Havana--pearl of Cuba

Havana from Morro Castle

Most tourists visiting Cuba go either to the resorts or to Havana.  There is much more to see in Cuba than just Havana, but this vibrant city is certainly at the top of the list of places to visit on the island.  It is the only city in Cuba where Cubans cannot move without permission, probably because most Cubans would like to live in Havana.  It is a city filled with music, art, culture and, of course, government and international diplomats—and Hemingway, who lived off and on in Havana for 20 years.

one of Havana's oldest buildings

We stayed in a too-large hotel out of the city center, which we won’t do again, but it was right on the Malecon, the drive along Havana’s large seawall.  I walked in the sultry evening for several miles along the seawall, enjoying the calm sea, fisherman and families strolling together.  There was a warm breeze that picked up during the evening until, about 10 p.m., the calm water had surged into huge waves battering the seawall and closing the Malecon.  This continued throughout the next day.

the seawall on my evening walk

The newly opened U.S. embassy is also on the Malecon.  Previously, it housed the U.S. interest section, under the auspices of the Swiss embassy.  Now our flag flies over the large building.  Ironically, it is right next to the monument to anti-imperialism (Spain and the U.S., in Cuban history).  The official Cuban line is that the U.S. is still an imperialist country that has nearly destroyed the Cuban economy—and, indeed, the sanctions have made life very difficult for Cubans.  I agree with the Cubans, virtually everyone, who hopes newly-established relations between Cuba and the U.S. will soon bring about sanctions relief, freedom of travel and family reunions.

same place 12 hours later

Hemingway’s home, Finca Vigia, is outside central Havana on a hill overlooking the city and ocean, quite a spectacular site.  You can’t go inside the house, but can peer inside through windows and doors.  Fortunately, we visited in the late afternoon when the huge busloads of tourists had vanished, so had a peaceful walk around by ourselves.  His fourth wife, Mary Hemingway, built a tower where she thought Hemingway would enjoy writing, but he didn’t really want to write there.  Rumor has it that he used it, with its spectacular views, as a place for trysts with young women and Hollywood actresses who sought him out.  He preferred to write standing up, in a bedroom, typewriter perched on a bookcase.

Finca Vigia, Hemingway's home

room where Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea (typewriter on bookcase)

One night, we went to see a performance of the Buena Vista Social Club, a wonderful band and dancers who perform Havana-heyday music and dancing in several locations near the central plaza.  They are very loud, very good, very entertaining, and very good at drawing the audience into their performance.  Havana also has excellent flamenco dancing, which we plan to include when we visit with our groups.

theater with Capitol (modeled on U.S. Capitol) behind

One real highlight of the cultural scene is the Compas Dance Company.  They have a relic of a building in a suburb where they practice and perform for tourists.  They are unbelievable, combining traditional Afro-Cuban music, which is a critical component of Cuban culture, with Spanish flamenco and American jazz.  One night they were performing at a club and didn’t have enough drums.  So, some of the company grabbed wooden chairs and turned them into drums.  Since then, they have choreographed and practiced incredible music and dancing using chairs as drums and dancing flamenco at the same time.  I can’t describe it even remotely adequately, but those of you who go to Cuba with us will see Compas and be as amazed as we were.  And that’s just the beginning.  Such an enjoyable experience.

Compas dance company using chair drums

The historic center of Havana provides a wonderful walking tour.  Our guide, quite a remarkable guy, is very knowledgeable about architecture, music, art and history, so we had a fascinating tour of Old Havana.  He showed me the oldest church in Havana, a tiny Greek Orthodox church in a garden next to a large Catholic church.  One of the big tourist attractions is seeing the city in vintage convertibles, most in beautiful condition.  These provide a great tour of the main plazas and monuments as well as the Malecon.

orchids at Soroa Orchid Garden, Vinales Valley

About 2 hours outside Havana is the gorgeous mountain valley of Vinales.  It is usually all that tourists traveling only to Havana see, and it is well worth the visit.  Surrounded by mountains, Vinales is a big tobacco-growing and cigar-making area.  We also visited an orchid garden created by a grieving father in honor of his daughter who had died prematurely.  We had lunch at a paladar started by a young woman and run by her family.  She has a large garden and farm that provides all the fruits, vegetables and meat for her menu.  The paladar is an old house with a wide veranda encircling the house and overlooking the farm and the mountains beyond.  Excellent meal, interesting entrepreneur, great visit.

El Paraiso paladar, Vinales

To protect Havana from invaders and pirates, there are 2 fortresses on either side of the narrow inlet into the large back bay.  One is Morro Castle (again) which offers great views of the city and Atlantic Ocean. 

La Floridita, one of Hemingway's favorite bars

Morro Castle, Havana

Rafael Freyre, Columbus and Gibara

Bariay Bay, where Columbus first landed in the New World

One of the things we really wanted to do was to see how people live in Cuba, not just the tourist resorts or the renovated parts of the cities.  So, we spent our first full day in Cuba visiting several old towns and historic sites rarely visited by American or European tourists—and one bay frequented by tourists.

view of Gibara and bay

This was our first stop, a marina where busloads of tourists from the nearby resorts come to enjoy water activities.  There were no tourists this morning since we’re not quite into high season, but we walked down to the bay, lined by mangrove trees, to see the boats.  We ran into a Cuban doctor on the dock who was about to take a small speed boat out to see a patient on one of the islands and chatted with him for a while before he took off in the boat.

Columbus monument at Bariay Bay, depicting wedge Spanish and U.S. occupations drove into Cuban culture

Before the fall of the Soviet Union, when that country was not only a huge source of aid to Cuba, but also its major market, sugar cane was the island’s primary crop.  Many small towns around Cuba based their economies on sugar cane plantations and sugar mills.  When the USSR fell apart, so did the demand for sugar, so the fields went fallow and the mills shut down, bringing their surrounding towns down with them.

1904 American engine at Rafael Freyres

We visited Rafael Freyre, one of these sugar refining towns, now crumbling.  But, the narrow gauge railroad tracks remain along with a number of 100 year old American-made locomotives.  Tourists can take a train 7 kilometers in a shaky old coach to Rafael Freyre, pulled along by one of these locomotives.  It’s all quite picturesque, but definitely doesn't look comfortable.

grinding coffee beans at coffee farm near Bariay Bay

Next was a stop to see a home where a farm family crushes coffee beans and brews fresh Cuban coffee for visitors.  They enhance this offering with coconuts whose tops they lop off with a machete so you can drink the coconut water within.  A tiny cat hovered nearby because it loves the coconut meat as did the bevy of chicks huddled hopefully on the edge of the porch.

Beyond the farm is the Bariay Bay where Christopher Columbus sailed with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria on his first stop in the New World.  Cuban archaeologists believe they have identified the exact spot where Columbus landed, based on his description of nearby landmarks and their excavations of nearby Indian villages Columbus described.

Our favorite stop was the fishing village of Gibara, once the thriving port that shipped Cuban goods and sugar to the rest of the world.  Today, it is a shallow harbor, filled with too much silt for ships to enter.  But the old colonial town, though dilapidated, is charming.  

man in Rafael Freyre

renovated buildings on Gibara waterfront

The government has identified the historic centers of the colonial towns and cities as preservation areas.  Some families with enough money (often from remittances) have bought the crumbling houses and restored them.  The paladar (family owned private restaurant) where we had a great lunch in Gibara is one of these.  The owners have also renovated a nearby home into a lovely bed and breakfast hotel with 4 rooms they rent to tourists.  The government allows a very limited number of private businesses, including paladars and rooms for rent in private homes. 

bay and former port at Gibara

Virtually all the economic activity is government-owned.  All the tourist infrastructure, including the travel agencies, hotels, buses, taxi companies and more, are government owned as is all the industry.  Families can acquire the right to farm some of the fallow land, but these leases are only for 10 years and the opportunity was only granted 2 years ago.  So, no one knows what will happen at the end of the 10 year period.  Most farms are cooperatives.  Now, with the flow of Soviet seeds and fertilizer stopped, the yields are low. 

dancers on the Gibara seawall

How Cubans get around

horse and buggy--common transportation

It’s not so easy to move from place to place in Cuba.  Public transportation is poor.  Years ago, buses replaced streetcars, but they don’t go everywhere, even within a city.  In the countryside, you see buses connecting villages and towns, but again, they don’t go everywhere.

oldest steam engine (from the U.S.) still in use

The resorts have large 45 passenger buses to transport their employees from their hometowns to the resorts, which are often 40 to 50 miles from where the workers live.  I haven’t looked inside those buses, but would guess, from seeing the crowds on other public transportation, that riders are packed inside.

All across Cuba, horses and buggies are a major source of transport.  Some of the buggies carry only 2 to 4 passengers while others have benches along both sides inside the covered buggy and can carry up to 8 people.  Even with this extra weight, only one poor animal pulls the load, trotting along and sweating in the heat.  Very few horses look sleek and well-fed, though there is lots of green grass.  I saw some donkeys in the mountains pulling loads of goods, not people.  The horses and buggies use the same roads as the cars, so it is very slow traveling behind them, waiting to pass.

starving horse in Rafael Freyres

One opportunity for a small business is a passenger truck.  These are cheaper than buses.  But, they’re also like cattle trucks, loaded to the outside edges with people, mostly standing.  A few have a couple of benches, which are quickly used up by tired travelers.  A driver marks his vehicle “private transportation” and will stop to pick up riders until the truck is full.  He disgorges them in like fashion, at numerous stops.

private truck full of people

People can also buy or rent cars or taxis for private transportation.  Most of the cars are the “vintage” cars, 1950’s U.S. autos in varying stages of decay.  Most of these have new or rebuilt engines and some are in beautiful condition.  These, obviously, command a higher price.  You can take a car or taxi anywhere on the island for a negotiated price.

Then, there are government-owned taxi companies, which is what employs our driver.  I described his situation in an earlier blog—he pays an average of $46 per day to rent the car and pay all the expenses, so must work very long hours to earn enough money to cover his costs and earn a small profit.  Our driver said that the best work was when Italians came to the resorts in large numbers and wanted a taxi to take them to Holguin at night for the discos and music.  They would return quite satiated about 3 in the morning, for which he could charge extra.  After the 2008 financial crisis, the direct flights from Europe to Holguin mostly stopped, so the flow of tourists slowed significantly also, cutting heavily into his ability to earn money.

pedicab in Holguin

spiffy vintage car

And, there’s hitchhiking, a common method of getting around.  As I also described earlier, our driver’s wife, a pediatrician, must hitchhike each way to her job at a distant hospital.  All along the roads are people waiting to hitchhike, flag down a truck or bus or hire a horse and buggy.  At major intersections, a couple of people dressed in yellow overalls (so they’re called Amarillos, Spanish for yellow) stand in the intersection, flagging down cars which are not yet full to take hitchhikers where they need to go.  Since most of the cars are government-owned, this becomes a service the government provides to help people move about the island.

coco taxi

There are also pedicabs, usually 2 passenger “cabs” attached to a bike and powered by a strong man.  Some lucky people have motorscooters.  What is really remarkable is how few cars are on the roads and on the streets of the cities.  They are just too expensive, even the old ones.   Some taxis in Havana are yellow shells, called cocos because they look like open coconuts, ferry people around for a lower price.

In rural areas, farmers use their 60 year old Russian tractors to travel to town, either on the tractor itself, or pulling a wagon full of people and goods.  Once again, Cubans have figured out how to get where they need to go despite the limited transportation infrastructure.  It is usually slow, often difficult, but they manage their transportation needs like their other personal and economic needs, with creativity and ingenuity.

old Russian tractor

Cienfuegos and the Bay of Pigs

Beach at Bay of Pigs where Cuban exiles landed

Cienfuegos is another Spanish colonial town, right on a beautiful bay on the south side of Cuba.  There is a large back bay and a peninsula with old homes that run from one side of the peninsula to the other, so both have bay views.

beautifully carved plaster ceiling in the palace

The old historical center has a wide boulevard with a pretty median and many old colonial buildings and homes lining the street.  Some have been renovated; most have not, and the ravages of wind and salt from the Caribbean have taken a large toll, particularly on the carved plaster and pillars.  The center plaza is very large with well-restored buildings lining its shady interior.  Of particular interest is the theater whose interior is just as it was a century ago, complete with hard wooden theater seats, balconies and lovely carved archways and pillars.

restored colonial building

On the peninsula, one gorgeous villa is very Moorish in design and is now a rather mediocre restaurant.  But, its intricately carved walls, arches and ceilings are spectacular as is the view from its rooftop terrace.  Nearby is a really excellent paladar (private restaurant) with shaded tables right on the bay.  We enjoyed a great lunch of roasted pork, soup and vegetables there before leaving for the Bay of Pigs and on to Havana.

detail of restored house with popular stained glass windows and wrought iron balcony

The Bay of Pigs is important to our generation as we were in our late teens when this ill-planned and ill-fated mission to dethrone Fidel Castro took place in April of 1961.  This was the precursor to the much more serious threat of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962.  I remember being at Stanford-in-Italy in Florence at the time and being quite terrified that this could become a nuclear disaster for the U.S. and Europe.  It all began at the Bay of Pigs with a 3 day effort by Cubans who had defected to the U.S. after the fall of the dictator, Batista, to overthrow Fidel Castro.  They expected Cubans to rise up and join them in ending the Castro dictatorship, but, instead, Cubans rose up in defense of the Castro revolution.

Cuban air force plane used at Bay of Pigs

The museum at Playa Giron (one of the Bay of Pigs landing sites—the other was Playa Larga, farther up the bay) tells the story from the Cuban side.  It’s always interesting to see someone else’s point of view and this one, particularly so.  The U.S. is the imperialist aggressor, as no doubt we seemed to the Cubans at the time even though the invaders were all Cubans who trained in and launched from Central America.  They had persuaded President Kennedy that Cubans would flock to their cause, but, when that did not happen, the U.S. left them to their fate, which was capture and imprisonment by a victorious Cuban army and militias.  And this ignominious defeat took only 3 days.

Russian tank used by Cubans to block invasion

After that, Russia began building missile sites on the beaches facing the U.S., which we intend to visit, and the frightening confrontation with the Soviet Union and Kruschev started.

The lovely small city of Camaguey

Camaguey's old theater, restored to its original glory

We arrived in Camaguey quite late after leaving Santiago de Cuba about 8 a.m. and stopping at El Cobre to see the shrine to the Virgin Mary.  We would not recommend stopping here as the church is relatively new and uninteresting except for the many sports memorabilia contributed to the church by athletes who believe the Virgin gave them good luck or saved their lives in some incident.  The area is a copper mining area (hence, “el cobre”), in the mountains, so quite pretty.

Camaguey's cathedral

We drove across the Sierra Maestra, the highest mountain range in Cuba, which is lush and beautiful, with grazing cattle, sheep (a very different kind of sheep than any I’ve ever seen before—no wool, just hairy bodies) and some goats.  There are small villages here, quite poor, with people living in rotting houses.  Very few cars, but lots of horse drawn buggies, some ox carts pulled by 2 oxen and a number of donkey carts, since these little creatures of burden can pull heavier loads in the mountains.  The highway is rough, but fine, with very few cars (and vintage ones at that) and lots of equally old trucks, tractors and buses.

Bayamo is considered the birthplace of Cuba, as the city where the national anthem was first sung and where the citizens first identified themselves as Cuban.  It is an attractive town with a couple of pretty colonial plazas in the center, both very clean.  On the outskirts, though, along the railroad tracks, the trash piles up as no tourists venture there.

restored homes in Bayamo

Camaguey is about 3 hours west of Bayamo, along a road still almost devoid of cars.  Our driver patiently waited behind horse carts, old trucks, tractors and bicycles until the road was clear to pass.  So, it takes a while to get anywhere.

We found a paladar for dinner, a rather large old house now converted into a restaurant, with quite good Cuban food.  One of the waiters there told us he had tried to get to the U.S. last year on a boat, spending all his savings to pay for the trip.  The boat got within a few hundred yards of the beach in Miami when it was stopped by a Coast Guard vessel.  He was imprisoned for 2 weeks before being deported.  He was nearly in tears as he told us that he no longer had any money and not enough income to attempt another trip, but he is hoping that warming relations may make it possible for him to come to the U.S. someday.  He has a sister in California and an aunt and uncle in Miami who, he said, would help him.  His story is a common one.

woman and girl in Bayamo plaza

Two wonderful musicians, a violinist and guitarist, came to play for us.  We sang and chatted in bad Spanish (mine) and English (theirs) for nearly an hour.  They, too, would like to come to the U.S., but can’t imagine being able to save enough money to do so.

Camaguey is one of the more interesting Spanish colonial towns, with meandering alleyways lined with mostly crumbling colonial era homes.  Some have been restored; some are now shops; most lead back through dark rooms to charming, flower-filled courtyards. 

We rode through the historic part of the city in a rickshaw, which isn’t my favorite way to get around but is a critical source of income for the rickshaw owner.  Camaguey is filled with plazas and plazuelas (tiny plazas), many very pretty with trees, flowers, restaurants and street musicians.  Many Cubans earn their living in what looks like an underground economy but is mostly regulated and taxed by the government.  These are virtually single person, tiny, private businesses that support many families.  So tips become very important to those who can claim them.

child by door to her home

child on tricycle in central plaza

More (lots) on Cuba's economic life

oxen pulling farm wagon

I am quite surprised at the level of poverty in Cuba.  It isn’t so apparent just watching the people on the streets, but look a little deeper and it is clear.  The housing stock is crumbling.  Large concrete apartment blocks look like they will shudder into rubble during the next hurricane.  Private houses are tiny, dingy and often nearly falling down, except for the few that have been turned into guest houses or paladares (private restaurants) and some that have been renovated with remittance money.

beautiful tiles on crumbling house

When families are able to get remittances from family members in other countries, they repair their homes first.  We’ve been told, though I can’t verify this, that roughly half the homes in the cities have no running water and, in the country, virtually none.  Flush toilets are also scarce and community sanitation systems are non-existent.  Most houses in the city do have electricity.  The government gives rural villages far from a power line money to buy a generator, which supplies electricity to a community building where residents can watch television (all government channels) and have light at night.

restored colonial home, now a restaurant, in Trinidad

People keep telling us how expensive everything is.  There are 2 currencies, the CUP—Cuban peso—which is the currency in which people’s salaries are paid and that is used in most shops.  The exchange rate to the dollar is $1 to CUP 25.  The other currency is the CUC, or convertible currency, with an exchange rate of $0.85 to 1 CUC.  This prices most people out of the CUC shops and restaurants. 

Doctors earn about 600 CUP, or about $25, per month.  After many years, they may earn as much as $60 per month.  A typical salary is $10 to $20 per month.  Consequently, people have flocked to the tourist industry where they can earn tips on top of their salaries. 

Gail with musicians are paladar in Camaguey

Our driver (we have a yellow taxi, owned by the government and rented by our driver, an employee of the government taxi company) rents his taxi for about $20 per day and pays for insurance, gas, taxi license and all repairs and service as well.  His costs are $46 per day on average, not counting repairs, so he says he must work every day for 16 to 18 hours to make enough money to support his family. 

His wife is a pediatrician who finished her residency only a short time ago.  She commutes 40 miles to the hospital where she works and where she also did her residency, but must hitchhike both ways because she doesn’t have a car and there is no public bus service to the small town where she works.  She was assigned to that hospital and must work there at least two years, probably more, to repay her education costs.  Then she may be able to find a job closer to home in Holguin.   His wife's mother helps them care for their 7 year old daughter when they both have extra long days of work.

We talked to a Cuban doctor at Barisay, the bay where Columbus landed for the first time in the New World, who was home on holiday from South Africa.  He was sent to South Africa by the government at the time of the crisis (how Cubans refer to the collapse of the Soviet Union) to earn money for the government.  Unlike many overseas assignments, a doctor sent to South Africa can take his family and stay as long as he wants.  This internist has been there for 17 years.  One of his children was born there.  He and his wife, also a doctor, live in far western South Africa, near the Namibia border, in a very rural area, which is where Cuban doctors are usually assigned.  Not only does he get his meager Cuban government salary, but he also gets a much better South African salary (another perk that is not typical for Cuban doctors sent overseas), so he and his wife are saving their money to retire in Cuba with a good middle class lifestyle, on a farm about an hour outside of Holguin. 

Our excellent guide, Juan Jose, and tobacco farmer on cooperative farm

Cigars, rum, coffee and sugar are Cuba's big export items, though sugar is far less important than before the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Shops everywhere sell rum, hand-rolled cigars and coffee, which is very good.  A farmer at one tobacco farm showed us how to roll cigars. 

hand-rolling cigars

Our guide earns $11 per month, but supplements that with a per hour wage on top of that if his government tour company thinks he is doing a good job and working long hours (which he does).  He also, of course, gets tips, which make the job a valuable one to have.  He had been a professor, but couldn’t earn enough money to survive.  He inherited a tumbledown house from his grandparents and has gradually made it habitable by saving every peso he could and rebuilding it literally from the ground up and outside walls in, with a new roof, paint and some appliances.  He doesn’t use his stove because the electricity to operate it is too expensive.  Instead, he uses a small gas burner to cook.

shelves of staples in a ration shop

We visited a “ration” shop, where Cubans buy staples.  Everyone has a ration card which allows him or her to buy a specific amount of rice, oil, sugar, bread, beans and so on for a specified price each month during the year.  These are reissued annually and take into account a family’s changing circumstances.  For example, milk is in very short supply, so only available, in powdered form, to children until they are 7 years old.  After that, families must go to the countryside or farmers’ markets to buy fresh milk.  The shops are frequently out of the staples, so, when people learn that they have oil or rice or something else they need (soap), they will line up in long queues to buy the goods.  For most people, the farmers’ markets, which sell fresh produce, meat and fish, are too expensive except on rare, special occasions.

ration book

In Trinidad, we wandered through rows of “peso” shops where most of the goods were second hand.  Things we consider essential, like detergent or shampoo or toothpaste, cost $2 to $3 U.S., so are out of reach for someone earning $10 per month.  Many Cubans rely heavily on relatives in the U.S. or other countries to send them money or goods in order to survive.  It is considered extremely fortunate to have a relative in the U.S. or Europe who can send remittance money to a family member in Cuba.

During the “crisis”, after the Soviet Union collapsed, doctors and professors were forbidden to leave.  We were told that anyone who could leave then did.  Usually, when doctors are “leased” to another country to earn foreign exchange for Cuba, they cannot take their families with them.  They would be too likely to stay permanently.

typical old car in front of badly renovated building

Almost no one can afford a car unless they receive money from abroad.  Then, they usually buy a very old, 1950’s or 1960’s, Chevy or Ford or Dodge, replace the engine when they have the money (Toyota engines are favorites) and drive them even when they are rusted nearly into oblivion.  Public transportation is via very old buses, trucks (privately-owned) and a few trains.  The government owns all the means of transportation except for the few private cars, trucks, taxis and vans that carry people who can pay a little more.  Flying is unaffordable and flights are completely unreliable.  I’ll describe the transportation system in another blog.  It’s very ingenious.

My daughter, a high school Spanish teacher, asked me to get her some magazines about art or architecture or cultural life in Cuba.  When I asked our guide to help me find some, he had no idea what I was talking about.  There are no magazines in Cuba because they are too expensive to buy and too expensive to produce.  Some literary organizations publish periodic collections of poetry and short stories, so I bought those for about 10 cents each.  What you can buy very easily are music CD’s and DVD’s of Cuban artists and also copies of foreign musicians and movies.  There are also lots of book stores selling mostly used books.

private truck carrying packed-in passengers

With the small exceptions I’ve already mentioned, the entire economy is government-owned.  Most of the farms are cooperatives.  Some of these have tractors, Russian models from the 1940’s or 1950’s.  Small family farms are worked either by family members or, in some cases, ox teams.  While we saw hundreds of horse-drawn carts, a primary means of transportation, we saw only a few ox teams pulling plows.

Zunzun singers, twin sisters, with Don at a paladar

What is so clear is the spirit and ingenuity of Cubans as they manage their lives and work.  When foreign investment from the U.S. finally returns (I believe early investors will be in pharmaceuticals, medical R & D, scheduled airline services, transportation and tourism—especially hotels and resorts), the Cuban economy, with the benefit of a mostly well-educated population, is likely to grow rapidly, greatly improving the lives of Cubans.  Right now, in many of the smaller towns we drove through, there were dozens or even hundreds of people wandering around the central plazas and streets, out of work.  At the same time, there were musicians, craftsmen and artists everywhere, earning a little money in the plazas and restaurants, and enlivening daily life.