28 - There's Something About Money (La Habana, Vinales)

Cancún, MEXICO to La Habana, CUBA - 06 april 2003

I came all the way to Cancún and left without setting eyes on the famous beaches. Will the trying-to-tan-but-burn-instead tourists ever forgive me?

José from the travel agency had told me to get to the airport 2 hours ahead of flight, at 10am. While this short flight felt like an internal flight, it was actually international so 2 hours ahead was normal. I checked my baggage in at around 10am and wandered around the airport, snooping at the souvenir store and baulking at the prices on the stupid kitschy souvenirs made from sea-shells and brightly-painted gross ‘beach’ adornments.

I was to board at 11:20am. I glanced at my calculator-clock, it was 10:20am. I had an hour to kill. I decided to go to some seats near the Domestic Arrival and read. But to kill more time getting to the seats, instead of taking a right turn from outside the souvenir store which would take me right there, I took a left turn to walk around the restaurant opposite. Just there, I passed a sign reading, “6 ABRIL 2003, CAMBIA LA HORA…” - 6 April, change the time forward by 1 hour. 6 April?? That’s TODAY!! Where is the information counter??? What time is it now?

11:20am.

Gracias. I needed to board NOW. As I cleared Customs, I marvelled at my luck - again. If I had turned right, I would have missed the sign and the flight. I realised, many times, things just fall into place for me. If I push and try to force certain things to happen, it might not work. But if I let things take its flow, usually they work out perfectly.

The plane was one of those tiny ones with propellers at the wings. The body was the size of a bus and it was free sitting. The windows were round port-holes. Upon entering, it was stuffy and airless. But when the plane was in the air, the air felt cool and comfortable. We even had inflight service from the one steward.

Little did I realise that the cool air circulating in the tin-can was au naturelle. Air was gushing in from outside, through the sides of the port-hole windows and possibly the connecting portions of the air-frame, barely held together by nuts and bolts. When we were landing, the cold air poured in relentlessly and we were entirely shrouded in mists. Condensation was dripping onto us. What can I say? It was one unforgettable flight.

In Cuba, tourists are supposed to stay in state hotels. These are priced from, I don’t know, US$50 to US$ anything. Not long ago, the state had allowed some forms of private enterprises. So some Cubans had set up rooms in their house and offered accommodation, usually to independent tourists. These were known as casa particulars [private houses]. As they are in competition with the state hotels, naturally, the state will not let them off easily. They are taxed heavily, as much as 60% of what they earned ultimately returns to the state. In La Habana, these casas are usually priced US$25 to US$30. Of course, there are cheaper illegal ones (US$10 or so) but you need to be standing on the streets and waiting for a tout to find you and lead you to their houses. I had been paying between US$3 to US$6 for six months in South America. So, Cuba was certainly not cheap for me, especially now when my funds were running out.

I hit the streets right away, for I had the excitable glee of a child let loose in a toy store. I could not believe I was in La Habana! As you can probably guess, my travelling zeal had dipped a little last week after eleven months on the road. But Cuba injected such a surprising freshness and mystery to my trip, I suddenly felt apprehensive, unsure as to what will happen, what to expect again and this was G-R-E-A-T!!

I gaped at the crumbling and colourful (in the peeling-paint sort of way) colonial houses in Vedado, where I stayed and those that lined along the Malecón [sea-wall]. The houses were enormous and would look terrifically grand and imposing if they correct the lop-sided balconies, replace the broken window shutters, replaster the columns and basically give the house a whole fresh lick of paint. But unless the Cubans had relatives in Miami, they obviously had no chance of ever restoring their houses. And so these ancient houses retained an arresting, old-flavoured charm to them.

Colourful laundry strung along the balconies. Bored women stared out of windows. Men gathered on the street to play dominoes. Boys flung make-shift baseballs (bottle-caps or home-made balls tied together in plastic) and used wooden sticks (perhaps yanked from park benches) to make a swing at them. Lovers relaxed by the sea-wall to soak in the sun-set. Old ladies sold plastic flowers and peanuts along the Malecón.

There was a black-out by the time I returned to Vedado. Nelson, my host, had given me a map on where to find cheap food around my casa. Due to the black-out, several places did not appear to be serving food.

On his map, there was a paladar nearby. Paladares are private enterprises which offer food. Again, because of the high taxes, the meals are not cheap either, costing from US$5 to US$10. As the food was prepared in houses, there were usually no obvious signs outside.

I asked a family relaxing on rocking chairs on the porch, if their house was a paladar and one lady quickly led me in. She took me through a series of pitch-black rooms and corridors. While the colonial houses were enormous, it did not mean that only one family lived in one house. They were often sectioned up into several areas and housed multiple families. So, I found myself stumbling in the dark, passing rooms where someone was using the phone, another where children were playing, and yet another, where I crashed right into some old folks sitting and chatting in the dark. I felt like I was intruding.

At the end of the house, the lady lit a candle and I sat in the stuffy room and was soon served my US$5 dinner. I had to admit the food was quite a spread, with rice, beans, salad, meat, but I knew I could not afford this for every meal in Cuba.


La Habana, CUBA - 07 april 2003

To up the challenge and confusion for tourists, Cuba has three currencies circulating - US dollars, Cuban Pesos and Peso Convertibles. The Cuban Peso was 26 pesos to US$1 at the time I was there. The Peso Convertible is worth the US dollar. They exist to provide change in coins or more US$ circulation without actually having US dollars. However, unlike its name, it cannot be converted to anything after you leave Cuba. It is best not to carry too much of these Monopoly money.

I changed US$10 worth of Cuban Pesos today and could try and buy things from the Cuban-Peso places. My first try was at a stall selling bananas by the unit, 0.50 peso each. Bananas by the unit? Usually, they were sold by weight. I checked them out and realised the bananas were in various stages of rotting, that it was best to pick and choose through the lot for the best-looking ones one by one. A man bought ten and he had to carry them himself, no plastic carriers provided, of course.

Cuba must be the American Dream Car Haven for classic-car lovers. My thoughts went to Claudio from Buenos Aires. He is the proud owner of a 1938 Chevrolet. Here, the models were mostly from the 1950s, just before the Cuban Revolution. While cars of this age had died everywhere else in the world long ago, here, because the Cubans are the best mechanics in the world (nothing is ever thrown away, everything is fixed), the cars were all given a second, third or whatever chance in life. Some grand old ladies were barely surviving. Others were mighty impressive, with fine paint jobs and smooth red, white leather upholstery inside.

As I walked along the Malecón to La Habana Vieja (Old Havana) and around Old Havana itself, I was at the receiving end of many callings of ‘China’ [Chinese girl], ‘Chinita’ [little Chinese girl], ‘Japonésa’ [Japanese girl] and funnily, unique to Cuba because of the communist angle I supposed, ‘Mao Tse Tung’ too. Sometimes, they yelled out ‘Ching Chiang Chong’ which were what they imagined to be Chinese words! It was worse passing construction or restoration sites. In Old Havana, there are many such state-funded restorations. I was constantly harassed with hootings, hissings, odious cat-calls, disgusting flying kisses, leerings and more ‘Chinas’.

Old Havana is the touristy area of La Habana and it is also the place where the poorest people of La Habana lived. Ironically, the decrepit houses the tourists had come to admire housed these poor people. Nelson had told me a doctor might earn US$20 a month, a lawyer US$12 and general workers, about US$6. How do people survive with this pittance of a salary?, I had asked. He had explained many had to do some sort of side-lines, like setting up make-shift stalls to sell food, drinks or whatever. But even these were taxed.

Indeed, along the streets of Old Havana, many had opened a window on the side of their house facing the street and attached rectangular card-boards, stating whatever they had to offer. ‘Refrescos’ [cold drinks] usually go for 1 peso. ‘Pan de Jamon’ [Ham sandwich] is priced from 4 to 12 pesos. ‘Pizzas’ fetch the price of 3 to 5 pesos. My wallet was overflowing with 260 pesos. At these prices, I wondered vaguely if I could finish spending this amount by the end of my two weeks. Such was the disparities between what the tourists pay and what the Cubans pay.

I took a seat at the counter in a café, filled with Cubans. I had been seeking out one such place for a while to ‘eat like the locals’. There was a huge crowd at the counter, with three or four lines of people waiting for the 2-peso ‘pizzeta’ [little pizza]. The woman took her time serving the pizzetas. She looked BORED. She randomly served the people and some guys yelled at her as they claimed they were there first. She was unmoved, looked right through them and continued her task languidly. The tray was finished and the rowdy crowd turned silent momentarily as we waited for the next tray to be heated up. I noticed no plates or servettes were provided. You use your own paper or hand.

How wasteful our societies are actually. Most purchases come with a disposable something, be it a cup, a bottle, a paper plate, a plastic bag. But Cubans cannot afford waste. I ripped a page from my diary and indicated I wanted one pizzeta please. She looked right through me too and turned away unsmilingly. I remained ignored as she served all the others at the counter slowly and randomly. She finally decided to hand me a piece when the ‘queue’ was left between me and another woman who wanted three pizzetas. There was only one pizzeta left on the tray.

Meanwhile, near the Plaza de Armas, an area filled with fancy restored hotels, package tourists were following their group leaders everywhere and dining and drinking in US$ bars and restaurants. A restaurant overlooking the plaza, had a ‘live’ band playing Cuban son. Not quite Buena Vista Social Club but the music was good and tourists were dancing and having a great time.

You could almost never find a spot where locals and tourists mix. The price difference is just too impossibly huge. I believe the state (now it is pronounced with a more sinister sneer) is also intent on separating locals and tourists.


La Habana to Viñales, CUBA - 08 april 2003

Due to poor and expensive public transportation, lack of ability to afford cars and basically petrol shortage, hitch-hiking is a very common practice here in Cuba. My guide-book wrote that stopping for hitch-hikers was obligatory for drivers. The drivers could not ask much from the hitch-hikers because fellow Cubans simply had not much money anyway.

Then, I wondered what if they picked up a tourist. Why get Cuban Pesos from them when they could milk US dollars?

However, I learnt later from Nelson that if a local, and not a taxi-driver, was caught picking up tourists, he could be fined US$1500 and he might even lose the car. Tourists must take taxis and authorised buses.

Viazul is the authorised bus company for tourists and everything is perfect about it. The buses were clean, had comfortable, adjustable seats and were air-conditioned. They left on time, the service was immaculate and the friendly staff spoke English (some form of, anyway). All for very high prices in US dollars, of course, but these are for the tourists, they had dollars to burn anyway. Er, not me, no… I paid a hefty US$12 for a 3-hour bus-ride to Viñales and my ulcer bled internally for a long time. I recalled a US$12 overnight bus-ride in Argentina, which was 8 hours long, reclined nearly all the way down and I was even served a tasty dinner. Sob.

Viñales is a very small town west of La Habana, set amongst roundish mountains called ‘mogotes’. All the houses had porches out front and numerous rocking chairs idled there. Did rocking chairs come from Cuba? I peeped into several houses and sometimes, the entire suite of furniture inside consisted of rocking chairs only. Some were the wooden sort and others had metal frames with the colourful plastic threads strung around the frames. Very retro.

I walked along the highway for 3km to a sight, known as The Mural of Prehistory. The mogotes reminded me of the Oriental mountains I had seen in pictures of Vietnam and Huang Shan, China. The vegetation was very tropical too and with the wooden houses, rocking chairs and relaxed, hot and humid climate, the atmosphere reminded me a lot of rural Malaysia. Malaysia… hmmm, I had not thought of this neighbouring country of mine for a while. Perhaps, it was seeing a misty-eyed Dr. Mahathir hugging Fidel Castro on TV last night.

The Mural must be the biggest joke. It was painted rather childishly by a Cuban professor Leovigildo Gonzalez and probably under the instruction of the Commander. It had dinosaurs and stick men. How about that? Still, it was great scenery walking out here and checking out the quotable quotes from the Mighty FC, put up on sign-boards along the road.

I returned to Viñales and spied a food ration store. This is a store that sells basic food and necessities. They are rationed on a per-person basis monthly. People who come have to buy these rationed items, bring a little passport-sized notebook for the guys at the counter to make a record.

On the blackboard, it was written that the food and necessities ration for April 1 to 30 were six pounds of rice, five (something, I could not figure it out) of black beans, three pounds of refined sugar, two pounds of crude sugar, one kilo of salt for three months, six fine cigarettes, two cigars, one soap for bathing, one box of matches (for lighting your cigars, how thoughtful), etc…

Of course, one could buy more of these food items at regular markets but the prices there would be higher. And not-so-necessary items like soap sold elsewhere would be priced in US dollars.



Viñales, CUBA - 09 april 2003

Leoni is the cousin of the hostess of my casa. He had come over last night to try and convince me to go on a hike with three French tourists to ‘the most beautiful scenery in Latin America’, or so he claimed. I knew it was not true, for I had already seen the most beautiful scenery in Latin America - in Chile and Argentina. He wanted to charge me US$10. I could not afford this price. Since he already had the three other tourists, adding me to the list was a bonus and he did not mind a lower price from me. I wanted to see more of Viñales. Heading back to La Habana today would be a pity. He kept asking what price I was willing to pay. US$6?, I ventured. OK!, he gushed immediately. But I must not tell the French tourists anything about my price.

Apparently, there was a very popular song beginning with ‘Tú quieres te lleva a Singapur?’ [Do you want to go to Singapore?] in Cuba lately. For the younger people, they had absolutely no idea where Singapore was and to hear that I was actually from this country, I suddenly became a legend for them. Leoni was singing this song-beginning over and over again.

It poured very heavily just before we set off so we sat around for more than an hour and chatted til the rain stopped. The French tourists were Guillaume, Geraldine and Agathe but I must not tell them anything about my price.

We departed on the muddy farmlands in the late afternoon when the rain subsided. The heavy rain had converted the trail into impossible nightmares. My sandals were caked with so much mud and leaves that I felt like a duck walking around with very large webbed feet. Every step resulted in flying mud that decorated the back of my dress.

We checked out a tobacco shed with beams of drying tobacco leaves stacked from floor to ceiling. The leaves dried outside for a few months before being transferred to be dried indoors for another three or four months. The cigar-chomping owner looked in, smilingly. He had such a typical look for a tobacco farmer. He was a tanned, wrinkled, little old man, wearing a straw hat. He had probably chewed on cigars since forever so he was missing several teeth but all this meant he could tuck the cigar more securely in his mouth in-between the remaining teeth. I learnt from him that three or four leaves would roll into a cigar and they rolled them at home. He gave us one cigar each, cool.

Leoni spied an unfriendly cow and decided we could not walk the trail ahead. Instead, he took us through the tobacco farmlands and we were soon squelching across and crashing blindly amongst what would become the world’s best cigars that, for now, were as high as our chest level.

We entered a cave and gingerly staggered inside to find the subterranean river. Walking in the cave is much like living a life, I think. You try not to question what is up ahead, you just take each illuminated step at a time and you will be fine. Known length of the river was 18km but it remained unexplored and Leoni said this could be the largest cave in Latin America, more than 100km long. This guy had a thing for superlatives.

By the time we popped out of the cave, it had grown dark already. Suddenly, it rained really heavily. We had to walk quickly through the mud for it was worse if you took slow steps… you might sink and get stuck. At one point, a horse cart belonging to the owner of the farm closest to the cave was waiting for us and so we got our ride out through the muddy fields. It was on very bad mud-trail and I was very bumped and bruised. But imagine, if we had to make our way back entirely by walking… it would have been worse.



Viñales to La Habana, CUBA - 10 april 2003

I realised that for the past few nights, the reason I could not sleep properly was because I had been doing maths in my head all the time, calculating how much I had spent and would spend for the rest of my Cuban stay. If I kept up at this rate, I would really be out-of-funds. I knew if I kept thinking about money, I could not enjoy myself. But the tourists here in Cuba were mostly just here for two weeks, ten days. They did not mind throwing money around for two weeks of comfort and luxury hotels. I was not like them. If I could not do anything about bus-rides and prices of casas, my other option was to regulate my metabolic rate down to take in only one meal a day.

On the bus-ride back to La Habana, I spotted one other person travelling alone. At a snack break, I asked him where he was heading to in La Habana, perhaps we could share a taxi. He said he had no casa in mind but wanted to be near the bus-station in order to take the morning bus to Trinidad.

Just as we reached La Habana, I hit upon another idea. Since he had no casa, I suggested he come to my casa and we share the room to split the cost, for I was also heading back to the bus-station in the morning for the Trinidad bus. How I plot and scheme my way to save money.

Yves, from Switzerland, was very agreeable to that. Great! I learnt later he was thinking of staying three or four nights in Trinidad. We could share the room in Trinidad too. Excellent.

We strolled to Plaza de la Revolución which had an ugly pointy monument and a huge statue of José Marti, Mr 1-Cuban-Peso, the guy who fought for Cuba’s independence. Opposite was an ugly Soveit-style building block which had a series of metals lined and shaped into the famous smothering look of Che Guevara, Mr 3-Cuban-Peso, the guy who fought in the Cuban Revolution, now sun-lit against a wall. Hasta la victoria siempre, [Always until the victory] it read.