Cuba: Day 1 - The Arrival

Our bus for the duration

Flew into Miami last night.  Found the hotel in the airport and checked in, then went on reconnaissance to find today’s meeting place:  Nathan’s Famous.  This is a vast airport, as I found out on the way to Peru in July, and I didn’t want to be wandering around in a panic in the  morning.

       When I get to Nathan’s this morning, there are a few people there.  I didn’t know what to expect, having never been on a tour, and am pleased when a friendly blonde lady comes up and introduces herself.  Of course, we were all equipped with National Geographic name tags - thoughtfully magnetic so we don’t have to poke holes in our clothes.  Her name is Laura and she’s traveling with her sister Ellen and a friend, Donovan.  There are a few others hanging around.  And then Cindy, our guide, arrives and starts organizing us.  As ours is a charter flight - and it doesn’t take long to fly 228 miles - no food will be served, so we’re all issued $15 to go buy brunch, something to last us until this evening’s meal.

       Then it’s passport control and onto the plane.

Before you can say Fidel Castro, we’ve landed at Jose Marti Airport outside La Habana, Cuba.  (Our charter flight is on American Airlines, and it’s strange to see the word American emblazoned on the sparkling white fuselage on Cuban soil with the embargo still in force.  I wonder if it’s a coincidence or if the company was chosen just for that purpose.  I’m sure that’s only my evil mind being amused, because there were three other Havana-bound flights out of Miami this morning, all on other airlines.)

       We were told to have our visas at the ready.  I wasn’t expecting a stamp to be put in my passport because the visas are on a separate form, but perhaps thanks to Obama’s opening to Cuba my passport is duly stamped, right across from the Jordanian stamp from November’s Petra trip.  I’m requested to remove my glasses for a photo and then questions are asked, mainly questions about ebola:  have I been in a country with ebola? do I know anyone who has had ebola? how am I feeling? no coughs, runny nose, digestive problems?  (I find out later that Cuba has provided many doctors and other medical staff to West African countries where this disease is causing ravages.)  Then begins the long wait.  Turns out there was a discrepancy between National Geographic’s tourist list and the passengers actually arriving.  It was the last-minute defection of the man from Guam that threw things off.  It takes so long to straighten this out that our first person-to-person appointment - an organic farm (all farms in Cuba are organic) - has to be cancelled.

 

      Outside of the airport, I see the first old American cars, the ones of my childhood.  I was expecting to see some, but not this many!  They’re all over the place!  Yellow ‘53 Chevy, light blue ‘54 Ford, peacock blue ‘58 Chevy, black ‘50 Chevy...  After the embargo in 1962, no more Yankee cars arrived.  No parts to fix Yankee cars.  So the fact that they’re still running, some with outboard motors in place and stead of the engine, is nothing short of a miracle and attests to Cuban ingenuity.

       On the ride into Havana, we stop off at the Plaza de la Revolucion.  The Cuban flag - vaguely reminiscent of the American Stars and Stripes, but rearranged - flies briskly in the breeze above the head of the first of an infinite number of statues of national hero Jose Marti that we will see everywhere. Across from that Memorial stand two white Soviet-architectured buildings.  On the right, the Ministry of Communications with a 3-D silhouette of Camilo Cienfuegos, one of Fidel’s fellow combatants in the Revolution, presumed dead in 1959 after his Cessna plane disappeared mysteriously over the ocean. On the left, the Ministry of the Interior, with a similar silhouette, this time of Che Guevara, who needs no introduction.  We will see images of these two men, along with Fidel, across the length and breadth of Cuba... at least the part we travel. 

       Our hotel is quite a surprise.  The Spanish colonial-style Parque Central is possibly the best hotel in Havana.  I certainly wasn’t expecting squalor, but grandiose on this style is becoming rare anywhere in the world.  And it does seem a bit strange to see a five-star hotel in an openly Communist country.  But this is just the first of many of what our guide Chris Baker calls the enigmas that make Cuba Cuba.  The hotel is a joint venture between a Spanish hotel chain and the Cuban government, and as with all joint ventures in this country, Cuba retains 51% ownership, ensuring it the deciding vote in any decisions.   The lobby is something out of the glory days of Hollywood - all columns and marble and mosaic tile floors - and there’s a swimming pool on the roof.  But what makes this hotel great for us is its location at the corner of the Central Park plaza and the Prado boulevard, on the edge of Old Havana.  Perfect for photo forays and learning about the city.

       After changing money in the lobby and resting a bit in my comfortable room, it’s time for a reception and then our first meal in Cuba.  Private enterprise was banned here until the government gave permission in 1993 for people to open family-owned and operated restaurants called paladares.  Initially limited to only 12 chairs, they were allowed to become larger by Raul Castro in 2010.  Tonight we’re dining at La Guarida, one of the most reputed in Havana.  You might have seen it in the film Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry & Chocolate), the only Cuban film ever to have been nominated for an Oscar.  We walk there, which gives us our first glimpse of Havana night-life, a mix of young and old people amid crumbling or renovated buildings.

  

     La Guarida is upstairs in what was once someone’s apartment, as are most if not all paladares.  The crystal chandelier, frescoed window trim and carved wood speak of richer times.  The restaurant has taken over the top floor (two flights up, no elevator) of a mansion that has known better days, having bought out the other apartment owners on their level.  After a mojito to welcome us, we move on to a three-course dinner worthy of a Paris restaurant... and a far cry from the single blue-plate special of by-gone paladar days.  After gazpacho, eggplant caviar or snapper-and-calamar carpaccio as an appetizer, the main course offers a choice of grouper, roast chicken with honey and lemon, or any of three types of pork, including a curry.  All come with the usual Cuban sides:  beans, rice and plantains.  Wine comes with the meal, and the à la carte wine list includes some from France:  a Baron de Rothschild from Bordeaux and a Louis Latour Burgundy.  Dessert is chocolate cheesecake, lemon almond pie or a selection of ice creams (including strawberry and chocolate, of course).  All of the above is home-made, from organic ingredients.  (Many of the paladares now have their own ranches and fisheries, an extension of the newly-acquired and vaguely capitalistic freedoms Cuba is experiencing.)

       After that, we all waddle back to the hotel, digesting both our meal and our impressions.  The contrast of what we thought Cuba would be and what it is proving to actually be is a feeling that will continue throughout the entire trip.

You can see La Guarida - the building and the restaurant - in this video I found on the internet:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8ro6uiGp1E

Cuba: Forbidden Fruit

WARNING:  If you have a prejudice against Cuba, this blog probably isn’t for you.  At least not this trip - my 9 days in Cuba on a 23-person National Geographic tour.  You’ll find Che Guevara mentioned many times, especially in the attached videos (which aren’t mine).  You’ll find praise for the Cuban Revolution and what it accomplished, not necessarily said by me but by the people we met on this people-to-people trip.  These people were not chosen for their propaganda value, but for their knowledge of specific sectors:  architecture, sociology, art, music...  We were given no Minders and were free to go anywhere we wanted - including alone - and to ask any questions we wanted.  This being said, and in spite of the past (and present) hostilities between the U.S. and Cuban governments, the welcome extended to me, whether in the group or out on my own, was always warm, never hostile, and I’d go back to visit again in a heartbeat.


Preface

Growing up, Cuba, to me, was essentially music.  Ricky Ricardo aka Desi Arnaz.  Exotic dance steps such as the mambo and cha-cha-cha learned at Aunt Marge and Uncle Bill‘s ballroom dancing class on Saturday mornings.
       In junior high it became something you saw on the nightly news.  Scraggly-bearded men in green fatigues and combat boots with cigars clenched between their teeth and their fingers in a V for Victory.
       Then in high school, it became something much worse.  It became a reminder of the duck-and-cover days of nuclear exercises in grade school.  A reminder of The Bomb.  Which we were told was headed for Cuba on board a Soviet ship, to be aimed at our shores from 90 miles south of Key West.  I remember vividly watching those ships approach.  The face of a resolute John F. Kennedy, blissfully ignorant of his demise, also approaching.  And then one afternoon the footage of a ship - the ship - doing a U-turn in the ocean.
       From that time on, Cuba was The Enemy.  It was Cuba vs America, the Hatfields and the McCoys.  I watched most of the drama play out from across the Atlantic, in France, as my children were born, grew up and moved away... as my entire career began, grew and ended.  Outside my door, the world changed.  Man walked on the Moon.  Cures were found for incurable diseases.  We sent probes into the farthest reaches of our solar system.
       Yet Cuba remained on America’s State Enemies list.  Off limits.

One of my loves has always been travel, since that first trip abroad in 1958, seen through a child’s eyes.  National Geographic had always nurtured that wanderlust in their issues filled with strange sights, photos bursting with color, words echoing strange sounds and customs.
        So when I started receiving their travel magazines, and when Cuba was on their list of destinations in spite of America’s travel restrictions still in place, the attraction became even stronger.  After all, the island was still only 90 miles south of Key West, where one day I’d watched Cuban TV from my friend’s couch as I visited her there.  (And wasn’t it ironic that the movie they were showing was... a John Wayne western!)
        What’s more, many travelers were flying - albeit illegally - to Cuba from Toronto, and Ann Arbor is only 30 minutes from the Canadian border.  The prospect of visiting the Unvisitable became ever more tantalizing.
        I’d even flown over it on my way to South America and back!  Seen it out the window of the plane.  Taken photos of it.

One day I decided to sign up.  Winter is cold in Michigan, and not in Cuba.  And National Geographic has access to lots of interesting people, I reasoned, lots of experts I’d never be able to see if I just went there on my own.
       There were problems with red tape.  And of course they arose while I was far away, in Paris.  A Cuban visa would be required, so I scanned my passport and sent it to National Geographic.  They told me it expired too soon and I’d need a new one, but there was no time to do that before my return flight to the States, by which time it would late to get the visa.  The Cuban Embassy in Paris was tauntingly near, I told them, but National Geographic needed to do all the visas together, so I didn’t get to enter their forbidden doors and see if it was as posh as the embassies of capitalist countries.  E-mails flashed back and forth between National Geographic and my apartment in Montmartre.  It became clear that Cuba couldn’t care less when my passport expired but the U.S. wanted my passport to still be valid six months after my return.  Being me, I asked if that was an air-tight requirement... and it turns out it isn’t.  I mean, sincerely, were the Customs Authorities in Miami going to deny me re-entry and send me back to Cuba?  Me, a U.S. citizen?

       So the paperwork went through.  I was granted an entry (and an exit!) visa to Cuba, even with an elderly passport.  I booked a flight to Miami, stuffed enough clothes into a carry-on, and streamlined my huge purse into a small pouch I could hang around my neck - alongside my camera.
       A lot of thought went into planning this trip.  U.S. credit cards don’t work in Cuba, so you can’t just zip into a store and buy what you forgot.  Provided they even have it, given the embargo.  The same holds true for ATMs - not an option.  It was going to be a trapeze act without a net, unlike any other trip I’d ever made, which includes most of Western Europe, Jordan, Burundi, Peru, Chile... even the remote Easter Island, the farthest place on Earth from any other place on Earth.
       And it was still only 90 miles south of Key West.  But decades in the past, as I’d soon discover.

Jordan, Day 4 (cont) & Day 5

Madaba, from the top of the Church of John the Baptist

Wed, Nov. 19 (cont)

It’s only 3:00, so I decide to be adventuresome and head out, armed only with a map.  Street signs aren’t often in English here, the streets of Madaba are winding and my Arabic is still limited to shukran so I feel a bit apprehensive but don’t want to be a wimp.  I’m respectfully covered, a scarf over my head (albeit a filmy orange chiffon one à la Grace Kelly that I’ve had since I was 16).

       So it’s off to Saint John the Baptist Church (1 JD, “for the services”).  You can’t miss it; it’s past Saint George’s Greek Orthodox Church that I saw the other day, and behind the mosque, on the ancient hill. (Religions seem to coexist well here in Jordan.  At least for now.)  The church is simple, with more mosaics, and the buildings discovered underneath are interesting, especially the melodramatic silver platter with John’s head on it, surrounded by currency from around the world.  And then I climb the stairs (almost ladders) to the belfry and beyond, for a look out over Madaba.  This is the highest point in the city.  My knees knock, and I wish someone were there to take me to the ER when I fall.  But I don’t.

       Feeling a mix of cocky and thankful, I head back to the hotel... which I find in spite of taking another route, to see more of the town.  At nightfall, I hear only two muezzin, one a few syllables behind the other, as if an echo.  In Petra there were many more - at least four or five - and the prayer sounded more like a song contest where everyone sings at the same time, but a few bars off and in a different key.
       Dinner - mixed grill again, and again alone - a shower and bed.  Tomorrow, back to Paris.

Thursday, Nov. 20

Fakhrey picks me up at 9, as arranged, and drops me off at Queen Alia Airport, which is very new... and designed by the French, Fakhrey says.  (He's wrong, but it’s nice of him to include my country of adoption.)  We say our good-byes and I shukran him heartily for his able and creative driving as well as his consistently good humor.  We always managed to understand each other.  I’ll miss his English, his “there is clouds too much” and other confusing phrases.
       From this point on, it’s The Usual Airport Experience that surpasses all national boundaries: check-in, customs, x-ray, the inescapable duty-free bazaar, the holding area.
       Paris awaits, with half the degrees Celsius of Jordan.  But at least that’s better than the premature snow back in Ann Arbor.
       I take with me many memories to treasure.