As I’ve said in my other posts, Cubans in general are very generous and appreciative. As a rule, I don’t give presents to people who ask for them. Anyone who wants a job in Cuba can have a job (more than we can say in the US, huh?). If they can’t work because of disability, the state will take care of them. So beggars here have chosen that as their profession and I don’t choose to support that. They are rare. But a woman approached me and I realized that I still had an overabundance of gifts to give (I had filled half my suitcase and I’m not taking them home!)

OMG, I am never breaking my rule again! I gave her soap and some toys for her grandkids and she pushed me aside looking in my bag of tricks and said her mother needed the reading glasses. I gave them to her and then she said, what do you have for ME? I need something for ME! I said, “The soap is for you and, by the way, you’re welcome. Do you realize that you haven’t even said thank you? You are a very greedy person and I wish I had saved these presents for someone else.” She continued to follow me, not getting it. I had to stamp my foot and tell her to leave me alone.

Right after that, a girl walked up demanding sweets or toys. I told her I had lots of presents for kids but not little girls who demand them without even a hello, that I am a person with feelings, not just a ‘present-giver’. I don’t know if she got it, but I felt better for saying it. I went back to the casa and gave a bag of toys to the daughter there who works at a day care to distribute to the kids there. Like all the other Cubans I’ve encountered, except these two brats, she was lovely and appreciative.

Trinidad, Cuba

I decided on a whim to get off my pre-arranged charter bus at a midway stop because I was heading west and it was turning back east. No problema… I would just catch a taxi from the junction to the center of town. Except that there were no taxis… or buses… or cars…… and it was pouring rain. After about a half hour of soaking solitude, I found myself singing and smiling in appreciation. See, as bad as the moment appeared to be, it was a moment I wasn’t supposed to have… So how could I complain? It was a moment I got to have… soaking wet on the side of the road in Cuba with no relief in sight… frosting on the cake!

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I took the locale bus… it costs 8 cents and took over an hour to go 30 kilometeres because we left the highway several times to go back into the wild and stop at little farms and such. It was so great to observe the Cubans with each other with no tourists around. Old people and women go first and always get the seats…its an unspoken understanding. Teenagers help old people. Everyone kisses everyone, and every sentence ends in ‘mi amor’. I stiffened when 3 gnarly looking military guys got on, having heard that turistas are not supposed to ride the locals transportation and just having a general fear of uniforms in communist countries. They burst into broad smiles as everyone shouted out greetings and they kissed and shook hands as they went down the aisle.

I went to the museum and saw how justifiably proud they are of kicking our asses in the Bay of Pigs invasion in a David vs. Goliath story that is, frankly, one of those things that embarrasses me as an American…. not that we lost, but that we had no business being there, acting like Yankee imperialists. I bemoaned the fact that I had to walk a kilometer to the bus stop in the intense heat and wait 2 hours for the return bus. I saw a señora I had chatted with on the way here and assumed she was going back on the same locale I was. After a half hour of sweltering, I didn’t know how I’d last another hour and a half and wasn’t looking forward to the long hot bus ride back. Suddenly she jumped up and ran for what looked like a cattle truck that everyone stood in the back of. Fearing this was the bus and I would be left behind, I shouted “Señora?” and she waved her finger at me to say, “this is is not for you” and she called out to a large delivery truck stopped at the intersection. She said, “Give the Señora a ride to Playa Larga!”. He waved me over and she climbed on her cattle truck.

I squeezed between 2 Cubans in the front seat. It was a laundry truck, delivering fresh linen between hotels. The driver had no shirt on, was dark, rotund, hairy and sweating profusely, but he had a big smile on his face. We buzzed back in 20 minutes playing a rousing game of “dodge the crabs”… they even let me steer. It’s mating season and the crabs cross the road en masse with pinchers up. Sometimes you can dodge them… other times they are so thick all you hear is grisly crackling and the road is paved in red and yellow. I’m told their pinchers can puncture your tires. He let me and the other guy off at the hotel he was delivering to so I had a 4 kilometre walk back to my casa in the sweltering sun with my new compadre.

He works for the “Party” as a community liaison making sure everyone’s needs are met. When I told him where I was staying, he said they were a good socialist family that supports the community and the Party. Gotta say… they really seem to love their socialism and the government and are extremely proud of the Revolucion. They are very generous to each other and community-minded. They have some of the best medical care and one of the highest literacy rates in the world. In Russia and Prague before the wall came down, everyone was so dour and oppressed when I was there. Cubans love life and seem so content with their system and their lives… It’s been a real eye opener.

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I’d heard about all the vintage American cars in Havana but I had no idea. There are thousands and they are EVERYWHERE… all over Cuba and they are immaculately maintained. (Click to enlarge).

Many are in use as taxis.

Before the Revolucion, when the U.S. puppet dictator Battista was in charge, Cuba was pretty much owned and run by American gangsters. Havana was a flashy place to ply your vices… gambling, prostitution, drinking, etc and flashy cars were all the rage. After the Revolucion, when the U.S. imposed the economic blockade, Cuba had a difficult time getting parts to service them over the last 50 years. So they have gotten creative… I passed a foundry of sorts where they create replacement parts by mimicking the original. These old beauties don’t have a lot of electronic or plastic parts and work on pretty basic principals.

It seems strange to say this, but part of what makes Cuba so special is the result of the blockade. Unlike so many other developing countries, they had to rely on themselves and created their own industries. At a restaurant, I picked up the condiment bottles and read the labels… all were made in Cuba. In so many other countries that I have traveled in, they import everything and have few industries of their own. I hope that they don’t lose their resourcefulness with the easing of economic relations with the U.S.

And these are just a fraction of the photos I took!

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