Return to 1998 AUTUMN Index
| How from that sapphire fount, the crisped brooks, Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold, With mazy error under pendent shades Ran nectar, visiting each plant and fed Flowers worthy of Paradise. Milton. Paradise Lost 1V lines 235-240 |  by Sarah Keen, Editor |
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Frankly, I was in shock. Rashly, perhaps, I had run into a travel agent and come home with a pile of brochures and allowed my partner to choose the destination. Paris would have been nice I thought vaguely but left it to him. Stressed from work, a holiday, any holiday, anywhere was urgently required. HE went very quiet for a long time and then was seduced by the 1950s cars which rumble through the city streets. He reached for the phone: a week in Havana was ours for just under £400.00
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Big American monsters mainly - long past their sell-by date and sometimes re-engined with tiny, clapped-out, dirty, East-European-made diesel engines. But the Cubans keep them going - one way or another... | |
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A cherished 'family' saloon | The oddest looking Morris Minor you ever did see! |
The place to be this year was Cuba. Beautiful, exciting, chic and cheap. It promised just a dash of the political unknown to spice the holiday. Fidel Castro holds sway over a country which is still suffering from a US blockade. Lord! Even the Pope had paid a visit to the beleaguered isle. So off we went.
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Hotel Comodoro - part of the rapidly growing Cubanican chain |
We stayed at the Hotel Commodoro which was about fifteen minutes from the centre of Havana. The main building was a bleak fifties block of concrete but the rooms were large with balconies overlooking the sea. The first day we went on a guided tour of Havana. We were taken to charming churches and castles perched over the bay. Pretty courtyards were home to quaint cigar shops and then with triumph, the guide whisked us into a small garden. "This", he announced beaming with pride for his English tourists, "is our memorial garden to the Princess of Wales."
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Hmm... |
The English tourists were overcome with embarrassment. For now of course we realise all that mass mourning: not quite right, somehow not British but induced. The media currently full of articles explaining it was a hysteria which attacked anything in its way. Too ghastly to contemplate in retrospect. But there was the guide smiling in front of us clearly expecting tips and thanks. In the silence my partner enquired if Diana had ever visited Cuba. No. Oh dear.
The next day we had booked onto a day trip through the countryside to Vinales. This has to be one of the most beautiful sites in the world. Should any of you wish to go on a holiday and paint - this is for you. Take your water-colours or oils and give yourself enough time to draw the botany, the sky, the people.
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Dinosaur country | and a beast that roams it! |
The colours are pure, the landscape dramatic. But for heavens sake, avoid outings with English or German tourists. While hell has to be a coach load of the two. I remain appalled by the rank stupidity of my countrymen - fat, forty plus and far too young to remember the war - who still play out the old landscapes of the British psyche. Pity the poor German who went to the top of a queue to join his friend and was barracked by Hitler jibes and salutes. "I'm Jewish" screeched one woman virtuously who at fortyish had obviously suffered in the Home Counties for years at German hands.
After that we decided to make our way around Havana by ourselves. We immediately hit several problems. There is no public transport that is easily accessible. Most tourists take taxis everywhere and because of this the Cubans find it hard to believe you actually want to walk . You can not take two paces along a street without being approached by someone who wishes to organise your transport or sell you cigars.
 | The infamous Cuban Cigar -
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Workers in many of Cuba's cigar factories are allowed to smoke as many cigars as they like, free! However Fidel Castro has given them up aparently |
While we looked for the old Havana which the guide had shown us we stumbled across the real town which left us speechless and myself simmering with rage. Still am actually. Outside the hotels, the people of Havana are thin. They endure food and fuel shortages. Cuba has three currencies, the only one of any use is the US$. We walked through streets of once beautiful houses so derelict that it puts one in mind of the Victorian slums of London. Sewage and foul water seeps out of the walls and runs down the centre of the street. There are no shops.
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Buildings fallen victim to centralised planning. Castro didn't want the peasants flocking to the city. So all available resources were poured into rural areas, and large chunks of Havana simply left to rot | |
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We walked for an hour and a half through streets of ruin and the only food store we found had been empty for years. A man lay exhausted on its floor. Children followed us silently for ages until I, drained of sympathy and harassed by guilt, shouted at them to leave us alone. Partner looked at me reproachfully. For God's sake I thought irritably. I am tourist on holiday. Trying to relax. If I were from the UN I would be making notes, setting up committees, trying to get FC to talk to the US. I wouldn't be setting up wretched memorial gardens for tourists to gawp at. Anyway you will no doubt be relieved to know that the UN has designated some of the buildings as a World Heritage site and are doing them up. So that's all right then.
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The art of falling apart? | |
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The hotel complexes have shops - for the tourists, and food - for the tourists. Basic pharmaceutical products such as aspirin are not to be found. Inevitably there is a thriving sex trade around the resorts. It is normal to see an elderly western tourist with a nubile Cuban on his arm. The Cuban's main hope is a ticket out of the island. Since the Pope's visit Fidel Castro has relaxed some of his policy. Once the Cuban has saved the $US2000 airfare to Europe (bear in mind the average wage is $US3 a week) he may get a visa as long so long as he has an invite from someone in the West. Consequently don't be surprised at the friendly Cubans. We lost count of how many times it was hinted that we invite them back to sunny Southampton. Even hotel staff who must be relatively well off drop hints with all the subtlety of concrete blocks.
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Havana's Camel busses, dragged through the crumbling streets by noisy, old, American-made tractor units. Resembling huge cattle trucks, the beasts contain as many as 300 people crammed on board - standing room only! Meanwhile cobbled-together rickshaws are strictly for the tourists | |
Fed on a diet of American TV which is cruelly available to them in their poverty, the Cubans like many Eastern Europeans believe that the West is charmed. There the streets are paved with gold and living is easy, there is only a hazy idea that you do have to work.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba is forced to sell its greatest asset. Itself. The tourist trade is roaring away but I can see little evidence that any profit is seeping down to the Cubans themselves. The UK agencies are certainly marketing Cuba as Sun, Sea, Sand and Sex. Rather like the Costa del Sol in the seventies. The cheap tourists bring their own problems which the Cubans have yet to get a grip with. It is perfectly possible to enjoy Cuba without being affected by the social conditions. All you need to do is step from your plane to the bus to your hotel. Take every tour going and you will never leave an air-conditioned bubble. Your greatest trial will then be the other tourists.
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Images of colonial pasts.
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If you try and do Cuba yourself you will be fine although transport around the island is difficult. Despite it's poverty it is remarkably crime free. A credit to the Cubans that you are relatively safe even in its worst slums. Personally I found it impossible as it has so little to offer on an equal basis. I didn't like the people and their neediness. I felt I was a tourist in the worst sense, paying to watch a country prostitute itself. China, for all its communism, had its own dignity and sense of civic pride. Cuba has a tragic past and a strange future. It is the most beautiful island that you may imagine and yet all its people do anything, say anything, in order to escape. I was not sorry to leave.
