (International Book Fair) on Tuesday with Delio. We had to stop every five or ten minutes for him to say hello to someone he knew or to ask someone where something was or how much something cost. Diana remarked that it was like going out with her Ecuadorian grandparents in their village because they have to talk to everyone.
It is held every year in one of the large forts of Havana, which is an amazing setting. I was looking for more English books to read while I was here, so I found a copy of The Once and Future King to replace my misplaced version, The Pearl, and an English/Spanish compilation of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Wednesday we learned about the architecture of Cuba, and then took a walking tour of the old part of town in order to see what we had learned about. The changes in the architecture is very interesting, and the reasons for the changes are a total reflection of Cuban history. For instance, many two story buildings were split into one office floor and two floors for living space, after the sugar industry took off in Cuba following the Haitian revolution.
This whole country, is full of paradoxes. For instance, many guidebooks warn that Cuba really isn’t a cheap place to visit. And if that’s what you want to believe, then it will be true. Many of the restaurants will charge between $7 and $15 for a plate of food; clubs can cost between $5 and $15 for entrance, and the charter buses and Cubana Airlines can cost between $30 and $150 one-way.
On the other hand, we find a new place every day to buy a cheap lunch, anywhere between thirty cents and $3 for a full belly and a cold drink. A tangential point was made by Alex the other night: Cuba is like a ten year old’s dream. All of us here eat pizza daily (usually the size of a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut), some of us more than one pizza a day (my record is four). Afterwards, we usually eat some ice cream (once again, my record is six cones in one day), which is so much creamier and better than American ice cream. Then you can head down to the Malecon on a hot day with a rough sea and get splashed by giant waves, just like a water park. If it’s still hot, you can go get an orange for one peso (1/24th of a dollar) and it eat like you would at a youth soccer game. And the best part is that all of this can be had for about $5 a day, which is around what you would make for allowance as a ten year old. Hell, it’s just as much of a dream for budgeting college students who still like the finer things in life, such as alcohol which can be purchased for a dollar or less for a beer or about $3.80 for a bottle of Havana Club rum that makes Bacardi look like the cheap imitator it is – alternatively, you can buy peso rum which runs about $2.50 (60 pesos).
Ask a taxi how much it is to such and such place, and they’ll tell you. What you don’t realize is that they’ll tell you a more expensive price than what the meters would run you. Such is the life of an extranjero. Last Sunday, when Valerie and I took a cab back to Havana from the International Book Fair, we knew how not to get screwed over – we asked the cab driver to run the meter. The difference this time in how he ended up screwing us over was by taking a roundabout way that tacked on extra kilometers to the meter. A ride that should’ve been about $3 ended up costing $4.50. When I took my cab on Saturday to Casablanca to take the Hershey Electric Railway to Playa Jibacoa, he quoted me $6, but forgot to turn off the meter. When we arrived, the meter only read $4.50 but at 7AM I wasn’t ready to argue in Spanish about getting taken advantage of. Similarly, charter buses run daily to Playa Jibacoa, but they run a much more expensive price than the trains that I took. For a 55km train ride, I paid 1.65 pesos, less than ten cents.
When I arrived in Jibacoa, I still faced a 9km walk to Playa Jibacoa. After a couple of kilometers, I heard a truck rumbling behind me, so I waved them down and asked if they were headed to Playa Jibacoa. They told me to get in the back and they drove me into town in the bed of their bread truck. At one point, a bread basket turned over, so I righted it and put some of the fallen bread back in – I figured it was the least I could do for a free ride that they would not take any money for, not even fifty cents. On the way back to Havana, I took a twenty cent (pesos) train to one station, hitched a ride to another town, got on a guagua (Cuban public bus) for three pesos, then switched to another guagua for two pesos to Havana. The total cost of my transportation for over 100km of travel was essentially ten times less expensive than just the 5km taxi ride to the train station.
The good thing about going to Jibacoa this weekend was that Saturday was the first day I spoke only Spanish. I compare Saturday with this past Wednesday, when I realized that I had spoken less than ten sentences in Spanish the whole day. This is again an example of the problems with American University’s enclaves. To finally become immersed, I had to travel by myself outside of Havana. Whether or not I should celebrate my first day of only Spanish or I should be embarrassed that it’s taken me three weeks to achieve that, I don’t know.
This was also another week of crazy weather. It seems that we have finally entered into Cuba’s winter, with warm days, between 70 and 90 degrees, and cool nights, usually in the 50s or low 60s. As another example, when I came into Jibacoa on Saturday, it was hot – at least 85 degrees, and I was more than ready for a swim in the cool, crystalline waters. I ended up getting a little sunburned on my shoulders, but I headed back to the casa particular I was staying at around 4 because large clouds were rolling in. Around 9:30PM that night, the clouds broke and brought cold winds and a light drizzle all through the night and into midday, meaning I had to walk the drizzly 9km back to the Jibacoa train station with nothing more than a light sweater, and two trash bags. For the rest of Sunday, it remained mostly cloudy, chilly, and windy.
Playa Jibacoa was beautiful. It was exactly what I was looking for in a Cuban beach. It is demeaned as having poor, yellow sand, and smaller beaches than places like Varadero and Playas del Este, but the water more than makes up for it. It was clear as bathwater, much smoother waves than at Playas del Este, and teeming with life. I played with a crab on the shore, chased lizards with tails like a pig’s in the trees on the waters edge, saw urchins, fish of all possible neon colors, a barracuda, incredible corals, and teeming schools of fish. I was glad to discover in my travels that it was definitely doable as a day trip in the future.
The first hotel I had intended on staying at didn’t take walk-in reservations from foreigners. The second hotel required your physical passport, not a copy (the copy of which I had incidentally lost on the bread truck when my backpack came undone), and all of the casas particulares on the beach were occupied. Thankfully, I found a sweet couple fifteen minutes out of town who took me in. The husband was 31, and a speargun fisherman. His wife was an 18 year old Jessica Simpson lookalike who grew up on the beach, although she told her husband after hearing all about the jellyfish and the manta rays that he has seen that she was never going back in. They very illicitly took me into their house (they told me that if while I was at the beach anyone asked where I was staying that I should say at the hotel, not at their house), and while I paid a little much ($35), I had my very first lobster tail for dinner that was caught that same day, had a wonderful breakfast, and was very well accommodated in their house. They both stayed with the wife’s mother that night and allowed me to stay in their bed. The price was more than worth the experience and the knowledge of the sea that the husband passed along to me. Plus, he offered to take some of us speargun fishing if we called him ahead of time.
Friday night I spent the evening with Delio Cuevas, the much mentioned university historian. He told me a ton of incredible things, many of which were told to me in secrecy and thus I cannot relate most of them. He did tell me that he was friends with Fidel Castro in their school, and because of this and his dedication to Cuba, he has been allowed many freedoms in travel. He also told me that he has Fidel Castro’s cell phone number if something important ever comes up. We talked about politics, movies, the United States, and education while we had a daiquiri at Floridita, one of Hemingway’s haunts, and a mojito at La Boguedita, the other of Hemingway’s most famous bars. I shared that I felt that I may never meet another person as intelligent as him in my life, and I stand by that. He spoke to me for fifteen minutes or so entirely in Latin. He also knows at least seven other languages (including Esperanto!). I feel very lucky to have a connection such as him here in Cuba, and he told me that his car and any of his knowledge or connections are at my disposal whenever I should need them.
We’re still being taken advantage of here, but it’s occurring less and less as we learn more about la vida cubana. Our passports were finally returned to us on Thursday, after two weeks, so we can now withdraw money from our TransCards, and also travel. On Friday, we gave our fingerprints for our Carnets, the cards that show us as temporary Cuban citizens, and when we receive those (fingers crossed for sometime in the early part of next week) we will be entitled to better prices on almost everything. Essentially, when we think we’re getting screwed on a price, we can show our Carnets as if to say “Now give us the real price.”
It looks like next week is a trip to Camaguey. This week I’m going to try to explore a bit more of the city, as well as once again trying to keep more up to date on the journal, as I’m sure I’ve already left things out that should’ve been in here. Til next week, think of the world.
posted by Jake at 6:14 PM
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