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It’s almost impossible to go a few blocks in Cuba without seeing C.D.R., Comite de Defensa de la Revolucion, something about Fidel or drawings of the 5 Cuban spies who got caught and are now in prison in the USA. For Cubans, they don’t talk about the Revolucion too much and seem to ignore the signs as if they are not there. But for a foreign traveler here for the first time seeking to learn about Cuba,
the barrage of Revolutionary symbols and pictures is overwhelming. Even in a small town like Vinales that has only four streets, C.D.R. signs are everywhere, a reminder everything belongs to the government and everyone is for the Revolution.
Coming from a Capitalist society, some idiosyncrasies in a Socialist country are very strange to me. For example, almost everyone here works for the government. The guy selling meat at the market works for the government, so does the man selling theatre tickets; even the singer at a restaurant or the DJ who plays music at an outdoor patio works for the government. People here have some freedom to choose their jobs, but sometimes it takes a few months before you can start your new job. Given how little the government pays the people, there really is very little incentive to work hard other than to just show up at the job.
Vinales has a few attractions including a mural of prehistoric animals and people on the side of the mountain, tobacco fields, plantations and a Cave system. The prehistoric painting was done by 15 people over 5 years; from far away, it’s hard to imagine why it could have taken 5 years, but when I got up close, I saw that a mere patch of one single color is actually an alternating line of paint and rock. My guess is that they did it to save on the amount of paint needed. At the restaurant nearby, a few Cubanos were feeding and turning a music playing machine that took in punch card sheets of music and churned out accordion sounding music. The other tourists gorged away on their giant portions of roasted pork while the Cubano waiters looked on. Walking through the kitchen, the cook invited me for a steal of the pork. Quite delicious! Pork, I call it the national meat, is consumed by everyone everywhere in Cuba. Beef is prohibited because the Jefe (Fidel) says so. Fish is too expensive for an everyday meal, so most people eat pork and ham.
Biking through the country roads on my old 10 speed mountain bike, I came upon a tobacco leaf factory where the workers were sorting through the farmed leafs and getting them ready for a 6 months drying process in the storage house. A retried Cubano and I walked through the tobacco and plantation field and met some of the local farmers. Later he invited me to visit his house, a little shack which is a square room probably no more than 10 foot by 20 foot. There is no white paint on the walls and the chairs lack the wooden plank which usually sits on top of the metal frame. Still, we sat and talked. Inevitably, conversation somehow always ended up about the economic problems in Cuba. Before I left, I gave the man some things from my backpack and some CUC. There probably hasn’t been a day in Cuba when I have not given something away. My backpack is getting lighter J I have been asked to give money, my shirt, my jeans, my translator, my shoe, my backpack, my pen, the lock I use for my backpack and everything else in sight. If I was wearing my superman underwear on the outside, I would now be naked.
The next day I met a couple from Amsterdam who were driving through Cuba in their rental car. They gave me a lift to the Santo Tomas Cave, the largest in Cuba. A guide led us through 7 of the 8 levels in the cave; the climb wasn’t too difficult although there were some slippery rocks. We saw the a 0.5 cm frog, the smallest in the world, small crabs, algae growing on the rocks, and shimmering gems, or as Cubans call it “Pearls”, embedded in the cave rocks. At one point the guide asked us if we had been to that location before; none of us recognized the rocks there, but indeed we had made a circle and returned to the same place. The cave shielded us from the burning sun. After a few hours of hiking, I took the comfortable bus to Pinar del Rio, where I stayed the night before bussing to Cienfuego, a central province in Cuba.
Pinar del Rio really had nothing there; it felt like a suburb embedded in the middle of a heavy industry factory. There were a lot of cars, motorcycles and trucks passing on the street. The smog attacked my nose, throat and lungs incessantly; my virgin lungs are not used to this type of suburban smog. I took a long cold shower after a 2 hour walk around the town to rid myself of smog. I needed an oxygen mask but all I could come up with was using my red shirt as a makeshift face cover. I survived. I hope the smog is friendlier in Mexico City. I began to appreciate all the air quality and car exhaust regulations in the US. Even in NYC with its marching ants of taxi and limos, smog was bearable. Here in Pinar del Rio, a small passing motorcycle will blanket you with clouds of darkness. I moved happily onward to the next city.
In the old days, Cienfuego was the only French colony in Cuba and the buildings and the grid layout of the roads show it. Parque Jose Marti, the central parque in the city, had gates with arches that resemble the ones in the tourist picture of Paris. Theatres, galleries, shops, gardens surround the parque. The roads that led to the Parque Jose Marti is lined with more shops, cafeterias, art gallery and cafés. Clearly people in Cienfuego had more material things than Cubans I saw in other cities. Some has ear buds connected to their iPods while many others had flashy watches, new FUBU shirts, jewelry and sporty shoes. By only the way young Cubanos are dressed in the disco clubs, I would not have been able to tell if I was in Cuba or South Beach. On a 10 CUC a month salary, there is no way these young Cubanos could afford the material things they wore. As I discovered, there are three Cubas, the colonial Cuba and beaches for the tourists, the Cuba struggling and working for the Socialist government and earning in Cubano Pesos and the Cuba with families in the United States. Cienfuego clearly has a big portion of the latter Cuba. As such, people in Cienfuego have much more time for cultural events then people in other cities. At the theatre, there are many dance and musical performances by local and foreign artists. The garden had showing of foreign films. The art gallery has live traditional music performances. Some artists work in the street like Henry, a wood sculptor I met in the street who had been doing it for 13 years. I love this Cuba that has its own distinct culture, rather than the one trying impossibly to catch up to the materialistic Capitalist outside world one CUC at a time. Cuba is a changing place. I only saw older Cubanos at the traditional music performances, whereas in the disco clubs, after only a few salsa songs, reggaeton and techno music played on. Still, younger Cubanos remember some of their traditions, but traditions itself is morphing. They danced salsa to reggaeton music, which as far as I could tell does not have the Clave, which is what makes dancing salsa to the salsa music. Maybe dancing to the heavy downbeat of raggaeton is a new form of art and an old folk like me has been left behind. Who knows? Younger Cubanos also love to sing. Three of them were happy just standing, bouncing their heads and yelling the lyrics of the raggaeton songs into each others ears. They were all smiles.
While walking around the city, I met an UK couple who were trying to sort out a little car accident. Interesting thing about them is that one of them works in Marketing. Since there is no such a thing as marketing in Socialist countries, they had much work to do to explain the concept.
As a tourist, I was beginning to feel like just a material object to some Cubanos. Almost every time I was approached by a Cubano, I had a negative experience, whereas when I approached Cubanos of my choosing, I had a much more positive experience. The Cubanos I approached, like the ones working in the Judo and wrestling gym, were much more genuinely interested in finding out about me, my country and my culture than just getting something from me. Their sources of information are limited to newspaper and the television. In the universities, one student told me most of the textbooks are from the 1980s. Even for tourists, I could not buy internet time for one entire week. Imagine that, in the capital city of Cienfuego providence, there is no internet for one whole week. One Cubano approached me and after finding out I was only paying 15 CUC to stay in a Casa Particular rather than a hotel and that I was paying Cubano Peso to eat street food rather than in restaurant, he immediately lost interest in talking to me. That is the second Cuba, the one without families in the US to support them, that struggle to earn money from tourists.
Along with 7 other tourists from Holland, Norway, Spain, Canada and Cuba, I took a hiking tour of El Nicho, by far the most beautiful place in Cuba I have seen. We vanned into the mountain and hiked through the woods, checking out local trees, birds. We came upon a few waterfalls and swam in water that usher out from the earth at top of the mountain and flow down the rocks. The water in the pool was clear and I took many gulps of it while swimming. Usually I buy it in bottles. I didn’t want to leave El Nicho. I love the shades from the trees, the branches hanging above the pool, the waterfall, and the feeling of it all. The lunch was excellent as well. Having chicken was a nice change from the typical rice, beans and pork meal.
It was Mothers day and Cubans don’t need many excuses to drink Ron, or Rum in English. Farmers brought their pigs, plates of prepared rice, beans and meat, fruits and vegetables to sell on the street. Salsa music played on. Cubans surrounded a portable, gigantic beer keg enclosed by metal frames; two Cubanos work inside to distribute the beer. I bought street pizza and some pork as topping and then ate a premature guayaba. As much as people here drink, surprisingly I haven’t seen many overly intoxicated people. Even at night along side the malecon, an area by the beach where young people hangout after a night at the disco, there wasn’t the lurking feeling one gets outside a popular night club in the US. Maybe the sedated nature here is due to its education or part of its island culture.
As there was no internet, I left east for Trinidad a day earlier, skipping the forts and local museums. Trinidad, for whatever reason, is a big tourist city, despite being relatively small with only about 52,000 residents. After arriving here and finding my place to stay, I hiked up to the tallest part of the town where a man works at the radio station there. He took me to the roof where I could lookout to as far as the Caribbean Sea and the surrounding sugar plantations which are no longer in operation. Since a few years ago when Russia became more capitalists, the Cuban sugar for Russian machinery trade stopped. The sugar plantations were now used to feed cattle for milk. He too thought Raul was making better economic decisions for the country, switching more land from sugar production to other vegetations. The Cubano said that Cuba sell their high quality sugar and buy cheaper sugar from other countries for consumption so that they have money to buy more goods. He also that it’s possible for foreigners to buy houses in Cuba. Many Spaniards own houses here for vacation. An undeveloped coastal colonial city like Trinidad would become an even bigger tourist attraction when Cuba finally opens up for foreign investment. There are few hotels in town and therefore most of the tourists stay in private houses. Speaking to him, I remembered the stories I read of the economic transformation and privatization of Russia national enterprises. Opportunities abound during those times. China is undergoing these changes now and I have no doubt at some point in the near future, Cuba will as well. After a few days here in Trinidad, I will head to Santa Clara to see the Che memorial and then finally Santiago de Cuba for its Afro-Cuban history, music and dancing.