My Caribbean Tour:

Impressions of the Greater Antilles

 

 

Impressions of Jamaica

I changed $20 into Jamaican currency before leaving the airport – I would have done more, until the young man at the counter mentioned that if I changed a (much) larger amount I would get a better rate, and I realized that the rate offered (up to $100) was quite poor. As soon as I walked outside, I saw another exchange place offering a much better rate, but I waited and took money directly from a (fee-less) ATM later.

 

A taxi driver was quite insistent that (for $30) he should drive me to the Reggae Hostel (where I had reserved for 4 nights) – it must be the only, or at least the best-known, backpacker hostel in Kingston – but I declined and took a local bus, which started nearby, to the main square downtown, then asked which bus I needed next. At one point on that second bus an older woman got on and tried to use her fare-card but, despite her protestations to the contrary, it seemed to have no balance on it. The driver wouldn’t start until she paid, and passengers were getting impatient. Someone said, “Just go, let her ride free,” and the driver very clearly and resolutely (but pleasantly) said, “No, we’re going to follow the rules.”  (I was impressed. And indeed, Jamaica seemed a very orderly – or at least reasonably orderly – society, especially after Haiti!) Eventually another passenger, a prosperous looking middle-aged man, came forward and paid the woman’s fare. Later the woman could be heard reciting “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.”

 

I found my hostel (thanks to my GPS, which I was very grateful to have!) and settled in, then went out to find an ATM that didn’t charge a fee (someone told me which ones to look for) and get something to eat in a nice (but not fancy, not expensive) fast-food restaurant at a nearby shopping center (unlike anything I saw, or would expect to find, anywhere in Haiti). A young woman cleaning tables says without introduction “You look like a scientist,” and – when I ask – says she wants to go to veterinary school.

 

Next morning I had the Jamaican national breakfast – salt cod fried with ackee (a yellow vegetable which makes the result look like scrambled eggs) – and liked it. I walked to the grocery store at the shopping center and bought a couple kinds of fruit drinks, then walked to a nearby park where I sat under a huge tree packed with small red fruits, making notes on the Democrats Abroad Charter and other documents I’d brought from the meeting in DR. An eccentric man sitting at a small table he’d set up some distance away jumped up like a little elf when he saw me working in my notebook and, curious, came near (but not all the way over to my tree). I asked him what the red fruit was, what kind of tree? He didn’t know anything about the fruit – which turns out to be a type of fig, though perhaps not eaten by humans – but he identified the tree, it was a banyan (I should have known)!

 

It turned out that this man (Orrett Rhoden) is a classical pianist and he was sitting here in the park in order to talk with strangers and try to elicit support for an annual international classical music festival named after himself (and this was the 3rd year coming up)! I commented (a little impertinently) that he must be well-known since he’d named the festival after himself, and he acknowledged that he was, and told me about being on the Joan Rivers TV show twice (in 1987)! I happened to meet him again the next day and enjoyed meeting one of his friends and hearing more about “Bach to Jamaica”, the theme of this year’s festival.

 

Although it was Sunday and I knew it would be closed, I wanted to do the “pilgrimage” anyway so walked a kilometer or more in the sun to the Bob Marley Museum in a house that he lived in at some point, then walked back, buying some “Jamaican apples” on the way, not really apples, but similar in appearance, and good for my fruit salad breakfast. I also left some on the table for the other hostel guests. Both here and earlier in San Juan I very much enjoyed meeting young fellow travelers (so to speak), hearing where they’d been and were going, etc.. Here there were several from Sweden as well as Finland, also Canada and the U.S., etc.

 

The next day I walked over to Avis – I’d purposely rented from a location only a kilometer or two away – and picked up a rental car. I was absolutely sure that I didn’t need CDW – the collision damage waiver (which also includes fire and theft) – because I was charging on my Fidelity VISA card and that’s their standard advice, that it’s included if one charges on the card. Avis insisted that I call to verify this fact, and it took an hour, sometimes on hold, then talking to the wrong person, getting referred to someone else, being on hold, etc. Finally came the word: Worldwide, there are four exceptions: Israel, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Jamaica. Go figure.

 

An attendant checked out the car to me – showing me the spare tire in the trunk, among other things – and I set out for Black River, several hours up the coast. Feeling like I had plenty of time, I stopped first to look at a folk museum in Spanish Town, the original capital. It wasn’t open, but my stomach was acting up so I found a toilet, then tried to find an entrance onto the main (limited-access) highway.

 

I ended up on the other side of the highway in the middle of vast sugar cane fields, but I could see on the GPS how to get back to the highway so didn’t hesitate to follow small farm roads through the fields. I stopped under a tree – parked in the middle of the narrow deserted road – to eat a coconut cake I’d bought the day before (actually a “Toto” – “like coconut cake but heavier” – but I didn’t know what coconut cake was like either – but in any case it was good). Suddenly I heard a horn and, in the distance, in the rear-view mirror, I caught sight of a big sugar-cane truck bearing down on me. I hurriedly got moving to a larger road where I could get out of its way.

 

Back on the main road, I paid tolls a few times before the toll-section ended as the road goes into mountains. As is my wont, I stopped for a hitchhiker – a woman perhaps in her 30s who said she was a single mother – whom I took to be an uneducated “peasant” – going to the next town to sell small packets of merengue seeds, which I asked about. “Isn’t merengue a type of music?” Yes, she explained, it’s a type of Cuban music [which actually originated in the Dominican Republic, according to Wikipedia], and the seeds are actually called moringa, but we Jamaicans call them merengue. And she proceeded to list the myriad medical conditions for which moringa seeds are a sure-fire cure (just chew 1 or 2 with water). I bought a pack (for under a dollar) but haven’t tried them yet.

 

She allowed as how she wouldn’t mind going up to Black River with me. (Was that a better place to sell her produce?) Would I like that, she asked politely? I wouldn’t have minded helping her out, but didn’t want to be constrained, so explained that I might get inspired to stop somewhere along the way, and of course she would have to get herself back. Without saying any more about it, when we got to a major intersection near the next town (her original destination), she indicated that she would get out here. I wondered if there had been a sexual invitation (for money) implied in her question.

 

I stopped to check out a springs which seemed well-known – imagining hot springs – but they turned out to be cold springs, perhaps more valuable in that hot climate. In Black River I found a tour operator, but it would have been expensive for a one-man boat tour of the Great Morass (swamps with crocodiles and many bird species), and besides the day was slipping by, and (if possible) I wanted to be back in Kingston by nightfall. By the ocean front I found a man selling sugar cane and coconuts. I watched as he prepared a section of sugar cane for a customer. He broke off the cane at two successive nodes (like bamboo), then chopped the resulting section into shorter pieces and split them multiple times as well, presumably for people to chew on. I chose a coconut to drink instead ($2 for a quite large one, $1 for a smaller one).

 

I always like to return by a different route, so I started down the coast toward Treasure Beach and Lovers’ Leap. The road was quite twisty and slow – I could see that I was going to have to keep moving to make it back to Kingston by nightfall – so I didn’t stop at the beach (it was too windy for bathing anyway). Lovers’ Leap suggested cliffs, and sure enough the road went inland to avoid them, eventually coming back to the coast at Alligator Pond. The next 20 kilometers along the coast were almost totally deserted, for good reason – there’s no development, and the road is the worst I’ve ever driven myself (second only to the road I took by bus in northern Haiti). Potholes and ruts were almost non-stop. But I enjoyed the wilderness and being close to the ocean. An animal like a squirrel but bigger crossed the road in front of me – probably a mongoose, I later learned. Mongooses were imported from India a few decades ago to kill rats that damage sugar cane, but they’ve apparently become quite a pest themselves, killing ground-nesting birds as well as young pigs, goats, and sheep, edible lizards and land crabs….

 

As I started getting back into civilization – and it was getting late in the afternoon – I hit one too many potholes, too hard, damaging a wheel rim, and a tire went flat. Feeling confident, I got out the spare tire and all the tire-changing tools, but there was no jack. Some men from a nearby village came by on bikes and offered to help, even to pick up the car if necessary, but I wasn’t about to take a chance on that. I borrowed a cell phone and tried to call the emergency number I’d been given, but got nowhere. Eventually a taxi came by – taking a passenger into the village – so my helpers flagged it down and borrowed its jack. They quickly put on the spare tire and gave the jack back as the taxi came out of the village with another passenger going the other way. I gave the men a tip for their help and they were grateful. Before I departed, we bumped fists and gave what seems to be a standard Jamaican salutation: Respect!

 

Meanwhile a young man came by giving a young woman a ride on the handlebars. They had tried to warn me that my tire was going flat as I passed them earlier, before I had realized it. Now he asked if I could give the woman a ride to her job as security officer at a sugar factory (i.e., sugar cane mill) about 10 kilometers away. Of course I was happy to help, and enjoyed talking with her on the way. She said she had an American husband whom she had met while on vacation in Barbados, and she was hoping to join in Portland, Oregon, as soon as she could get a visa.

 

On Sunday, the day before, there had been free vegetarian dinner at the hostel, but today was the hostel’s 4th anniversary so there was a big Rasta party with lots of music, rapping, and drumming – and lots of smoking marijuana through very long-stemmed water pipes – and lots of elaborately cooked food, though it took a long time to prepare and I was tired. As it got late and I was very hungry, I thought I would drink a can of condensed milk which I’d picked up to have someday with fruit salad, but it was so sweet I could hardly get it down. Finally food was ready and I ate some, but – despite assurances to the contrary – it was a bit too hot for my sensitive mouth, so I went to bed without eating very much.

 

The next morning I made a big fruit salad for breakfast – jack fruit, Jamaican “apple”, “pineapple watermelon” (which was yellow), papaya, coconut powder, rice & “peas” (beans), with another can of sweetened condensed milk – putting half in the fridge for the next day. Then I dropped off the car at Avis, where they informed me that the jack had been under the passenger seat, a feature of this model that the man who checked out the car to me was supposed to have told me! (They also charged me $55 for the damaged wheel.)

 

I took a bus downtown, visiting the National Gallery and the National Museum, where I especially appreciated the Rastafari exhibit and the Taino exhibit (focusing on the original inhabitants of the island). I had noticed that a film I want to see (because my favorite actress, Julie Delpy, is in it) – Avengers, Age of Ultron – was showing along the bus route, so I decided to walk back there and see it. The ticket price was similar to what I guess it is in the States, and – since I was leaving the next day – I didn’t have so much Jamaican cash left, so I stopped at an ATM to get a bit more cash. (Maybe I could have paid with my debit card? I didn’t think about that!) There were lots of people milling around and, when I got up to the window, the showing was sold out. I was curious how many people were watching this movie at 5:15 on a Tuesday afternoon in Kingston, Jamaica, so I asked the capacity of the theater: 343!

 

I had thought about taking local buses to the airport the next morning, but as the airport is far out, and I would have to first change downtown, and my flight was at 8:55, I decided (on the hostel manager’s firm advice) to take a taxi. When I was almost ready to go, I asked them, as instructed, to call me a taxi, and was told that the taxi was already there! It turns out that some friend or perhaps Jamaican hostel guest had a car and would take me. On the way – after first saying he was a bit out of it because he had “smoked and drunk so much the night before” – he stopped for gas and I heard him ask the gas station attendant (with a heavy Jamaican accent) for “15 bills 90”. When he asked me for money with which to pay, I handed him 1500 Jamaican and he was surprised that I “understood Jamaican” (as he said). (The 90 was the octane level.) When I went through Security at the airport, a female officer commented that – in the middle of Kingston, a rather large city – she had seen me on the street the day before!

 

When boarding the plane the stewardess asked if I would like “to move further with an aisle”? She meant further up – forwards – but why would I care about that? Anyway, I liked having a window.

 

My route to Cuba (on Cayman Air) included changing planes at noon on the British Overseas Territory of Grand Cayman (Cayman Islands). The “Hawaiian sling” (a type of spear gun which I’d never heard of) is prohibited entry to Cayman Islands (along with regular spear guns, etc.).

 

Since I had a few hours, I thought I’d get lunch at the Yacht club, which I was told was nearby (though I couldn’t see exactly where) and that a shuttle would come by, probably in 5 minutes. I waited at least half an hour out front – sitting in shadow and making notes on my trip so far (while a rooster walked calmly by) – but finally I asked a porter, who said “Soon come”, which seems to be a standard response in that part of the world. (Recall the name of the hostel where I stayed in San Juan: Island Time.) The shuttle didn’t come, so finally I walked and found it with no trouble. The young blond waitress – who said she’d been there for 5 years – was from Canada.

 

Impressions of Cuba

We flew over the Gulf of Batabano – on Cuba’s southern coast, opposite Havana – which is so shallow it seemed that I could see the bottom, although Wikipedia says its 200 feet deep. We flew a somewhat zigzag course, which I thought must have some military significance, as otherwise I couldn’t see what we were avoiding.

 

Bags came out onto the carousel sporadically, randomly, in pairs and triplets. After waiting about an hour I finally had my backpack. Many people were still waiting for their bags.

 

As noted earlier, I have a GPS – a Garmin Montana (with camera) – which I bought in 2011. I listed it (as "GPS") on the form asking what electronic equipment I was bringing into Cuba. The Customs agents freaked out. "You have a GPS?" Yes, so? "That requires a license." I pointed out that smart phones have GPS and they're not requiring licenses for them, but it didn't matter. I pointed out that my GPS also has a camera, but it didn't matter. They confiscated my GPS, and advised me to pick it up when I was leaving the country.

 

But while I flew into Havana, I was flying out of Holguin at the other end of the country. I asked where to get a license. They referred me to the Ministry of Telecommunications, but advised me that it would take far longer than the week I would be in Cuba, so I should get a customs transfer agent to take the GPS to Holguin for me. I was afraid it might not be there when I got there, and besides, I wanted to use the GPS while in Cuba! (I also didn’t want to give in to mindless bureaucracy.) All this took a long time, and I was concerned because my reserved lodging had promised to have someone waiting for me when I came out. I said this to the Customs agent – thinking perhaps I could go out and at least explain what was happening – but he said “They’ll wait.” This was Cuba, after all. Someone else, somewhere along the line, said, “We don’t know why we do things in Cuba, we just follow the rules.”

 

It was already evening when I was allowed to go, so I took a taxi into town to the address of the casa particular (bed and breakfast) where Linnéa had stayed last year and where I had made a reservation with Nora, the owner. Nora’s new Canadian husband let me in but didn’t seem to understand why I was there.

 

Finally Nora arrived and explained how Cuba’s system of dual currencies worked: National money (Cuban pesos) is only worth 1/24th the value of convertible pesos (CUC), which look almost identical, except that all the national currency bills have faces on them (males, naturally), while CUC do not. This was very useful information! At the airport I had changed 200 Euros into about 210 CUC (because changing U.S. dollars involves paying a 10% premium), then I changed 10 CUC into 240 CUP (national money). So I had both, and had put them into separate pockets in my wallet, but I hadn’t figured out how to distinguish them.

 

Eventually Nora mentioned that her computer had recently crashed and she’d lost all her reservation information, and now she was totally booked, so had no place for me. However, she could make arrangements with two friends of hers – two sisters – who had a spare apartment about two blocks away, which I could have for the same price (25 CUC). I could come back to her place for breakfast if I wanted – at extra cost – but she and her husband were leaving for Canada the next day, so her daughter (whom I also met) would be in charge. As it happened, I found food “on the street” rather easily (and much cheaply), so never went back.

 

First thing the next day I went to speak to the Ministry of Telecommunications. Because I was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt (with a many-pocketed trekking vest over), I wasn't allowed to actually enter, beyond the outer lobby, not even to an inner lobby where I could have sat down. Women with bare legs – including some wearing shorts – walked in and out without objection, so apparently the rule only applied to men. Trying to explain what I want to the woman at the reception window, I write “GPS license” on the top of the Havana map I happened to be carrying (since I didn’t have my GPS!). She looks at it, then calls over an associate and starts examining the entire map, just like in a (nonsensical) movie!

 

Eventually some helpful officials came out to the lobby to talk with me. The explained that the agency actually responsible for GPS licenses was the National Office of Hydrographics and Geodesics (Oficina Nacional de Hydrografia y Geodesia) – and gave me the address – but advised that, since Customs’ national headquarters is close to Telecommunications, I should first speak to them, as they could advise me on arranging for a customs transfer agent to get my GPS to Holguin so I could pick it up on departure from Cuba. I went to Customs’ national headquarters and spoke with some sympathetic ladies without making any progress on getting the GPS back, so I went to talk with Hydrographics and Geodesics (getting a ride in one of Cuba’s famous 1950’s era American cars used as taxis).

 

At Hydrographics and Geodesics – where again, because of my inappropriate clothing, I wasn’t allowed past a guard post (it’s on an old military base) – helpful officials again came out to speak with me, and they were VERY sympathetic. They understood immediately that banning this GPS was ridiculous. They asked me to wait (naturally, that’s routine), but after awhile they came back with a Memo they had written to the Head of Customs telling them that this was a tourist GPS and therefore did NOT need a license. (But first – while they were working on the Memo – they had called out to the guard post to have the guard tell me, because of my inappropriate clothing, not to sit where I was visible, so I moved, with the chair the guard had considerately let me borrow, behind the guard post. He apologized for the rudeness of it all and said he was “just doing his military service.”)

 

I went immediately to the airport to retrieve my GPS – again catching a 50s-era taxi. Since I had come from Jamaica (via Cayman Islands), I went to the international terminal (clearly marked on the highway). I didn’t recognize it, but went to the arrivals hall. Naturally, Customs agents told me to wait (outside). After half an hour I went in again and was again told to wait outside. After another half an hour (by the clock), I went in and refused to leave. Now someone actually paid attention to what I wanted, and told me to go to the other side of the terminal, to another arrivals area. There I was again told to wait outside, but I again refused. Look at those passengers there, they said, they are waiting to be serviced. I said, I’ve been waiting all day! (By now it was getting late in the afternoon.)

 

A pleasant customs agent who could speak some English advised me that I needed to speak with their Legal Division, as only THEY could decide to release the GPS – and he also got a young blond woman who said she was Cuban but spoke perfect English to confirm that I understood. But by now it was late and the Legal Division was already closed for the day.

 

My trips to the airport were adding up, and I was sure there must be local transportation available, but I couldn’t find it, despite asking everyone and everywhere and every way I could think of. Finally an information agent arranged a taxi ride for me at a slightly reduced rate, and on the way to town I quizzed the driver about local transportation. How do airport employees get to work? Answer (which amazed me): They have dedicated buses (which I later saw) run by the airport authority! (Isn’t that incredibly inefficient?)

 

By now we were further from the airport, passing a residential area. How do THOSE people get to Havana? Oh, they use bus 12 or bus 16, and he told me where I could get those buses in Havana on my way out the next day, which I did (getting off at Santiago de Las Vegas, which is within a kilometer or two of the terminals). Later I posted this information on Lonely Planet’s Thorntree Forum, which I thought was for information-sharing among serious backpackers, and I was amazed at the trolls who thought it was for telling me why no sensible person would walk that far and that I should just suck it up and take taxis. (I also shouldn’t have fought the bureaucracy over my $650 GPS – packed with maps I’d loaded and waypoints I’d marked indicating where I wanted to go – but I should just have abandoned it, they said.)

 

In the evening I walked towards central Havana – which I had yet to see – and, on the way, found a small local restaurant, with menu posted outside, prices in CUP (national money). I had rice and beans and a chicken leg, three small glasses of mango juice, flan for dessert, and endless water as needed, for 45 CUP (less than $2). That’s my kind of restaurant (and I went there again later).

 

I hadn’t communicated with home (or anyone else) since leaving Jamaica, so I wanted to find a computer. I found a hotel with computers available, but one has to have a card which one can only purchase from ETECSA, a state agency which of course wasn’t open in the evening. Another hotel supplied cards for their own computers, but they were out of cards. I gave up for the time being. While walking around town, a dog with one very lame dog spotted me and – thinking he’d spotted a benefactor – began following me, block after block, until I gave him the slip.

 

First thing the NEXT day – after finding breakfast on the street, consisting of “breads” of 3 kinds, for about 12 cents (total), at a place where it appeared that people were exchanging ration cards for other bread of some kind – I found a bus to the airport. It was slow and somewhat crowded, of course, but only cost 1 national peso (about 4 cents).

 

I went to talk with the Legal Division (which is near Terminal 1). They acknowledged that the Memo from H&G made clear that no license was required to import my GPS. But did that mean that it could be "imported" (even for 7 days for my tourist use)? That, of course, was a question that only Customs could answer, not H&G.

 

They read the regulations very carefully and decided (if I understood correctly what they were saying – my Spanish is close to non-existent) that in fact a mistake had been made, because (as H&G's Memo also said) this was a tourist GPS, not a professional GPS (whatever that means). At that point they were hopeful that they were “on the way to solving my problem” as they said.

 

But then they said that no, "the lawyers" would want to be involved, and that would take at least a week. Alternatively, I could request an investigation of the fact that this was in fact a tourist (not professional) GPS, but that would take 30 days. They advised me (again) to get a transfer agent to take the GPS to Holguin, where I could pick it up when leaving – and they advised me to do that TODAY (Friday) because I was leaving next Wednesday and time was getting short.

 

My back-up plan was to try to get my (non-refundable, non-changeable) Condor ticket changed to depart from Havana instead of Holguin, because of factors beyond my control (or whatever). But meanwhile I pointed out that H&G's Memo was addressed to the Chief of Customs: Where was that person? Naturally, at national HQ (where I had been the previous day), and the Legal Office ladies helpfully wrote down the address for me to give to the taxi driver (I didn’t take the time to walk and take a bus). My taxi was a 1950 Chevy with a newer Mercedes engine. (Earlier I’d ridden in a ’52 Oldsmobile and a ’49 Plymouth.)

 

The first line of defense at national HQ was “the Chief isn’t here.” But I spoke again with two women I had spoken with the day before (one of whom is named Angela!), but this time I had H&G's Memo in-hand. (In retrospect I should have gone there immediately after getting the memo.) These two nice ladies understood that my GPS had not required a license and therefore need not have been confiscated, but it had been confiscated. Who would now take responsibility for releasing it? They decided to do it.

 

After several VERY determined phone calls on my behalf (I could tell from the tone, even though I couldn't understand the words), they advised me to wait (naturally – that's what I'd been doing now for most of two days) while they prepared a directive to the Legal Office and got their Chief to sign it. They told me that the Legal Office was expecting me, so I should take them this envelope (containing H&G's Memo plus whatever they had added, which I didn't see).

 

I didn’t see a bus but found a taxi (a 1950 Pontiac), which however broke down about ¾ of the way to the airport, but the driver immediately hopped out and flagged down the next vehicle (which may not even have been a taxi) and asked them to take me to the airport, which they did (for a small fee – and I had forgotten to pay the first driver, and he had forgotten to collect, so I saved on that journey).

 

The nice ladies at the Legal Office – led by Tania who translated for me earlier but had explained apologetically that she’s a teacher, not a translator – were happy to see me again and congratulated me on winning! Then they in turn sent me to Customs at the terminal where I had arrived (which happened to be Terminal 2, since I came from Cayman, not Terminal 3, where I had mistakenly gone the evening before) as now THEY were waiting for me. Outside there were hundreds of people waiting eagerly for arriving passengers. I went inside, where there were no passengers whatsoever – perhaps the plane was late? But there was apparently no way for those waiting outside to know.

 

But the Customs officers were indeed waiting for me. For a change they offered me a place to sit down, then released the GPS – after completing some necessary paperwork – and were very cordial about it. As an interesting demonstration of power (I thought), the Customs officer who admitted me to the Arrivals area had insisted on reading the accompanying documents (the original confiscation records) even though I pointed out that the envelope I was carrying was addressed to her Chief and that the Chief was waiting for me. And, after the higher officers (Chief or whoever) had released the GPS to me, she still questioned them whether it was now okay to allow me to leave the Arrivals area (which I had freely entered shortly before).

 

Altogether, it had taken 48 hours from when I first started to walk out from the Arrivals area until I was finally able to do so free with my GPS. (Incidentally, H&G advised me, if wanting to bring a GPS to Cuba again in the future, to email them first at hg@unicom.co.cu Attn: Coronel Candido A. Regalado Gomez.) I walked out to the highway and took a 4-cent bus – instead of a $25 taxi – into Havana.

 

The next morning (Saturday) I walked to the train station to (hopefully) get a ticket for the night train to Santiago de Cuba (at the other end of the country, near Guantánamo) for that evening. (I would have done this earlier if I hadn’t been so involved trying to get my GPS back!) I got to the ticket office before they opened at 8:30. About 50 people were waiting, standing randomly but very aware of who came in what order (they lined up later). Fortunately I had read somewhere about this system of apparently random order, so asked who was last in line. Someone explained (with essentially no English) that there were actually two lines, one for train (which I wanted) and one for bus (which most people wanted).

 

When someone came out at 8 30 and made announcements, my “friend” asked about trains today, and the answer was “no train until Monday”. So I joined the bus line, though (my “friend” explained) it’s not the Viazul (national) bus but some other bus. OK, whatever. But when I got inside, someone motioned me over to a window and sold me a train ticket! It only cost 30 CUC instead of 50 or 62 as I’d heard it might, so I was warned that it was not a top-class train. And it wasn’t full – I had an empty seat next to me almost the entire way – so it didn’t seem to be the case that they’d bumped someone in order to give me a seat, either.

 

I walked around Old Havana – the only chance I had had to do so – past the Chocolate Museum (which didn’t seem like any big deal, just a shop so far as I could tell) and the Tobacco Factory (which had moved, though a shop remained in the old location). I enjoyed the Revolution Museum including (in a separate pavilion) the ship Granma on which Fidel and others re-entered Cuba in 1956, leading to their final victory in 1959. (Is it true – as alleged at the Revolution Museum – that the CIA introduced tobacco virus and other biological warfare agents against Cuba’s economy?) A man with no arms or legs was begging on the street along with a little puppy, so I gave them some money.

 

I was running low on national money so went to a bank to change more CUC into CUP but banks don’t do it, there’s a specialized agency for that. I went there only to find a long line, but okay, I joined the line. Then a man came up to me and asked if I wanted to change dollars. No, I want to change CUC into CUP. No problem, he changed for me, at the official 24-to-1 rate. What was in it for him? I don’t know.

 

After picking up my backpack from my apartment, I set out walking towards the train station, confident that someone would offer me a ride. Sure enough, a young man asked if I’d like a ride in a bicycle rickshaw, and we agreed on a price. Then we continued walking a few blocks in the same direction, with him (I think) mumbling something about “my bike is up here”. Finally he saw a rickshaw with no passenger and asked the driver if he would like a customer, and collected a fee from the driver for delivering me to him! I could have found a driver myself – but I admired my “agent’s” entrepreneurial spirit in acting as go-between.

 

For food on the train I had bought a liter of long-shelf-life milk at a fancy store (for $2.40) and then (at the station) a small package of plain cookies and a package of caramel (a small block) for $0.40 together. So, while waiting in line (or just next to it) at the gate, waiting for the train to be announced, I sat down to eat (why not get dinner out of the way?).

 

Unfortunately, I dropped the slippery carton almost as soon as I’d opened it and about a cup of milk gushed out before I could react and pick it up. So I ate my cookies and caramel – and drank milk – all the while ignoring the white puddle next to me, like a child who’s peed his pants but doesn’t want to admit it. Of course if I’d had a mop I would have cleaned it up – but then I couldn’t leave my bags to go find a mop, either. Oh well...
 

I was standing in line when they started to slowly let people through to go to the train, and everyone surged forward (though not very far). I was fussing with my bag, closing something and having trouble doing so, so didn’t move forward at first, and everyone behind me waited. Finally I heard a gruff man say (in Spanish, only the tone of which I understood), what the hell, I’m not waiting for this guy. I answered with a growl and everyone (including him) held their places until I was ready and moved forward (about a yard).

 

I hadn’t figured out the ticket and didn’t know which car or seat to go to, but a nice older man helped me. I could tell immediately that pain pills and a sleeping pill were going to be helpful. I tied my backpack onto the overhead rack and kept my daypack under my feet all night, with valuables (as always) in a pouch around my neck.

There turned out to be food venders on the train – sometimes pushing grocery carts, or carrying cardboard boxes, selling crackers, soft drinks, whatever. I couldn’t always tell what it was they were selling, and, when I asked, they would keep repeating the price to me – with passengers screaming it at me for emphasis – until I looked in my little guidebook and found the word “Que?” What is it? I bought a “guayaba (guava) bar” to bring home (because I’d never seen anything like it, naturally) – about the size of a brick, longer but thinner, wrapped but open at the ends! It’s essentially jam, I guess (though thicker, congealed), which I’ve frozen and will try as pie filling, over or under a cream cheese and whipped cream layer. To drink immediately I bought a Cuban soft drink (for $0.40) which was not cold but okay anyway. I also bought a small slab of salty queso (cheese), which the seller handed me with his fingers (but I figured I needed the salt, I’d been sweating so much in persistently 33 Celsius, 92 Fahrenheit temperatures). A fellow passenger – a young woman sitting behind me – asked (a bit aggressively, I thought) for a bite of my queso (as a joke?), and everyone laughed when I pointed at the seller.

 

The overnight train trip itself was mostly uneventful – and was sometimes up to 74 km/h (according to my GPS!) – though there was a delay of about an hour early on because of mechanical problems. Cuba seemed very green and lush. A young man was riding a horse bareback. Later I took a bus from Santiago to Holguin: I much prefer train rides to buses.

 

For breakfast on the train I had 2 small buns with soft sausage or liverwurst for $0.04 each! I’m embarrassed to leave trash on the floor – as there’s no trash receptacle – but others just toss trash out the window.

 

In Santiago I found my lodging (Maruchi, which is well-known and highly recommended), where Nonny (my host) explained that I would get a discount for the second night because there would be an Afro-Cuban religious ceremony that day involving mass animal sacrifice, with lots of people coming and going, so I might be disturbed. Actually it was just interesting – I might even have paid extra for it – though it was not exactly pleasant.

 

A member of the religious group (Santería or Regla de Ochá) was very helpful with information about the town – such as where to find local transportation – and also helped me communicate with home. Frequently on this trip I’d had problems getting into my email account because Outlook (Microsoft) recognized that I was on a different computer and wanted reassurance that it was really me. But I had no cell phone on which to get a security code, and no other email address on which to get a code either. Finally it occurred to me that I could send a message via Facebook, though this time even that link took too long to load. However, Ernesto (who was helping me) could get into his email account, so I was able to tell Ellinor that I was safe in Santiago after the train trip.

 

I walked to the main square, then over to the port, south along the shore of the huge bay, then back up into the hills. In front of Fidel Castro’s ancestral home were a man and woman each wearing uniforms with the label “Proteción” on them. As I approached they asked if I had a pencil, and I thought they wanted to write something down. I always have a black and a red pen in my pocket, so I handed them the black one. The woman said “for me?” and I said “no, I need it” and took it back!

 

Back by the main square I stopped for dinner at a restaurant which, however, quoted prices in CUC (convertible pesos) and was accordingly over-priced. As always, I was carrying bottles of water that I had chemically treated, so I declined their offer of expensive bottled water.

 

Nonny (my host) asked what time I’d like breakfast. Yes, 7:00 would be fine. But, in the morning – perhaps because of the ceremony planned for that day – she and a few others were doing yoga in the “courtyard” and didn’t seem to appreciate when, at 7:30 the next morning, I finally asked what was happening with breakfast. I had planned to be at the bus station by 8:00 in order to buy my ticket to Holguin for the next day (from where I would fly the day thereafter).

 

I walked to the station and bought a ticket, which cost 11 CUC (convertible) although the receipt said 11 CUP (national money). It couldn’t really cost local people only about 46 cents, could it? (That wouldn’t even cover the gasoline for the bus!) I didn’t mind paying 11 CUC (the equivalent of $11), but I was curious, so pointed out the discrepancy. The ticket-seller told me it was “no problem”.

 

After stopping at a fancy hotel in order to use their computers (with cards I had earlier bought from an ETECSA shop), I walked to San Juan Hill, up which Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders famously charged during (what we call) the Spanish-American War (and Cubans refer to as the North American-Spanish-Cuban War). Then I caught a ride in the back of a pick-up truck about 12 kilometers out to Siboney Beach where American troops (including, I suppose, Teddy Roosevelt) had landed during the war. I had a small papaya (“bomba fruita”) juice at a small stand that cost 1 CUP (4 cents). I gave the woman a 5 CUP bill and she gave me 1.35 CUP in change, while counting out “two, three, four, five” as though she had given me my full change. Of course the amounts were trivial, but I don’t like being cheated, so insisted on getting my correct change. She made yet another attempt to short-change me, but finally gave me the correct amount.

 

I found a shady spot under a tree to discreetly change into my swimming suit, then – keeping a close eye on my bag, in which I had placed my pants with my wallet – I took a quick dip in the ocean, then lay in the sun for awhile to dry off. Pizza here, and also later in Holguin, was more like an egg pancake, and “ham” was more like spam, but whatever, it was edible.

 

I walked a kilometer or two back up the road to a small museum dedicated to the Spanish-American War. Although a sign on the front door indicated that it should be open, it was locked. A man went to find the two museum attendants, who promptly came and opened the door, then escorted me around the museum. Admission cost 1 CUC (1 CUP for Cubans). I knew almost nothing about that war, so enjoyed learning something about it, especially the big naval battle outside the port of Santiago, when  Spanish ships came out through the narrow channel one by one, only to be hunted down by American ships and destroyed, one by one. I guessed that I was the only visitor that day – there was no sign-in book (and they didn’t ask where I was from, either) – unless the class of students waiting for a bus out front (in the shade of a big mango tree) had been there before me. (When people DID ask where I was from, and I said “Suecia” – Sweden – they often responded “Zlatan”, a famous immigrant soccer player here!) (Totally unrelatedly, the U.S. – Estados Unidos – is abbreviated E.E.U.U. in Spanish, the doubling of letters indicating plural!)

 

I caught a ride in a pickup truck back to town, then walked home by way of Moncada Barracks (which Fidel Castro famously, though unsuccessfully, attacked in 1953). At a fancy liquor store I bought a liter of rum ($7) to take home, as well as a liter of yoghurt in a sealed plastic bag for dinner. I also stopped for a glass of “batido de coco” – beaten (or whipped?) coconut, very tasty.

 

In the morning I had noticed a turtle roaming freely in the “courtyard” (which acts as living and dining room). When I came in now, the place was full of people and animals about to be slaughtered – at least 5 or 6 occasionally-bleating goats hog-tied, lying on the floor, with goat droppings all around; chickens and ducks; maybe other animals as well – and I was concerned that maybe the turtle was part of the ceremony. Soon there was singing/chanting and Ernesto told me that animal sacrifice was beginning. (I asked him if I could take pictures, but he said no, it was secret; earlier ceremonies – in the morning – I wouldn’t have been allowed to see at all.) An “inner core” of practitioners were involved in the sacrifice directly, while others did subsidiary jobs (butchering, plucking, cooking) or wandered in and out. A woman went into something resembling an epileptic fit, and Ernesto – who, incidentally, is a medical doctor – explained that the spirit of Ochá (or Oshun) had come over her.

 

One after another, bellowing goats’ throats were slit, their blood collected (mostly) in a basin, and then they were butchered, with their heads lined up on the floor, standing up as though watching the scene. Chickens were sacrificed and plucked. (I thought I saw the turtle head-first down in the blood-basin, and I feared the worst, but I must have been wrong because the next morning it was again roaming freely.) There was blood everywhere.

 

I’d soon seen enough and retired to another room to watch TV and eat my rice, fruit, and yoghurt dinner. The house cat and I toasted each other that we’d each survived so far (and again the next morning, when our fate seemed secure). Someone came around with a dead chicken, circling it over people’s heads in some sort of blessing. I bowed my head to receive the blessing but my doing so seemed to put the guy off his stride and I’m not sure if I got blessed or not (although I feel blessed regardless). At some point everyone had a bowl of broth with a little cooked meat (except me, though I’m sure I could have had it if I’d asked). On TV there was some big political meeting where – if it were C-Span – I expect half the seats would be empty, or people would be asleep or talking with each other or whatever; but here everyone was attentive, clapped together on cue, etc. It seemed staged (or they were well trained).

 

In the morning I took lots of pictures of “casa particular” Maruchi where I’d stayed two nights. Their entry room and “living room” and “dining room” are incredible, filled with plants, sculptures, altars, masks, an aquarium, you name it. 

 

I took a truck – the size of a dump-truck or flatbed truck, really a “stake-truck” with benches along each side and lots of standing room, with a canvas covering over the top – and then another such truck out to a fort at the mouth of Santiago Bay. There must have been 80 or 100 people on at least the first one, which was “local” and should have cost 1 CUP (about 4 cents) but I mistakenly paid with 1 CUC ($1) – I’m sure the money-taker didn’t mind! But I was joking about my mistake with a friendly and helpful older man while waiting for the next truck, and then I was confused when I got on. Now I tried to pay with 1 CUP, but it was for a much longer ride – about 10 km, almost out to the fort – and they insisted on 1 CUC ($1) which seemed like too much, but whatever, I paid it. (More on fares below.)

 

When I got off the truck about a kilometer from the fort, a friendly man said he worked security there and walked along with me. Turns out he was hustling tourists for a fee, but it took me awhile to realize that. He pointed out a tamarind tree (which I was interested in since I had had tamarind juice several times on this trip). I asked about another tree with much larger seedpods. With a rock he knocked down a big seedpod and gave it to me as “maracas”. He introduced me to his “friends” running a private restaurant by a beach we passed – better than the nearby “Fidel Castro government” restaurant which was worthless, he said – in case I wanted to stop later. He introduced me to his “friends” selling cigars, cigarillos, carved wooden curios, etc., up by the fort (probably he would get a cut later of whatever I paid).

 

The fort cost 5 CUC admission, but I only had 3.40 or a 10. The attendant said she had no change but 3.40 would be fine. She gave me no receipt or ticket, and I’m guessing that she pocketed the money instead. I enjoyed exhibits on pirates of the Caribbean (the real ones!) as well as the Spanish-American War.

 

After a thorough tour of the fort – during which I got a little annoyed as I realized that the “security man” had no work there, but was just showing me around hoping for a fee (though he was fairly relaxed about it) – I stopped to buy a little carved wooden turtle from a woman he’d introduced me to earlier. She said these small turtles are 1 CUC and these larger ones are 2 CUC, so I carefully chose what I considered the best of the smaller ones. Then she said, no, that one is 2 CUC. So I clarified prices again, and chose one that she’d clearly just said was 1 CUC. I gave her a 3 CUC note (yes, they have 3 CUC notes!). She gave me 1 CUC in change, and acted dumb when I requested my full change (which she finally gave me, reluctantly).

 

As we started down the hill, my fairly young and seemingly healthy “guide” casually mentioned that he had diabetes (which I doubted). At the bottom of the hill he asked if I could pay him something for his service. I got change from a 10 and gave him a 3 CUC note, so he knew I had 2 CUC coins. My “friend” now tried to give me a 10 CUP note (national money, worth 40 cents) and said it was worth 2 CUC ($2), and wouldn’t I like to trade so I’d have 10 CUP for the truck ride back? No, I didn’t feel like being cheated just then. But now I had an idea about the correct fare for the truck!

 

On the truck, however – since I still wasn’t totally sure – I did NOT pay (as I had done before) with a 1 CUC coin ($1), but instead paid with a 20 CUP note (83 cents). I saw the attendant giving change to others, and he indicated that he would come back to me with my change, but he never did. Realizing now that the “correct” fare was probably 10 CUC, I reminded him as I got off the bus that I had given him 20, and he gave me 10 back without protest.

 

All this seems very petty, but it’s also very annoying, constantly being cheated. Probably most people would NOT steal out of my pockets (like the attempted pick-pocketer in Haiti, who almost got my GPS), but they seem to think that lying and cheating are okay. It might be my preconceptions, but I suspect it could have something to do with the “socialist” regime endorsing redistribution, so that anybody richer is seen as fair game. But of course it happens in poor countries worldwide, so that may have nothing to do with it. In any case I don’t like it.

 

I stopped at the old classic hotel on the main square to communicate with home and catch up on email, then picked up my backpack, paid my bill (discounted because of the animal sacrifice), and walked a kilometer or two to the bus station. Holguin is less than 150 km northwest of Santiago, but the bus goes way to the west first before turning northeast, and thus takes 4 hours instead of 2, so we got there after dusk. On the way I saw a whole pig lying on the counter of a roadside stand.

 

I declined expensive taxi rides in Holguin but accepted a reasonable offer from a bicycle rickshaw driver. In March my daughter (who speaks passable Spanish) had called for a reservation for me at a guesthouse that was inexpensively priced (according to a site on Internet). They had no record of the reservation, however, but soon a man appeared from another guest house nearby and offered me a place to stay, albeit at a considerably higher price. I asked about breakfast and he wanted still more for that, but when I hesitated he decided to include it, so we struck a deal.

 

As he was showing me the room, I mentioned that I probably wouldn’t use the air conditioning, so he showed me to another room that had better ventilation, which I preferred. Later I noticed that I didn’t have my Swedish passport (which I was using exclusively in Cuba). Nonny at the hostel in Santiago had kept my passport after checking me in – without my realizing that she still had it – so that when I’d gone to buy Internet cards later, and they’d asked for my passport, I didn’t have it. Now I assumed that this host had also kept my passport, so mentioned to his wife after breakfast that I needed to get it back, which seemed to surprise her. When it was time to leave for the airport I still didn’t have it, and now my host showed up and was equally surprised, insisting that he’d given it back to me. Suddenly he remembered that we’d been in the other room when he gave it to me. We looked and it was lying on a bedside table where I’d apparently lain it just before he suggested switching rooms.

 

Meanwhile I had spent the morning walking around Holguin, about which I knew almost nothing, but I enjoyed it a lot. There are three “town squares” in a row with a commercial block between each pair and walking streets that run between the squares on each side. In the square at one end of the walking streets there’s a Catholic church (to one side), and another Catholic church adjoins the square at the other end. There’s a Beatles Café which has the words of John Lennon’s song Imagine outside its door. There are pizza shops and ice cream shops and all kinds of other shops, so the streets were full of people, even on a Wednesday morning.

 

Stopping in a small shop to eat a pizza, I noticed a group of school girls looking at me. They were age 12 or 14, one of them quite beautiful, like a young Ingrid Bergman, and she seemed to notice me especially. It may be that I had noticed her before they noticed me, and that’s why they were looking at me, but I hadn’t been aware of it. She seemed so special that I wished I could communicate with her, but – even apart from the fact that I don’t speak Spanish – what would I say? Later I saw them again, sitting on a bench in one of the squares, a younger boy – perhaps the brother of one of them – taking pictures of them.

 

An older man with bad teeth but a friendly smile and passable English had earlier asked if I wanted women, alcohol, tobacco, what? I said I wanted to find local transportation to the airport. He took me to meet a friend of his, a taxi driver, and we negotiated an acceptable price for a trip at 2:00 in the afternoon (about 2 hours later). I couldn’t give him the exact address – since I hadn’t paid attention to the house number of the second guesthouse I’d gone to (where I stayed) since I had marked it in my GPS – but I told him approximately. I didn’t know if he’d show up, but figured I’d walk if necessary until something else appeared.

 

But at 2:00 I went outside with my bags and, within minutes, he showed up, still wondering what the address was. I told him it didn’t matter as I had my bags with me, and he set off running – in the afternoon heat and sun! – to get his car. That – and the fact that he shook my hand pleasantly when he left me at the airport – told me that, although I’d haggled down the fare, it was still good earnings for him. The older man showed up as well, and I gave him what change I had left, only saving money for the departure tax I’d read about (which, however, has now been incorporated into airline fares).

 

While waiting for the airplane I noticed that many of the female airport agents – just like many of the female Customs officers I’d met – wore nylon stockings with elaborate patterns woven into them (I took pictures). When the airplane arrived it was parked next to a palm tree, so I also took a couple pictures to capture my leaving the Caribbean. Unfortunately, when reviewing my trip pictures later, I didn’t like one of them but accidentally deleted the other one, then deleted the one I didn’t like thinking I could retrieve the first one, but I couldn’t. Oh well…

 

In Duty Free (with the money I would have used for the departure tax) I bought 5 inexpensive bottles of various fruit-flavored liqueurs (including café, cacao, piña-pineapple, and marrasquino-cherry), presumably based on rum. When told on the airplane that the bottles couldn’t be in the overhead compartment (presumably for safety reasons) and I’d have to put them under my seat, I did so, but the sealed plastic bag got torn, so when I got to Frankfurt, Security wouldn’t let the bag through. (I could have substituted explosives for liqueur, I suppose.) I put the bottles in my daypack and checked it, and only one bottle (banana-flavored) got broken in transit. Since I had checked the bag so late, however, the bag didn’t make my plane, but Lufthansa considerately delivered it home the next day.

Photos are here.

 

Impressions of Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Hait are here.