Viva La Revolucion!!! Part I

No I’m not commy if that’s what your thinking. Well not yet we’ll see what happens in the presidential race.

Recently I had the opportunity to go on double secret vacation

to Cuba.

Most of you back in the states are wondering why in THE hell would you want to go there? Well like everything else stupid I’ve done in my life…. because an authority figure says I can’t (The US Government).

I first got the idea from a poker buddy. He went to see the actual “Buena Vista Social Club“. The way he described it sounded so exciting I had to check it out.

He told me that Taca was running some pretty decent deals on flights for around $250 US for a round trip ticket. So I signed up for their newsletter and waited for the next special to come through my email. Little did I know I’d have to wait another 5 months for my schedule and money to come together to make it happen.

To give everyone a little background on the travel situation is to Cuba…you can’t go and if you are caught either in the country or some form of money trail can be traced back to you be can face up to a $50,000 fine.

So how the hell do you go then? You will need to buy your ticket from a destination outside the US. In order to enter the country you need to buy your entry visa from that airline which you can get at checkin. When you arrive in the country, immigration stamps your visa NOT your passport. There is no record of you going in and out of the country. Then you need to bring plenty of cash with you. You don’t want to do a withdrawal from an ATM inside Cuba that’s likely to show up on your US bank statement.

It’s also not as easy as taking US dollars with you either. It’s highly recommended that you take Euros with you to exchange for the Cuban peso. The US dollar has a 20% tax on it. I don’t know about you but 20% is crazy high.

Some other interesting facts regarding currency is that Cuba has two currencies or a double economy. They have the Convertible peso (CUC$) and Cuban peso. Most things tourist buy are in Convertibles. Cuban pesos are obviously for the lowly citizens. While we were there the Cuban pesos were selling at 24 to one convertible. So as a traveler you may end up paying more for the same service as a Cuban however these people are forced to stand in line, frequent ration shops, and live in absolute squalor.

So my tickets were bought and I packed my bags. I had a co-worker, who will remain nameless for fear of execution by big brother back in the states, join me on my excursion. We had to drive 5 hours to San Jose to catch our flight to Habana.

We made it safe and sound to San Jose. I think it was fair to say that both he and I were very anxious to get on the plane and get into the Cuba. As you can tell from what I described above that there is uncertainty on whether we’d get into the country or get locked up for some unforeseen reason. As we were boarding the plane they started checking our passports. We were literally in the catwalk when the attendant stopped me and my co-worker. He was asking us where our visas were. My heart instantly sunk. Had our trip ended before it ever began.

Taking a step back…before we left my co-worker specifically asked about the visa situation. I checked into it all and all I knew was that we’d get it in Cuba. That apparently wasn’t the case. The flight attendant gave us a strange look and pointed us back to the gate entrance. We walked up to the gate and found out that you buy it at the counter. Whew!

We bought our visas and headed off to the land of FIDDEELLLL!

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We got in fairly late at around 10pm. Once we got off the plane we headed for immigration and customs. I did a royal job of screwing up me introduction to the customs lady that postponed my entrance into the country a little. My Spanish wasn’t so great so a lot of what I was saying didn’t make sense and raised an eye brow or two on her part. But finally after about 10 minutes of reassuring her I wasn’t working for the CIA she let me pass.

When I walked through the customs door I was presented with something unusual. A security check point like the ones you see when go to check onto the plane. That was a first, a security check point to get off the plane.

While we waited around for my buddies luggage I noticied two other unusual things. First there were dogs everywhere. I say there were about 20 or so dogs wandering through all the visitors bags for obvious reasons, drugs. Makes sense. But these weren’t the typical scary ass dogs you see like a pinschers or dobermans. Get this they were English Cocker Spaniels….strange…yeah I thought so. They were everywhere. The second item was the women on duty. All the employees of the airport wore the same garb. Typically bland uniforms. The women all wore knee high skirts. But every one of them was also sporting fish net stalkings. I guess you call it my first experience of sexy cuban salsa or whatever. Strange.

We hopped a cab to where we were staying. I decided on staying in Habana Vieja (Old Vieja). I wanted to make sure that we were right in the heart of the city. Old Habana is quite the interesting mix of affluent shops and desperately poor. According to Lonely Planet there is an estimated 70,000 people who live there, 45% of whom still live in houses deemed unfit for human habitation. And let me tell you…man can you see it walking down the streets. Almost all the houses and streets were in the most horrible conditions. You have to be careful not to walk close to the builds because all the water piping feeds out into the streets. So your very likely to get soaked.

More pictures to come on this.

Anyways…we caught our cab and headed to Casa Humberto . Casa Humberto was a Casa Particular. A Casa Particular in Cuba is a private house that can rent rooms to foreigners. Government regulation of casas is intense and it’s illegal to rent private rooms in resort areas. Owners pay CUC $100 to CUC $250 per room per month depending on location: plus extra for off street parking, to post a sign advertising their rooms and to serve meals. These taxes must be paid whether the rooms are rented or not. Owners must keep a register of all guests and report each new arrival within 24 hours. Penalites are high for infractions, and new regulationshave recently restricted casas to two people per room and only two rooms per house. Without a marriage licesnse, travelrs with Cuban spouses or partners will have a hard time finding accommodation. Most casas particulares are very strict about letting jineteras (a woman who attaches herself to male foreigners for monetary or material gain) back to the rooms, and they’ll always assume a Cuban partner is a jinetera – unless you can prove otherwise.

So we finally arrived to Casa Humberto. We checked in with the housekeeper and hit the sack.

The next morning I woke up at around 8:30am and let my co-worker sleep in a little bit while I checked out our digs. They had a nice little common area for eating and hanging out. It’s pictured below.

They also had a rooftop access to the building. So I thought I’d take a stroll up top to check out the skyline of Havana. It was amazing, so beautiful. Unbelievable colors and architecture my words don’t do it justice. So I’ll just let the video below do the talking.

After the video I strolled downstairs to wake up Mr. Co-worker to organize our plan of attack for the day. No we weren’t orchestrating another Bay of Pigs. There is so much to do that we didn’t really have a clue where to start. So we turned to our go to guy, Lonely Planet.

Lonely Planet has a number of walking tours for the city. One tour in particular stood out to for us that involved centro Havana. We would start at the Museo De La Revolucion and end at the Museo Casa Natal de Jose Marti. Once we agreed on all the details for the day we set out.

Right outside Casa Humberto there was a little bazaar going on with food. I got my first introduction to Cuban revolutionary proganda here on the walls. It’s a painting/picture of Camillo Cienfuegos and Che Guevarra.

I also got a video of the little bazaar for your viewing pleasure.

After the bazaar we made our way to the museum. I got some excellent pictures of the filthy streets along the way. Again we had to watch out for people on the second floor dumping out their used water.

We ended up taking one of the more “busy” streets in old Havana to get to the museum. It was like your typical street in any city really tons of people and shops. What was interesting was what was in the shops, nothing. Seriously, I think almost every shop we walked past had maybe 1 item each of whatever product it was that they were selling. And what was even more ridiculous were all the people milling around waiting to get into these places. The shops also looked like they hadn’t been renovated since the 40’s. I likened the scene to something you see in those science fiction movies where humanity ceases to exist. Seriously if you yanked all the people on the street you will feel like Will Smith in “I AM LEGEND”.

So we finally arrived at the Museo De La Revolucion. It’s housed in the former Palacio Presidencial, a signature of the Habana skyline. Tiffany of New York decorated the interior. You can gawk at the opulent décor as you wander around.

In the back of the museum is the Pavillion Granma. Since 1976, this has been the home to the 18m ‘yacht’ Granma that ushered Fidel Castro and 81 others from Tuxpan, Mexico, into Cuba and world history in 1956. It is encased in glass and heavily guarded 24 hours a day, presumably to stop anyone from breaking in and making off to Florida! Zing! Videos of the ‘yacht’ and the front of the museum are below.

The information we found inside the museum was very interesting. They did an excellent job of telling the history of the island. They went all the way to back to the history of the island as a Spanish colony and detailing the first revolution that was lead by Carlos Manuel de Cespedes , a budding poet, lawyer and sugar plantation owner.

He called for the end of slavery, and make a cry for an independent Cuba. Jose Marti was to carry on the torch and fight for the independence of the country. He was the countries first major unifying force for an independent Cuba. As you stroll the city you will see numerous statues dedicated to him.

In fact, if you’ve ever seen the biopic that HBO did on Fidel. He’s the statue the naval officers desecrate out one night on a drunken excursion. So you can just imagine the outrage from the Cuban citizens when they saw that.

Anyways….as we strolled through the museum we followed the chronology of the country. While it is history …you have to remember who was writing it. It seemed like I got a reminder every 4th or 5th paragraph. The content was laden with negative propaganda about the US. My co-worker and I were actually getting a kick out of it. Just so you know. We’re not Americans in Cuba. We’re Yankee Imperialist.

We had a good time. We were doing a little role-playing. I played the communist, trying to see all the positives out of what Fidel had brought upon the country. While my co-worker was doing an excellent job of punching holes in my arguments.

Seriously though why the hell don’t we all have free health care and free education. Life really isn’t about materialism. We don’t need 95% of the crap we own. Myself included. His argument to me was why can’t we have both? Good point. Look at Sweden and Finland. They have both and they seem to be doing just fine. Below are a bunch of pictures I took while I was in the museum.

After the museum we hit up the Edifico Bacardi. Finished in 1929 the magnificent building is a triumph of art-deco architecture with a whole host of lavish finishing’s. We strolled up to the top of the bell tower to get a view of the city. I got some excellent shots of the skyline. Those pictures and the front of the building are below.

Next up we hopped over to Hotel Sevilla for some lunch and drinks by the pool. Al Capone once hired out the whole 6th floor here. Refurbished by the French Sofitel group in 2002 the Hotel Sevilla now sparkles like the colonial jewel of old with large spacious rooms, comfortable beds and a rather surreally-located ground floor swimming pool. Sorry gang but I only took one picture of this joint. Enjoy

After lunch we didn’t do to much more. Both of us were pretty beat so we decided to find a stoop and do some people watching. We ended up setting up people watching camp on the stairs of the capital building. Below is a bunch of pictures of the walk there and the building itself.

5 Responses to “Viva La Revolucion!!! Part I”

1. k9style says:

   October 25, 2008 at 3:37 am

   P,

   I like what you have going here. I am quite jealous that you have been over there. I will have to get my Irish Passport set up so I can get over there sometime soon.

   Good looking out on the old school rides. They were not 6-fo Impalas but close. Those rides were 1950 Dodges.

   Nice photo work but lets work on the video. I got a little sick watching some of those.
2. Costa Rica Surf Camp says:

   October 27, 2008 at 4:42 pm

   Really Dodge? Not sure on the year but I was pretty sure it was an impalla. Glad you liked the blog my man.
3. tiguepatrick says:

   October 31, 2008 at 3:49 pm

   Hey Buddy,

   Thanks for the support. We each have our own path. Come on down anytime. Plenty of waves for Hausch and company.
4. Hausch says:

   November 3, 2008 at 6:37 pm

   I just might do that buddy, I could use a nice warm vaca with some surfing.
5. Danny G says:

   November 5, 2008 at 4:39 pm

   Great post Lorenzo. And you posted a youtube from You Can’t Do That on Television. Good stuff.