Havana

An hour after taking off from Cancun, the AeroCaribe DC-9 touched down at

Havana's Jose Marti airport, 15 miles south of Havana. The first thing I

saw was a Cubana Antanov 42 being pulled down the runway ~ by a tractor....

a field across from the terminal was filled with smashed Cubana jets

without engines and broken wings; and, except for that, the huge airport

was completely deserted.

On the flight from Mexico, we had flown over spectacular turquoise

cays and reefs and right over tobacco plantations and tiny hamlets connected

by dirt roads. The Autopista, Cuba's only highway, was completely empty of

traffic. Sugar cane factories belched smoke and refineries spewed

flames visible even from 35,000 feet.

The customs hall, strangely enough, was located over one mile from the

international terminal. (There are 4 separate terminals, one even for Miami

charter flights) To take the passengers there, a fleet of dilapitated yellow

school buses, open aired tour buses and even a rusted Hungarian bus hooked up

to a tractor were waiting for us. As we bumped along the cracked tarmac,

Cuban Americans nervously fingered their Blue US passports.... Then we pulled

up in front of a huge Cuban flag, flanked by soldiers with AK 47's, and when

I walked inside, a huge photo of Fidel hung over the booths used for passport

control. Welcome to Cuba.

The Cuban passport control was the strangest I had ever seen: you could not

see the official until you had actually handed your passport under the window

and the door to the baggage claim area was locked and only after you had your

passport stamped were you allowed through. (The agent pressed a buzzer and

the door unlocked.) When it was my turn, I pushed my passport through the

narrow slit and waited. (Mirrors above your head and behind you allowed the

agents to see everything not unlike a oneway glass window in Las Vegas) The

agent stared at me for like 30 seconds. It was hard not to laugh! He was

studying my features to compare them with my passport; he then pressed my

passport against the glass and compared my face to it. (because of the bombings

in tourist hotels in 1997 security is tight) It was more than a little

unnerving!

After I had been buzzed thru, my bag came thru fast and I ended up sharing

a cab with two Japanese and a Canadian. The parking lot was full of dozens of

Detroits finest models from the 50's: Impalas, Bel Airs, Chevys, Pontiacs,

Studebakers.... all were working as taxis and most were in pretty good

condition despite their age.

On the ride into Havana, we passed hundreds of Cubans waiting for 'camels'

huge buses that run along fixed routes throughout Cuba. We also passed

government propaganda like 'ANTIMPERIALISTAS' and 'VIVA FIDEL' and

'CREEMOS EN LA REVOLUTION' on huge bilboards and paintings that crossed

the road and covered walls and buildings. Also, dozens of American cars

stood at the side of the road with their hoods open, while drivers poured

water inside and hoped for the best.

We eventually made it downtown to the Hotel New York. We were told it

was full. However, as we walked back to the cab, the hotel clerk 'psssst'

us (the Cuban way of getting your attention) and said if we could wait, a

friend had a casa particular (Private rooms that are legally (high taxes) or

illegally (most casas you'll be offered in Cuba)rented to foreigners by

Cuban families. We waited in the lobby, and finally got taken down some

narrow streets to a tall, crumbling colonial apartment building. The family was

from Santiago De Cuba, (Cuba's second largest city) and it was a dark,

sinister place; old musty archways and huge vaulted ceilings; their

house was also full of terrifying real Chuckie-like dolls (I quickly turned

around the ones in my room as I found their stares unnerving!!) The

old woman did not speak English, and I spoke only a few words of Spanish,

so we floundered through the rules and regulationss before she gave me a key...

After securing my bags I went out walking in Havana towards the Malecon, the

seawall built by the Americans that fronts the city along the Caribbean Sea.

Even though you are in the Caribbean, while youre in Havana, you feel more

like you are in Spain or Portugal. All the architecture is Baroque and

Moorish so you hardly feel like youre on a tropical island. The people of Cuba

are amazingly varied: from Europeans who would not look out of place in

Lisbon or Rome, to Africans who look like they are from West Africa; and

then you have every variation and color in between; there is even a small

Jewish and Chinese community exist in Havana.

The Prado cuts from the Capitolio, the former Senate building used

by the Batista regime, down to the Malecon, one end of which starts

at the harbor channel to Havana Harbor. It is a beatiful, tree lined walkway

that passes thru some of Havana's oldest colonial buildings. Dozens were

under repair while others were completely deserted; condemned as many are on the

verge of collapse.

The Malecon is where people in Havana go to fish, talk out problems, swim, and

hang out. It is a marvelous walk along Havana's waterfront, and it is an ever

changing snapshot of daily life in the capital: people playing guitar, practicing

English with foreigners, and even people dropping dead chickens in the water to

appease Chango, the Santeria/Voodoo god of the Sea.

At the other end is La Rampa, where in the 1950's American Mafia

money built up hotels and nightclubs to compete with Las Vegas. The city's

Hilton is now the Habana Libre, and still attracts wheeler dealers (although

local Cubans are banned from the lobby) The Capri and the Riviera are also stuck in

the midfifities and walking around the lobby you half expect Luci and Desi to

be playing the Rojo Room or a Frank Sinatra show; the pool is just as it was

when it opened in 1958.

Across from the Libre is Copelia, Havana's answer to Baskin Robbins that

was built by Fidel Castro in the 1960's after the Revolution. It was built to

allow ordinary Cubans access to cheap ice cream as they often could not afford

it during the Batista regime. Hundreds of young Habanites, decked out in MTV

fashions, can be found waiting outside it at any time, and thousands are served

daily. If you brave the line (At least 45 minutes) you are let inside the huge

complex that serves 4 scoops of ice cream for 25 cents, sundaes cost 75 cents.

You can sit for as long as you like watching Cuba's youth strutting their stuff

under quotes from Fidel....

Walking back to downtown Havana, you pass through Vedado, a working class

neighborhood wedged between the Malecon and the University, La Rampa and Centro

Havana. It is full of rusting American cars, old ladies with curlers walking

their dacshunds; school boys playing baseball with splintered 2 by 4's and

as you walk around the piles of crumbled masonry (houses are falling down all

around you) music pours out of random houses. These are bands practicing before

the nights performance in Havana's tourist hotels and bars. You can hear them

everywhere, down alleys, on balconies, up sidestreets. If youre lucky, they

will let you listen and this is one of the best ways to experience Havana.

In the late afternoon, around 4.30, Vedado is at its best, as people are

returning from work. School kids are running home from baseball games and

mothers are yelling for their kids to come home for dinner. Its one of my

favorite areas of Havana for it's interesting glimpse into Cuban's daily life;

and I saw old women rocking back and forth in front of photos of Fidel; photos

of Elian Gonzales with bars colored like the American flag down his face; and

old cars painted with SINN FEIN and SALVAMOS A ELIAN (Salvation for Elian).

As you reach downtown, you pass thru the premier shopping streets of

1940's and 1950's Havana; it's kitschy charm is in it's signs for HOTPOINT and

SINGER sewing machines; INDOCHINA department stores and VIVA FIDEL splattered

on some sidewalks.... They are shuttered now, and are rapidly being converted

into dollar stores as Cuba moves towards a dollar economy. (Peso stores close

left right and center, in Havana and all over Cuba). People are paid in pesos,

but must pay for more and more of their daily supplies in dollars. It is a

wierd situation where a country's 2nd currency is it's sworn enemies money;

imagine using Russian Rubles in the late 1970's at the height of the cold war!

The tragedy of today's Cuba is the people are slowly being squeezed. (The

dwindling peso restaurants are full, while dollar stores are full of tourists

and empty of Cubans; it is a form of apartheid that makes visiting Cuba an eye

opening experience) For people who have no access to dollars from family overseas,

most turn to the tourist industry to survive. Peso salaries are so low that more

and more people are quitting their jobs and embracing the uncertainties of the black

market. Several people told me that everyone steals to survive: cigar rollers,

4 boxes a week; gas pumpers, 10 liters a day; bakeries, 15 loaves a week.

These are sold to people with dollars and supplement their meagre salaries.

(Teachers make $10 a month, experienced doctors, $40) The easiest (and most

risky) way to make money is to rent rooms to tourists, something you see all

over Cuba today. In some tourist areas, renting to foreigners is illegal,

if you flaunt the law, and get caught... You lose your house.

The center of Havana is the Parque Central in front of the Hotel

Inglaterra. Here, people will try to sell you cigars, cocaine, girls,

Che Guavara coins and bills, and this is where dozens of Cuba's unemployed

youth hang out, waiting for that big kill. Directly in front of the Capitolio

is a huge carpark full of 1950's cars ready for rent. Havana Vieja (Old Havana)

is here, too; it is a small quarter of winding, narrow streets (not unlike

Venice) with beautiful colonial hotels and balconies, the Bacardi building,

the ornate Spanish Embassy, and several tourist markets selling all kinds

of antique books, Fidel propoganda volumes, books by LENIN, antique

postcards and mother of pearl bibles from before the revolution... a few

years ago you could find First edition mickey Mantle Baseball cards and

comics; I found a 1948 PAN AM timetable, luggage tags and other info given

to passengers arriving on the Flying boats to Havana from Key West. (Even

paintings of Andy Warhol's Can of Campbell's soup had been turned into

'Cuba's Condensed Revolution Soup' with a picture of Che Guavara on it)

At sundown, this is the place to be, as El Morro Castle turns bright

orange in the sunset. locals hang out with bottles of rum waiting for

the firing of the cannon at the castle later in the evening. At around

8.30, 12 ornately uniformed men walk up the hill carrying gunpowder, and

slowly recreate the ritual performed every night in Havana harbor. After

about 20 minutes, there is a huge boom and a brilliant flash as the

original cannon fires into the harbor.

When that is done, everyone walks into Havana Vieja to hear the

dozens of live bands that play at bars and restaurants there. Salsa,

Cuban jazz, Afro Caribbean soul and live music are everywhere. Sipping

a Mojito in a bar frequented by Hemingway and downing Cuba Libres

while listening to these bands is by far the best experience in Havana.

Nightclubs are popular in Havana as well, and on the night before I left for

Vinales I went to one, in Miramar, the Hotel Cubanacan. Under the door

marked with BELIEVE IN THE REVOLUTION marched a steady stream of the most

beautiful people you have ever seen, targeting unattached foreign males

and their soft bodies and hard currency..... after a couple of hours of

dancing I wandered around into some of the back rooms, where a bunch of

Cuban fashion models (who had done a show earlier that evening to the beat

of the 007'soundtrack from Golden Eye) were doing lines of coke on a

mirrored table..... VIVA LA REVOLUTION.