13 June 2007 - Cuba

Cuba: My trip started the 27th of May in Frankfurt, Germany. I got on a “Condor” direct flight to Varadero. I arrived in Cuba the same day. At the Airport everybody had to show his or her passport and answer a lot of questions, but not me, I got over the border within 20 seconds, which was a real funny story. I showed my passport, they opened it and saw the VISA for the United States of America glued to the second page. They closed the passport immediately and wished me a nice holiday. So I came out of the hotel and a slow wind blew me in the face, the air was warm, not hot, but with a high humidity. I started sweating immediately, but the reason was not the warm weather about 10 taxi driver surrounded me and asked me if I wanted a taxi. They must have smelled that I still had a long journey in front of me. Nevertheless I kindly told them that I wasn’t interested in their offer and got on a bus with AC which brought me right to the Havana train station(La Habana).

I reached Havana at about 2 o’clock PM and started walking to find the hotel I would be staying the first few nights (that way I got a cheaper deal on the flight). The temperature reached 108°F (40°C) by now and I was travelling with an 10 kilo backpack. I started walking the direction I thought I had to go and it took me about 1 ½ hours to find out that the street names on my map didn’t fit with the ones on the walls of the buildings. After the revolution of Fidel Castro many street names were changed, those names are the ones on my map. But people still use the old names and sometimes don’t even know the “new” names. It seems like I always asked the wrong people for the way but finally after 3 hours I got to the Capitol in Habana Vieja, the oldest part of Havana. I was so happy that I found a point to orientate that I sat down for about half an hour and afterwards went to get some food in a Cuban restaurant. The pizza was awful (I found out that Cuba isn’t really a country to have good food in general), the beer was good and I got accompanied by a British backpacker. She told me about her trip through Cuba and gave me a lot of good information. For instance, she had a list with all the old and new street names which really helped me later on. She left the same day to Mexico. After talking to that girl for about an hour I left the restaurant to find my hotel. Within 20 minutes I found it. It was a real nice hotel which really surprised me because I didn’t pay a lot for it. Anyway, after a two hours nap I left the hotel for a walk through the streets which were crowded with lots of tourists. I was to tired to really go for a far walk so I just went straight to the next bar and joined some other teenagers. I asked one of the guys (a Dane) if they are travelling together and he said: ”hell no, those two I’ve met in Guatemala, those two I met in Fiji and that guy I met in Mexico.” I couldn’t believe what he just told me. But well, after returning to Germany 2 weeks later, I know that the story wasn’t unusual at all.

The next 2 days weren’t that special, I was walking through the streets and sightseeing. Visited the Tobacco Museum, Museo de la Revolution (holy crap ... so many pictures and information ... all in Spanish and I don’t understand a single word except of “hola”) Nevertheless I tried to make conversation with Cubans, and of course I tried to make conversation with the wrong people. I met that Cuban called “Jimmy” who was speaking really good English and was showing me some places in Havana when he asked me to buy his child a pack of milk. I mean, I was asked by people there hundreds of times if I wanted to give them money but as long as he just wanted milk I thought I could do that. So we went to a shop and he said something to the cashier in Spanish and she gave him a big bag with many thing in it. Right away he turned away and tried to run away. I was holding his hand already and asked how much that would cost me. She answered:”88 Dollars!”. The whole scene took place in maybe 20 seconds, and within 20 seconds 2 police officers came across the street and took Jimmy to the side. I gave back the bag and the officers told me to leave. After having told this story to other backpackers it turned out that this is a very common way to rob tourists. I was really bummed because I really didn’t expect that. In the evening I met up with the backpackers from the evening before and we told each other what we have done during the day and just had a laugh. Good times!

Next day I was sightseeing again, the castle on the other side of Havana. In the evening I watched the “Tropicana” show a little outside of Havana. I didn’t like it. I mean, it was a good show, however I didn’t like the atmosphere – just tourists. I couldn’t help it. I left the show right after it had finished.

After having seen most of the tourist stuff I wanted to see real Cuba now. I went to the bank to change my Pesos Convertible into Pesos Nacional. Cuba has two currencies, one for tourists and one for Cubans. 1 CuC (Convertible) is about 28 Pesos Nacional. The woman asked me what I needed those for and I said:”I want to take the Camello bus.” She was looking at me like I just told her that I killed Fidel Castro and answered: ”I don’t even take those busses.” I smiled because now I knew that I am really gonna be the only tourist that is going to be on that bus. And so it was, I took the bus to the suburbs of Havana. The bus was crowded as hell. People were sitting on the roof or hanging on the back of it. You could compare such a bus with a natural sauna, powered by men. Awesome feeling, cause I really was the only white person there. And guess what, Cubans talked totally different with me. So it happened that I got invited to a private house party. Sadly, I had to negate. After having reached the suburbs, I was visiting the house of Hemingway, which was really cool. A whole bunch of hunting trophies, old bookshelves with lots of books, old desks and travelling equipment of all kinds. His very own boat was there too. The house really looks like he just left it for a short walk (except of the ladies in the blue dresses which were looking out that nobody entered the house. You can just look inside the house through the windows). After having visited the house i walked around in the little village and met some Cubans and was talking with them for an hour and a half about soccer. Soccer moves the world together, even when you don’t speak Spanish and they don’t speak English. In the afternoon I wanted to get back to Havana somehow and so I asked a Cuban: “When does the bus comes?” He answered totally surprised about such a stupid question:”5 minutes? 10minutes? 1hour? Tomorrow? Cuban time my friend!” I felt like an idiot, so I waited. Yeah, but I mentioned that I had to negate the invitation to the private party. I left Havana at 7 PM that day with the bus. The streets were horrible and I think the bus driver hit every fucking pothole which was in our way. I didn’t get any sleep the whole 15 ½ hours ride down to Santiago the Cuba and when I got out of the bus station about 5 billion taxi drivers were asking me if I would need a ride. I booked a so called “casa particular” from Germany. That is a private house which is for rent (not the whole house, usually just one room). So I told the driver where I needed to go and he said 2 pesos. What a waste of money, my “house” was just around the corner (400meters). And that bastard seriously asked me if I could give him a 3 pesos tip. I thought he was crazy, I could have walked that piece of street within 5 minutes. I got out of the car and he was screaming behind me: ”Give a present Sir!” I was so pissed. Do I look like I have a shit load of money with my backpack that contains my life for the next week?!? I don’t think so. Nevertheless I told myself that that guy was just another asshole and I shouldn’t care about that that much. So I moved in a little room on the top floor of a very pretty colonial house. After taking a short nap I packed out my stuff and stepped out of the door and was surprised by real heavy rain. I didn’t take any rain clothes with me. Well, it will work so I started walking towards downtown. After 2 minutes about 10 Cubans, so called “jinteros”, asked me if I wanted cigars, rum, chic’s a guide or what ever. After I said no to everything they asked me where I was from. I started saying “Finland” because when I said Germany the started saying random German sentences they heard somewhere. All in all very annoying. But then one guy asked me how I was and I felt that I should start making conversation with him. So we did, his name was Adriano and we spend the following days together. We went to his friends house, drank beer, and went to Cuban places. I even got to drive a 49 Cadillac which was really cool. When I was out with Adriano everything changed, no jinteros anymore and when I gave Adriano money he just paid in Pesos National, which made Santiago a really cheap destination for me. With Adriano I got into a Cuban Club where I paid like 1 Dollar for 10 beers. The night of the 1st to the 2nd of June I took him out to the top of a very expensive restaurant. I was thanking him for showing me Santiago and the Cuban way of life. The next day I left early to hitchhike to Trinidad. That was harder than I thought. Once I got out of town everybody told me he would take me with him if I give him money. But I wasn’t willing to give them the amount they wanted so they just drove off. At about 10 o’clock it started raining like somebody just purred a swimming-pool over my head. After standing on the street for hours in the middle of nowhere I took the bus. Surprisingly there was an other backpacker in the bus. A girl from Austria. I was so happy to talk German again after all that handsign-english-spanish-mixture of the past days. We were telling each other stories what we have gone through, what experiences we have made etc. etc. etc. etc. sleep... Early in the morning we were waken up by the bus driver: “Senior, Seniorita, wake up!” We were really dizzy and when I looked outside of the bus I saw that the bus half under water. During the night it must have rained so much around Trinidad that there was a flood around it and the bus driver drove right into that brown mass of water. So we waited, and waited, and finally after hours of waiting we were pulled out of that water hell by a Russian Truck. We couldn’t get to Trinidad anymore, impossible so the bus driver decided we should go back to Havana. And so it was. I mean, they didn’t ask us. Socialism! So, after about 30 hours bus ride (overall) we came back to Havana, took a casa particular together and just slept for the whole next day.

Lydia (the Austrian girl) and me did a few trips around Havana now, but her and my money got less and less, I couldn’t afford to go further away than the Camello busses went without running in danger to fulfil my plans. But we got know a lot of Cubans and for instance went to a Reggae club with some Rastafarians. I have never seen so many Dreadlocks in one room before. Those Rastafarians were really cool people, they gave us all kinds of Caribbean jewellery and art as a present. Sadly, Lydia had to take her flight to Jamaica and I had to go back to Varadero where I met up with some friends from Germany who were living in a 5 stars All Inclusive Hotel.

I mean, it is nice to have constantly warm and clean water, a room service, all drinks you can possible think of, a great beach and activities like archery, surfing, or sailing for free but the solo trip was so much more fun. Nevertheless I am not saying I haven’t done anything fun in Varadero. Not at all, I went diving, sailing and drank cocktails with my friends in the hotel. The beach was just incredible, fine white sand, green and blue water, blue sky and salsa music out of old speekers. But things like that you can do in California or in Europe too. Driving a 49 Cadillac where the only thing that holds the doors together is a rope tight between them is something you can just do in Cuba 

Alex