Our boat at Maria la Gorda

 

 

We took a bamboo raft down a jungle River. We ended the visit with a Christmas Eve dinner on a restaurant on a houseboat in Montego Bay. We set sail for Cuba!

We decide that it was time to go to Cuba, so I started searching for trips. David wanted to sail Sassydancer there with a couple of his cronies, but I was a little concerned about sailing to Cuba without some better information. I would not have a concern after sailing there on a commercial boat….however, the seas were a little rough at times. But, we didn’t miss many meals!

Cuba was different than I had envisioned.  I had been there as a little girl…pre-Castro, but had no recollection of it.  Also, I decided that it would not be prudent to mention it if asked…we weren’t asked much of anything.  it really was easy peasy.

We went to Cuba legally under the People to People license.  There are 12 licenses permitted through the US government and a cultural exchange is one of them.  There are pretty stringent requirements…the only one required by Cuba is a separate medical insurance policy.  The US requires a curriculum of lectures and tours.  We decided to take a cruise from Jamaica  to Cuba.  The cruise took off from Jamaica and stopped in 4 ports in Cuba with 2 full days and an overnight in Havana.   Overall it was a great trip, but the boat which carried about 700 people was about 35 years old and everything was a little dated.   It was very clean and the staff was great, but David got stuck in the elevator twice, our cabin had a few problems, and we found out on board that the boat had sunk once and had two fires!

The P2P program was run on board by two young professors from the U of Havana and they did a great job of melding the history of Cuba from the Indians, the Spanish occupation, the English occupation (only 11 months) the Cuban-Spanish-American War and of course the Latest revolution that put Castro in power.  Their curriculum also included cooking, the Afro-Cuban history and experience, flora and fauna, music,  politics, the salsa, rumba, samba, cha cha lessons…we arttended almost all of the lectures and all of the tours, and found them to be interesting, entertaining and usually balanced.  We also had entertainment on the boat from a Cuban troupe of singers, dancers and acrobatists, ala Cirque. One night they did a musical on the Revolution! We also had the minister of trade, tourism speak one morning and he was really interesting. An older man who was a minister in 1960 based in NYC. He had such a balanced view of the Cuban-US relationship and was an inspiration for continued enroads.

The people are friendly and seem to be very happy…and, have recently been able to start small, private businesses.  So, the pedicab, taxi, tourist guides, musicians, etc are thrilled.  Their income is still minimal by our standards….the average person makes about $10-20 a week.  Doctors make $45.  They had more when the soviets were there, but when it dissolved in the 90’s, they lost a third of their national income….they were destitute and starving.   But, everyone has great pride in their revolutionary heroes, mostly Cuban, but also some American.  Most of the Soviet leaders have been dissolved along with their money with the exception of Marx.  Che Guevara is the most popular, with Marti and of course,  Castro.  But, you see Che everywhere…on buildings, hats, cars, clothing, tattoos..but, we did not see pictures, statues or anything else of Castro.  We even saw statues of Lincoln and Washington, but none of Castro.  The parks and plazas are all over and statues are huge

The architecture is complicated.  Beautiful, but in need of restoration.  .When you look closer, the outside are preserved shells of empty, rotted out interiors.  Havana in the 30’s and 40’s must have been spectacular.  The architecure is colonial Spanish, Art Deco, Religious…Castro and Cubans don’t consider themselves communists…more socialists and religion has been allowed all along.  The bulk are Catholic, but Santa Maria , Protestant and Methodist are also present.

Of course you can’t talk about Cuba without mentioning Hemingway…a big celebrity…wrote old man and the sea while in Cuba.  The Casa Grande hotel was where Graham Greene wrote “Our Man in Cuba” and Errol Flynn was the only guest during the revolution because he had a broken leg.  As I mentioned earlier, we had to get a non American medical insurance coverage to enter Cuba…nobody checked, but…medical coverage is free to Cubans.  Cuba has the highest level of health rankings and child mortality in South America.  Every neighborhood has a doctor and you are required to have a checkup 4 times a year.   Other benefits include a free education, the highest level of literacy and a peasant can become a PhD as long as they continue to be a successful student.  You can own your own home…many are for sale right now because they can sell them, but only to Cuban Nationals.  They are given food ration books and most of their food cost about $2 a week.

The 1940s-50s American cars Havana is famous for are amazing. Thousands of them everywhere, 60-75 years old, with no parts available for any of them for 60 years.  Most replacement parts are handmade in Cuba in workshops out on the street by, the best shade tree mechanics ever, anywhere. Many of these cars are distinctly customized, some are as classic as the day they were bought; many are mostly Bondo and epoxy glue.They are everywhere, intermixed with cheap Russian cars a good sized dog, let alone a person, couldn’t fit into comfortably. We went to a night club in Havana and took an old Chevy convertible…the lights stopped working as we got into the car and about a half a block.  The driver stopped to try to fix them, and when they didn’t work, he held up his iPhone for lights…then got a text, so started texting.  The drivers re very polite to each other…knowing they will break down soon or later.  We tried a pedicab on the way back…we hadn’t had great experience with them either…had to push one that broke down up a very steep hill.  On the way back from the night club, we got into a fiat…from long ago, and it would t start…choke inside, jump out of the car  which was not big enough for any of us, pull the choke on the back of the car, jump back in…gun it, we were happy to say goodbye to all the ancient, but beautiful and memorable cars.

Artwork is everywhere, and a daily part of the Cubans lives, most of it dark…inspired by suffering, starvation and the unending fight for freedom. It is everywhere, as is their music. Latin, African, and occasionally American, it is performed on the streets by individuals or groups, and is In the background everywhere you go. We went to the Buena Vista Social club one night and a few of the singers in their 80’s and 90’s were original performers.

The Cubans, while desperately poor by American standards, are by and large, a sophisticated, intelligent and sensitive people, romantic, and proud. And very proud and profoundly stubborn about the philosophical idea of independence.   It will be interesting to see how they maintain their Cuban spirit with the evolving American tourism.  Havana was one of my favorite destinations and I hope to go back soon.  It is beautiful, artsy and the people are lovely.