20/3/13 – Santa Clara

 Breakfast prepared by Emilio was amazing. It was clearly evident by the preparation and presentation that he was a trained chef. We were astounded that he had managed to find top quality fruit, cheese, bread, eggs and ham for omelettes and fresh pineapple for juicing. The linen on the breakfast table, like that in our room was spotless and expertly presented.

Emilio and his family were very proud of their establishment, and deservedly so as not only was it welcoming but it was so much cheaper than the hotels in Havana. Emilio charges the sort of prices I was expecting to be charged in Cuba – Bed ($25), dinner including wine ($30), breakfast ($8) and good old car security ($2).

After a long breakfast, and an even longer farewell to Emilio and his family, we eventually set of through the Escabray Mountains for a three hour trip to visit Santa Clara, the final resting place of Commondante Che Geuvara. On the way we visited a lookout with stunning views over Trinidad. This place also seemed to be home to a boy with a pet tarantula.

We found the boy waiting on the stairs near the top of the lookout offering to thrill the passing (puffing) tourists by allowing them to handle his pet for a couple of pesos. Further on we saw beautiful rain forests and stunning valley vistas with overweight and/or old British tourists trying to cycling the mountain passes – what were they thinking back in the UK when they signed up for this madness!

The people in the villages we passed through were all vey friendly especially the guy selling fruit on the side of the road in front of a crashed Cuban MiG 25 fighter, but there houses were basic and the cowboys and their animals were still very thin. Eventually, after a long, slow, but very interesting drive, we reached Santa Clara.

Who could have guessed that Santa Clara would be overrun by German tourists and that all of the accommodation would be booked out? Still we managed to convince a very nice lady at Hotel Los Caneyes (who obviously needed some respite from the Germans) to make a room available for us. We were quite pleased to set up camp in our private ‘Cubana’ set amongst the beautiful surrounds of this lush resort complete with pool and tropical birds!

After a short nap we went off to visit the Che Guevara Memorial. For those of you who have worn his romantic counter culture image on a t-shirt or posted a print on your wall this place commands that you look past his stylized visage that has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia within popular culture and really explore what it was made this man so passionate about human rights and committed to freeing the world of imperialism and oppression.

In Wikipedia, Nelson Mandela is said to have referred to him as "an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom", while Jean-Paul Sartre described him as "not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age". Others who have expressed their admiration include authors Graham Greene, who remarked that Che "represented the idea of gallantry, chivalry, and adventure", and Susan Sontag, who expounded that "Che's goal was nothing less than the cause of humanity itself." Even today there remain many profound thinkers and social commentators who sit squarely in his corner. But there are many others who see him as a tyrant and a fanatical murderer … where does the truth lie?

In the museum we saw some childhood pictures and a bronze sculpture of the young Che as a child growing up in Argentina. He grew up in a wealthy and an intellectually stimulating environment, doing well at school sports (including Rugby) and chess. There were copies of his excellent school reports and his results in medical school.

And there were items from the Revolution (uniforms, guns and water bottles), letters and photos from the battles fought on foot and on horseback, candid shots of the comrades in arms and a wonderful shot of Raul looking up at his ‘big brother’ with the look of adoration that is only seen when a smaller boy looks up to his ‘big brother’. Also very moving were Che’s words contained in a letter addressed to Fidel and written on the eve of his execution in Boliva. He remained faithful to his cause until the end and had every faith that, although his life was to be short, human rights and justice for the people would win out in the end.      

Under the massive parade ground and an impressive tribute and statue of Che was the mausoleum – a memorial to the original band of eighteen men and women who came with Fidel from Mexico in 1957 to launch the Revolution from Santiago de Cuba. Che remains were interned here not long after they were returned to Cuba in 1997. Extensive DNA testing of the multiple human remains found in the grave into which the insurgents were cast after they had been executed after a failed campaign in Bolivia in 1967. 

In late 1995, retired Bolivian General Mario Vargas revealed to Jon Lee Anderson, author of the biography Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, that Guevara's body was located near a Vallegrande airstrip. The result was a multi-national search for the remains, which would last more than a year. In July 1997 a team of Cuban geologists and Argentine forensic anthropologists discovered the remnants of seven bodies in two mass graves, including one man with amputated hands (like Guevara).  

Bolivian government officials with the Ministry of Interior later identified the body as Guevara when the excavated teeth "perfectly matched" a plaster mould of Che's teeth made in Cuba prior to his Congolese expedition. The "clincher" then arrived when Argentine forensic anthropologist Alejandro Inchaurregui inspected the inside hidden pocket of a blue jacket dug up next to the handless cadaver and found a small bag of pipe tobacco.

Nino de Guzman, the Bolivian helicopter pilot who had given Che a small bag of tobacco, later remarked that he "had serious doubts" at first and "thought the Cubans would just find any old bones and call it Che"; but "after hearing about the tobacco pouch, I have no doubts." On October 17, 1997, Guevara's remains, with those of six of his fellow combatants, were laid to rest with military honours in a specially built mausoleum in the Cuban city of Santa Clara, where he had commanded over the decisive military victory of the Cuban Revolution.

When reading and thinking about Che one can’t help but be impressed by the amazing journey his thoughts had travelled since he was a young man studying medicine and by how he stayed focussed on the cause as his thinking evolved and matured, especially during the time when he rode on his beloved motor cycle around Latin America and saw the poverty, disease and hunger of the people under a plethora of oppressive puppet leaders held up by colonial powers such as the US.  

How different would history have been had his outrage not be galvanized in Guatemala before quite literally bumping into Fidel in Colonia Tabacalera, a borough of Mexico City that was well known by the 1950s as an area with a Bohemian reputation and as home to writers, artists and political exiles. What if he had stayed in Cuba and not gone off to fight the battle in the Congo-Kinshasa or Bolivia?    

I declare that I have been seduced by the legend of a man committed to his manifesto and admit that the aura that is cast upon those with a cause who die young is attractive. But there a layers yet to be investigated and at this point Wikipedia succinctly expresses how I’m feeling: 

‘Over forty-five years after his execution, Che's life and legacy still remains a contentious issue. The contradictions of his ethos at various points in his life have created a complex character of unending duality, one who was "able to wield the pen and submachine gun with equal skill", while prophesizing that "the most important revolutionary ambition was to see man liberated from his alienation." Guevara's paradoxical standing is further complicated by his array of seemingly diametrically opposed qualities. A secular humanist and sympathetic practitioner of medicine who didn't hesitate to shoot his enemies, a celebrated internationalist leader who abdicated violence to enforce a utopian philosophy of the collective good, an idealistic intellectual who loved literature but refused to allow reactionary dissent, an anti-imperialist Marxist insurgent who was radically willing to forge a poverty-less new world on the apocalyptic ashes of the old one, and finally, an outspoken anti-capitalist whose image has been expropriated and commoditized; Che's history continues to be rewritten and re-imagined.’

Dinner was nice but way too much meat was on offer to appease the hungry Germans.

19/3/13 – Heading SE to Trinidad de Cuba

Car hire in Cuba costs $150 day and the agents warn you to take off logo badges and windscreen wiper rubbers when you park at night as they provide a staple source of recycling/income for locals! So it was with great anticipation that we woke at 7am and checked our ride before setting off for Trinidad. All items were in place so we opened the map and confidently set off on our next adventure – as there is only one road to follow south how hard could it be?

That was our first mistake – getting out of Havana is not as easy as it looks on the map! The night before Sue had clearly and carefully explained how to get to the tunnel for the H1. We missed it totally but soon found ourselves on the H1 coming from the opposite direction. Ha! All we then had to do was find a place to U-turn … which we managed eventually … and finally, after nearly an hour of faffing about in peak hour Havana traffic, we were finally on our way!

On the highway we saw spot fires (were these deliberate burn offs or caused by discarded cigarettes?), pelotons of lycra clad cyclists (where did they come from and where were they going?), the obligatory traffic jam of horses and carts and people walking or begging for a ride. We also saw charcoal makers and humble wooden houses with palm frond roofs. After about two hours driving we reached the turn off to the ‘Australia’ sugar mill.

This mill had been run by CSR prior to the revolution. It was nationalised as part of Fidel’s ‘agrarian reform law’ and later was converted into Fidel’s battle headquarters during the ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion. On the way down to the Giron we saw cars filled with tourists and diving gear as the diving here in the Caribbean is spectacular. Oh and every so often there was a guy on a lookout tower dressed in full military uniform nursing a machine gun. Eventually we got to the Museum of the Playa Giron and there learned all about the read about the failed invasion plans od the ‘Yankees and their imperial flunkies’. 

We also learned that, prior to the Revolution, the people of this area (the Zapata swamp) eked out a megre living as charcoal burners. They were all very poor and sickly and most were also completely illiterate. This all changed after the Revolution. Revolutionaries came to the area and set up camp and improved their living conditions. (Although I have to say that the people, their animals, their fields and their houses still looked in very poor condition to us.) 

 

Worth noting for the record: I saw a photograph in the museum of a protest in the USA in which people were holding placards that read “Hands off Cuba” and the deliberations that had haunted me for many years as I walked to and from high school each day for nearly a year in 1973 came flooding back. I used to ponder the meaning of the graffiti on the rail bridge near Corinda station.

It read ‘Hands off HeCuba” and no matter how many different ways I pronounced it, it never made any sense.

Well, thanks to my trip to Cuba, I can now rest easy as that mystery has been revealed, albeit 40 years later!! It is now quite obvious that CIA operatives lived in the Corinda area and defaced the communist’s protests before their ideology could proliferate amongst the schoolchildren in the western suburbs of Brisbane. 

We drove on to the mouth of the Bay of Pigs at Cienfuegos and from there headed East to Trinidad. At about 2pm we stopped for lunch at a little road side shack overlooking the ocean. We ordered a lobster and shrimp salad. We congratulated the young proprietor on his apparently thriving and very well presented little business but he told us (sadly) ‘Oh no, it’s not mine, I am like everyone else in Cuba I work for Raul Castro’.

Apparently the government owns everything in this country – as a consequence our young friend clearly held little enthusiasm for his future. Eventually we drove into Trinidad. Our first impression was, that compared to the citizens of Havana, the people here are not particularly tall and there is a huge variation/mix of colour and features, probably passed down from the mixture of the original Spanish masters and their African slaves as this was a major port for the importation of slaves destined for the sugar farms.

Generally the men were thin (particularly the ones wearing cowboy hats) and surprisingly the women a little over weight. Many women wore no makeup and made no attempt to hold in their big bellies. (As you can imagine, I loved it here!). As a striking contrast the young men everywhere in Cuba were well groomed and wore the latest fashions with regards to their hair and clothing. But the girls were mostly very plain and rarely did we see one who wasn’t simply dressed (unless she was black).

We took some time to find ‘Hostal El Chef’ as the maps we had been given were quality poor photocopies and had no scale. After once or twice around the town we found what we were looking for and were warmly greeted by Emilio and Fatima. Hostal El Chef is a ‘casa particular’ or B&B style home stay. As tourism increased in Cuba, leaving the few real hotels always full, the people were given more freedom to pursue commercial arrangements and so the family home could be a source of income and owners would open their doors to lodgers on a similar basis to Greek Pensions.

As the ride had been a dry and dusty one, we were keen for a swim in the Caribbean at a beach resort on the Ancon Peninsula – this is where all of the big tourist hotels are hidden away from the locals. Upon our return we met Reno (an Italian who has been coming to Cuba for many years) and who was managing a band of ‘troubadours’.

As we enjoyed our dinner on the hostel’s rooftop (bean soup, fresh lobster, potatoes and saffron rice and ice cream) he arranged for us to be serenaded and the three (not so talented) tenors also managed to sing me Happy Birthday (in English and Spanish)!

Later that night we walked up the hill to the ‘old town’ for a Havana Club 7 rum and some salsa music. Along the way we found a Catholic Church that was conducting a mass – this was an unusual sight as religion had been discouraged in the Revolution. We tried to get some sleep but the music played until 3am.

18/3/13 – On the road to recovery

As I was still recovering (and needed to be close to a toilet), we decided to walk the old town this morning. Lunch was taken in the Telegrafo Hotel as this was where we were transferring to later in the day when Hans and Sue returned to town after their expedition ‘down south’.

In the afternoon we took in the Museum of the Revolution. It has a wonderful collection of photos and revealed some interesting information. The museum is located in the old Spanish Governor’s Palace and it displays remnants of both the old and the ‘new’.

One can see a painting of Jose Marti freeing Cuba from the Spanish hanging next to a bronze sculpture depicting the three heroes of the revolution – Fidel Castro, Ernesto Guevera (‘Che’ was just his nickname … it means ‘hey’ or ‘hey you’ in Argentinian slang and is a term of endearment used by Argentines when addressing a friend or comrade) and Camilo Cienfuegos. This statue graces the entrance of the dictator Batista’s office.  

In his office, in addition to his desk and reception furniture, is a gold plated phone presented to him by AT&T when he handed over the monopoly responsibility for all telecommunications in Cuba to this US company. The adjacent ‘hall of mirrors’ which is still used for official receptions, is strongly reminiscent of the Palace of Versailles, albeit in a state of great disrepair.  

Everywhere were displays of Castro’s devotion to the people (particularly in the areas of literacy for all, agrarian land reform and medical care) and their devotion to him. He seems to have been a natural leader and truly a hero of the people. We also found out that in the first few months after the revolutionaries seized power, huge amounts of currency were carried out of Cuba in the bags and boats of those who were in cahoots with the imperialists and were fleeing the country.  

In a stroke of genius, Che (in his new role as governor of the Bank of Cuba) issued a new set bank of non-convertible notes, which over night rendered the more than $42 million in currency that had been carried out of the country completely worthless. Ha - take that you capitalist oppressors!

 

In the outside gardens were exhibits of military/revolutionary hardware of significance. This display included the boat (Granma) that brought Fidel and Che and their small group of freedom fighters back to Cuba from Mexico, the jeep and the tank that Fidel drove (complete with bullet holes) in the Bay of Pigs battle and, most impressive of all, part of the USAF plane that the US would not acknowledge had been shot down in that battle.

The plaque read that the Cuban’s kept the pilot’s body until finally, in 1979, the US gave up denying the truth and acknowledged the plane as USAF and asked that the pilot’s remains be returned to his family. Only then were the remains returned to the US for burial. 

It is very difficult to ascertain what is truth and what is propaganda – from both sides – in this place! So in the end we just gave up trying and returned to our hotel to ponder our feelings and while having drinks on the balcony. Watching the people and cool cars go by was addictive. Roasted peanuts are sold in the streets in paper cones for 50c and they were delicious with our cold beers - Cristal and Bucanero at $2 each.

Later in the afternoon we met up with Hans and Sue and had a mohito at the La Bodeguita del Medio where Hemmmingway used to drink and then a dinner of kebabed meats and seafood at the Spanish Club. After dinner we were entertained by talented flamenco dancers and musicians, and even a magician. But the most amusing part was hearing of the Sauer’s trip down south and in particular Han’s diplomatic efforts when pulled over for speeding.

He received a $60 fine but was told that if he paid $30 in cash he would be free to go. It soon became obvious that some Cuban police keep a special look for tourist plates and will use any excuse to pull over such vehicle and sting the occupants – this just one of the little signs of the emerging corruption.

After a long and enjoyable evening we said our goodbyes to Hans and Sue and headed off to bed. Tomorrow they are off on another adventure in another country with another set of friends, while we will take over custody of their hire car and head off down south ourselves. How lucky we are to travel so freely to see all that the world has on offer for our heads and hearts.

17/3/13 – The other side of Havana

Unfortunately I was ill during the night and woke in no fit condition for a big road trip. So Hans and Sue were forced to drive to Trinidad without us. I slept all day, so Peter went to the beach and stumbled on the seedier side of Havana with young black girls and fat old white men (tourists not locals) and beautiful young men (of any colour) with older tourist women. Currently there are no drugs and little crime in Cuba but the times they are a changing. Gone are the innocent days that Oliver and Olivia told us of.

Young men like Javier and Umberto are keen for the choice that comes with financial independence and their contact with tourists gives them a sniff of what is possible. Access to the internet is also possible, although it is strictly controlled, and there are quite a few mobile phones around nowadays.  In these times of transition, as the philosophy and practice of communism fades and the economy becomes more ‘demand’ driven it is difficult to predict what Cuban society will look like in another five or ten years.

Cuba is now on the cusp of great change and we suspect it will not be change for the best. The quest for the tourist dollar has brought with it both greed and corruption. Gone are the days when fear of the church (before the revolution) and the Castro government (after the revolution) kept almost everyone on the ‘straight and narrow’ path.

Where this will lead the Cuba of tomorrow … only time can tell!

16/3/13 - Tour to Vinales with Javier

Today we travelled west to Vinales, the home of Cuban cigars. We met our guide, 26 year old Javier, at the hotel and quickly established that he spoke three languages (Spanish, German and English) but that English was not his preferred language, so on many occasions Peter and Hans would speak German to him!

Like Luis, his honesty and openness was refreshing and we asked him many questions and explored many topics with him during our drive up into the mountains. We were amused when he summoned up the courage to ask us a question in return: ‘Is it true that you have cannibals in Australia?’ We have no idea where that one came from but assured him that it was not the case.

During our drive to Vinales we passed many crops, the most prevalent of which was sugar. However for years now the sugar industry has been in a state of decline. There used to be over 160 mills but only 40 remain open today and production has been reduced from 7 million tons to 1.5 million tons annually. We also saw rice, bananas, corn, pineapples and of course tobacco. There were also herds of brahman cattle, goats and pigs, while horses and mules were the most common means of transport.

With the exception of government (blue plates) and military vehicles (green plates) cars and trucks, outside Havana we virtually had the road to ourselves. As cars can cost $30,000 (that’s if you can find one for sale), not many people have one (privately owned Cuban cars have yellow plates) and driving is considered a ‘profession’ (like being an airline pilot) since so few people actually know how to drive. (We had to adjust my mindset on this one as where we come from its assumed that everyone drives!)

One also assumes that the highways are for cars, but we quickly realised that these flat pieces of road were the main thoroughfares for people walking, cycling, riding on horseback or travelling in horse drawn buggies. We also learned that the people don’t necessarily travel on the correct side of the road and can often been seen proceeding up the road ‘against the (vehicular) traffic flow’. 

We saw many people sheltering from the heat at the underpasses. As we drove past they waved money at us. Javier explained that public transport outside Havana is poor and that therefore most people are forced to hitch hike if they are travelling long distances. In keeping with official communist philosophy it is expected that, if you have more than you need, you should share your resources and so drivers will pick up people on the side of the road until their car was full. 

Public transportation problem solved! A new problem however emerges with tourists (who travel on maroon plates) who don’t have a communist manifesto and don’t pick up stranded people. We felt guilty as we drove past desperate people, but lessons learned in another less safe and trusting culture die hard.

 

It was easy to tell when one had entered the cigar tobacco growing region as the soil turned suddenly from barren rocks to a rich volcanic red loam. The process for making a cigar (especially a good cigar) turns out to be much more complex than we thought. Firstly one needs five leaves – 3 filler leaves, a binder and the cover leaf.  The cover or wrapper is the best leaf and is often grown in a special location under a muslin shade cloth. This cloth protects the plant and encourages it to grow bigger leaves.

A tobacco crop is grown from seedlings derived from last year’s collected seed. These seedlings are then transferred by hand and planted in a field. It takes 9 months to produce a good leaf and they are harvested by hand three leaves at a time. The farmer takes great care in selecting the best three leaves. These leaves are then threaded, placed over a pole and then, when the pole is full, the pole is transferred to the adjacent wooden ‘drying huts’ and left to dry in stacked racks.

The newly racked leaves are hoisted to the top and as they dry out they are moved to lower and lower racks until the drying process is complete. It is extremely labour intensive and all done by the eye and the hand. 

The signature of a good cigar is that it contains little nicotine and this results in ‘no head spin’ when it is smoked. For example, a Cuban ‘Cohiba’ cigar goes through a two year ageing process that involves it being stored in sacks that are repeatedly wet with water and then hung out to dry.

This process leaches the nicotine from the tobacco leaf and results in a smoother and vastly more expensive smoke. Hans, who is keen cigar smoker, really enjoyed himself … but we found the process fascinating.

Next we were off for a boat ride to see the limestone features in a local cave and then a mural on the side of a cliff – oh the things that tourists are taken to see….that said due to a shortage of paint, the mural was quite interesting as it was constructed from strips of colour alternated with horizontal strips of black paint … apparently the unnamed Cuban artist (‘a student of the Mexican master Diego Rivera’) could not get a hold of enough coloured paints to finish the mural, so he used the black strips to ‘pad out’ the images.  

On the trip home, we found ourselves closer to the local livestock and noticed that they, and many of the local people, were very thin indeed. Was this this caused by lack of food, or parasites or both? We never found out the answer. We noticed men with cowboy hats on horseback in the streets, simple homes of several rooms with three or four children playing in the yards and, next to the house, subsistence farming.

Cows, horses, chickens and goats all roamed in the fields and animals were often tethered to stakes on the sides of the highway.

  

In the city the families often only have one child and there are eight people to a house and consequently

little or no privacy. They have few personal possessions. Once schooling is completed at 15 years, students can choose to do either two years of military service, if they are then going to go on to University, or four years military service, if they are afterwards going to be completing a trade qualification in one of the many ‘technical schools’. As a consequence of this policy that one can observe in Cuba so many ‘mere teenagers’ in positions of authority – police/army/security – all somewhat unnervingly armed with guns, big guns.

 We finished the night with dinner on the ‘Minima Terrace’ rooftop restaurant over-looking the harbour. The breeze was fresh and on it came the sweet notes from the opera being performed in one of the nearby squares. This wonderful music was only disturbed by what has been a nightly ritual in Havana for more than 300 years – the firing of the 9pm cannon!