Back in Havana

After the Cubana flight from Santiago, I grabbed a cab and went back to the

casa I stayed at in my first visit to Havana. I was glad to be back in the

capital, with its music, friendly people, atmosphere and my all time favorite,

the Malecon, where the city came to let down it's hair.

The first day back I walked all along the Malecon to the Riviera Hotel, and

all along it, kids were swimming, fishing, playing saxophones and just hanging

out; I even saw a woman walking a huge Great Dane. I walked to the main cemetary

where the city's wealthy were buried.

In almost every city in Cuba, I went to the cemetary, as the dates and

the eroded gravestones gives you a better sense of the history than any museum.

In Cienfuegos, the cemetary had been hit by a hurricane, and the smashed caskets

exposed human bones, skulls and femurs to the strong sun.... the old custodio,

who had been watching the cemetary for 30 years, took me around and explained

all the different families, that came from France, the USA, England and even

South Africa.....

The main cemetary in Havana is huge, with over 8,000 graves. It holds alot

of interesting people, including graves scratched with crosses for voodoo. There is

one grave in particular which is always busy: it is a grave of a woman who died

while in childbirth, her child died, too. When they buried her, they put the

infant at her feet; years later when they opened it up, they found the infant

in the womans arms!

People from all over Havana pray at the foot of her grave, asking for miracles

and hoping for children when they are barren. To get your wish, you have to

walk backwards away from the grave, after tapping the brass rings three times. The

old custodio sold books at the foot of the grave and a stack of marble plaques attest

to the miracles that have been recorded.

In Santiago is an even larger cemetary where Jose Marti (another Cuban

revolutionary) is buried with the cauualties of the Moncada Barracks. I was

taken around them by a uniformed guide who spoke in Spanish and explained to me

the significance of the graves. When we went to the Marti grave, which was sunken

inside a huge marble building, we stepped down, and I ducked under the doorway; the

woman clicked her tongue and remarked that I was as tall as Fidel and when he had

visited recently, he had ducked in the exact place! The tour went on for more than

1/2 an hour and it was boiling hot. Lizards scattered as we approached the huge

mauseleums and gravestones....

Anyway, back to Havana! I spent the last day there wandering around the old

neighborhoods, watching the bands practice, old men playing guitar, the kids playing

baseball, and all the wonderful sights and sounds of Havana. I was ready to leave,

I was tired of hearing more about the revolution and tired of the constant

hassling and hustling..... I was ready to leave and digest all that I had seen and

learned in the 3 1/2 weeks I spent in Cuba; and I had learned and seen alot of the

country. I regretted not spending more time in Havana, which is by far my favorite city;

and if I could have done it again I would have spent less time in the countryside, which

is not as interesting as you might imagine, and is not geared for independent travellers.

However, this is one of Cuba's attractions.

The next day I caught a taxi to the Jose Marti international airport. In the span of

8 hours I would board a jet underneath a photo of Fidel and exit customs in San

Francisco underneath a photo of George Bush (Who was, everywhere i went in Cuba,

villified and ridiculed in the press and on the street)

On the 1/2 hour drive all was smooth as the openaired taxi bumped over potholes

and ruts. All of a sudden the taxi spluttered, gagged, coughed and died. Right under

another propoganda sign. It read: FOLLOW FIDEL.