Keeping a Diary

This is the first time I have kept a diary since we sailed the Atlantic in 1977. I have tried before but they have always been so mundane that even I found it boring reading them back.

So if you find this one dull you can only imagine what the others were like. Regular blog readers will also notice that it's back to front so when you get to the bottom of the page you click Older Posts to go to the next section.

And so to Cuba . . .

After 60 years of isolation Cuba is about to be opened up. The USA is removing restrictions on visiting its closest Caribbean island neighbour so we thought we'd better go and see it before the Americans got there and messed it all up . . .

Havana

Havana is simply bonkers. It's incredibly lively, densely populated, friendly, falling down, stunningly beautiful, musical and grimy.

As a visitor you are a target, in the nicest possible way. As you walk Cubans will be constantly at you. You want taxi? Cigars? Tour? But a quick shake of the head and they're gone. There are some who ask for money but these are few and most Cubans engage you in conversation and have a story to tell that can meander on for some time before the hook comes. Sometimes you don't even notice until it's all over. 

In one of the many city plazas we were approached by a young man who wanted to practice his English and we chatted about music and the many music festivals. He said he played the congas at a tourist venue, but not to go there as it was really bad! Then he mentioned a cigar festival nearby and did we like to smoke? No neither of us smoked and soon the conversation ended and he was gone. It was only as we were walking away it occurred to me that he wanted to sell us some cigars, and as soon as he found out we didn't smoke he politely, but swiftly ended the conversation and left us to find someone who did smoke.

Sometimes the request is for something so small that you'd have to be made of stone to refuse. A very pleasant Cuban man chatted to us on the street as we walked and told us he was in Cuba from just outside in the country as his wife had just had a baby boy and was in the hospital. Lots of congratulations and shaking of hands insued and he told us he was a teacher. As we left him he asked if we had a pen. That was it, a pen. Chris rummaged around in her bag found a pen and gave it to him. He thanked us both and we went our separate ways. I have no idea if the story he told was true or entirely fabricated, but either way he deserved the pen.

Havana is a great city to walk, everything seems so close and it's easy to wander from plaza to plaza, cafe to bar, bar to restaurant, as long as you are careful to avoid the random piles of rubble, stubs of metal posts sticking out of the concrete and occasional holes. Some of the old buildings look neglected to the point of collapse while others are freshly painted and beautifully restored. A metaphor for a country in transition perhaps - together with the classic cars.

Old 1950s American cars are everywhere and like the buildings some are beautifully restored while others are wrecks staggering along the streets spewing black smoke. Many are used as taxis or for tours around the city, our two hour trip from Havana to Vinales was in a 1950s Pontiac and carried seven passengers and luggage along the sometimes beautifully smooth and sometimes randomly appalling road on a rolling, bouncy, noisy, fumey, too fast, too slow but generally enjoyable ride.

Here's an entrepreneurial tip for any Cuban. If you have any money buy as many of these old wrecks as you can, as like the old VW Campervans they will be worth a fortune in years to come. Especially as America discovers Cuba and transforms the country from what it is now. What it will be transformed to is the big question, but as soon as direct flights from the USA start the genie will be out of the bottle, and it might take another revolution to stop the westernisation of Cuba. Many other tourists are here for the same reason as us, to see Cuba before the Americans arrive and fuck it all up. I must have had the conversation half a dozen times already. Just last night while in a queue for the  restaurant I chatted to an older, elegant, educated and beautifully spoken Danish couple who were visiting for the first time 'before the Americans get here and ruin it'. But whatever happens I've a feeling that these old classic cars are going to become highly valuable.

Vinales

14th February 2016
Vinales is a rural tourist town two hours by car, but a million miles in many other ways, west of Havana on the part of Cuba that juts into the Gulf of Mexico.

Our shared taxi was another American classic car and I wondered if these were only to be found in Havana but here in Vinales they are just as common, although this prosperous little town has more modern cars than I recall seeing in Havana. But that didn't stop us from ending up driving to the local caves in the tattiest old Russian Trebant I have seen anywhere. It really was a wreck.

The caves were good but marred by the hundreds of tourists who, like us are here to see the original Cuba before the Americans get here, etc, etc.

This was in huge contrast to yesterday afternoon when we walked the Silent Valley with a local botanist and guide. Just six of us walking through farmland with farmers ploughing fields with oxen, 'cowboys' on horseback complete with 10 gallon hats and spurs, tobacco curing houses and at the end of the walk a local tobacco grower rolling a cigar with practiced ease and who's entire sales pitch was 'if you want some I can sell to you'. Faced with such pressure I bought ten wrapped in a banana leaf and tied up with rafia.

Vinales II

It's amazing how quickly views and events become commonplace and slip through your consciousness. Today we drove to the north coast and the Gulf of Mexico by taxi. It's 60km and we could have taken a tour bus, but I hate being herded on and off and at every stop there's the 'destination' cafe, restaurant, souvenirs, viewpoint, etc, and you can only go the chosen route and stop at the chosen stopping places. God I hate it, but Cuba is totally geared up for it and the only alternative is the local bus which is basically a converted cattle truck and goes everywhere and you may get there eventually . . . or there is a local taxi. This one was an old Lada with a tiny engine but well cared for by the cheerful local driver Gordano.

We went over the mountains through the heart of this rural area and soon horses pulling buggies and carts and the cowboys on their rather fine small Spanish horses became the norm and after awhile you take them for granted and forget how unique this all is. Coffee, sugar cane, fruit and veggie fields stream past the window and only the occasional car or truck on the road. After an hour we pull into the hilltop town of Minas de Matahambre. Gordano bought us a cup of coffee from a small kiosk - an unusual act in my experience of being a tourist, but he was being thoughtful as he knew we only carried CUCs, the money used by tourists, whereas the coffee was 5 CUPs, the local peso. With one CUP worth around a tenth of the value of a CUC the coffee cost around 5p. We sat in the shade drinking our strong, sugary coffees which were poured into small glasses  from a flask and watched the town go about its business. This was our first experience of a genuine, untouched by tourism, Cuban town, which made me realise how tourism driven Cuba has become. It was peaceful and busy, quiet but full of the sounds of activity, distant hammering, people calling out, a vehicle climbing the hill across the the valley, there were probably horses, goats and cattle making horse, goat and cattle noises as well. We sat taking it all in, before it was back in the Lada and  on the road again.

Ahh the roads..... Cuban roads are hard to describe in full. In Havana I stood in wonder about to cross a busy road when I noticed a manhole cover in the middle of the road. The road surface around it had broken free and the entire thing had dropped about a foot and was tilted to one side creating a foot deep and 2 foot wide hole - in the middle of the road! Miraculously the traffic weaved it's way around the hole as everyone seemed to know it was there. 

Driving on the roads outside Havana is similar but probably not as extreme. A good smooth road can change character in moment with massive hollows and mounds of bitumen as if it suddenly turned to mud at some point and a huge lorry drove through it. Apparently this is what happens in the summer when the high temperatures melt the road and trucks gradually squash the surface. 

The 60km journey to the north shore took us over 2 hours, but we swam in the Gulf of Mexico, drank coconut milk and lazed and chatted in a beach induced mellowness until it was time for the 2 hour drive home.

Playa Larga

Yesterday we explored more of the Vinales countryside on horseback, just the two of us and our guide.

It was good fun although the horses looked tired and were very docile. Probably just exhausted. I think they work them quite hard.

Today we shared a taxi with a couple from NZ and are now in Playa Larga which is a small coastal village in the Bay of Pigs on the Caribbean Sea. So we swam in the Caribbean Sea after an absence of 32 years and washed away the grime of the journey.

The Bay of Pigs was the landing place for the USA sponsored invasion of Cuba in the early 1960s by anti-Castro Cubans trained and armed by the CIA. It was a miserable failure much to America's embarrassment. They never attempted a direct invasion again. It's a big bay and I stood on the beach today wondering where they might have landed. It's also an odd place to choose as it's surrounded by swamp so there's only one way out and that's along the road we came in on. I don't think they got far before Castro's army turned up and either killed or captured them all.

Our Casa is a little small but only 35yds from the beach and they are very friendly. The owner cooked us a fish supper - snapper, rice, salad, frites and fruit which was really tasty after the bland food at Vinales, and we are planning a few lazy days swimming and chilling on the beach.

Playa Larga II

Classic Cuba. At breakfast today we were presented with the bill which confused us as we thought we'd booked for 4 days. But we were told that no, just one night and they were now fully booked. This came on top of a much disturbed night's sleep with a slightly drunk man stumbling into the room at 1am as I'd forgotten to lock the door - one of those push buttons on the door knob. The local cockerel then kicked off about an hour later outside the window, which I don't get, as dawn isn't until about 7am. Then it got really cold, well relatively. . .

It was a cock-up but this is Cuba and there's no point in getting excited about it, especially if you don't speak Spanish. Fortunately Daisy, a local English teacher, had come to teach some of the Casa owners and their children English so with her help we wandered down the dirt road enquiring if anyone had a spare room. Daisy would ask a Casa owner, she would shake head and then shout out to the person across the road and they would shake their head and then point to a place down the road or call to another person next door. It was all looking a bit uncertain until we got to Dalia and Hostal Enrique, a beautiful place with a room on the first floor - the best room we've stayed in - and a fish and lobster supper tonight. Luxury!

We'd walked past it last night and thought it looked nice as being up high in the breeze would keep the mozzies away. Unfortunately we have only one night here so we also booked ahead for two nights at Playa Giron an interesting looking diving resort 30km further out at the mouth of the bay.

Yesterday evening I got the collapsable fishing rod out to try some fishing in the bay. It was still a bit early so we called in to one of the casa bars for drink. 

A salsa band was setting up to play and I got 'chatting' to the guitarist. Salsa bands seem to have two guitars as standard in the line up. One is a nylon stringed Spanish guitar and the other looks similar but is very different. It has three pairs of steel strings tuned to F, C and G (I think) and with a base and octave string on the F. I've never seen anything like this before but it sounds great in the right hands. 

He showed how to play the Buena Vista Club tune which wasn't too complicated but was difficult to coordinate the right and left hand. I was then handed the other guitar and asked to play. This is the second time this has happened and I've never encountered it before. Most British musicians are much more reserved, but here you strike up a rhythm and the other guitar will join in and someone will start singing and you're off . . . fabulous! I just wish I played as well as I used to to do them justice. 

Playa Giron

Hostal Mario Garcia - a 45 minute drive and we're at Playa Giron, our taxi driven by one of last nights dance stars Alan. Last night was a bit special. Over the previous two days we'd found ourselves introduced to most of the family at Casa el Paraiso run by the lovely Marieta. It was a reunion of the Miami and Cuban branches of the family and we'd been laughing and joking with them when they arrived. They were so happy to be together and there was a lot of love flowing and we happened to be there so a load came our way. Just the son, a newly qualified policeman working in Miami, spoke English. Even the aunts and uncles who had lived in Miami for 20 years didn't speak much English and our Spanish is rubbish, so how we managed to communicate remains a mystery. 

A traditional Cuban band played with the standard lineup - congas, double base, two guitars (one normal, one Cuban style) and percussion. We arrived and immediately got pulled in to dance on a wonderful evening of laughter, dancing, singing, tears and speeches. 

The Cubans really are a wonderfully welcoming people, especially out here in the country away from the main tourist route. It wasn't just us they included in their celebrations but other tourists walking along the beach and hearing the music would come for a closer look and be called and beckoned in. 

Alan led the dancing with his gyrating hips and prevocative moves and he had the whole family launghing and at times shrieking and hiding their faces behind their hands at his moves. You had to be there . . .

This evening I am sitting out on the front porch of the casa in one of the metal rocking chairs, which seem to occupy ever front porch in Cuba, and watching the world go by. The world here is mainly Cuban although many of the casas on the street have rooms for rent. Three men opposite are looking at and discussing the workings of a three wheeled motorbike truck as bikes, tricycles, cars, dogs, people and chickens pass by at various speeds, all in the range of slow - it's a dirt road and no one seems in a hurry.

We've had a classic Caribbean beach day here at Playa Giron, lazing, swimming, snorkelling and chatting to the other tourists. The locals set up an ad hoc 'restaurant' under the trees using their horsecart as the table and were cooking fish lunches on an open fire with rice and banana crisps for around £4 a portion, depending on how many fish you wanted - one was easily enough.

The beach area is dominated by a large, fairly ugly hotel complex that was probably built by/for the Russians. Rows of square, concrete, empty 'cabins' seem to cover acres and acres of land but get past these and you arrive at a pleasant enough palm strewn beach with a few rideable waves breaking on the front of the reef and swimming and snorkelling in the lagoon behind. And so we whiled away the day . . .this evening we are eating at the casa - more fish fried and served with rice, a bean soup, salad and some root veggie fries. The Cubans bring everything out in one go, fish, rice, soup, veggies, salad, etc, which is a bit odd as it all starts to cool down as you eat your soup. Portions are huge and we can survive on one meal between the two of us if only we could explain this so they consistently understand. The Americans will love the lack of portion control when they get here and mess the place up, etc, etc.

Fishing Cuban Style

So with the help of some locals I caught a fish. A good sized fish. I'm not sure exactly what it was but it looked like an oversized Garfish and fought like a bass on steroids.

It started with me finding a couple of places on the old Russian sea wall that looked like they might provide a safe(ish) place to throw in a lure without getting washed in by the swell. Evening is the best time so I set off, with Chris to keep an eye on me, to Spot 1 and gave it a try . . . . but no luck. Spot 2 was a little more exposed to the swell and just along from it, on the very exposed point were a small group of Cuban anglers. I walked over to say hello and they showed me what they had caught - some 2-3foot long silvery and muscular looking fish. I gave them the thumbs up and pointed to the spot further back where I planned to fish. They were having none of it. This was the spot to catch fish and I was going to fish with them. Finito! So I clambered over the wall and on to the point with my rod and started fishing with a silver spinner called a 'Dexter'. To make sure I had the best chance of catching something I showed them my other lures to see if they recommended something better. Now there are a couple of things I should explain here. The first is that I have a really smart double sided lure box that holds about 20 lures. The next is that these lures cost anywhere between £3 and £15 each. So this single box held nearly £100 worth of lures. Probably a months wages for some of these guys. 

A gasp of approval went up as I produced the box followed by wows and laughter when I deftly flipped the box over to display the rest of the contents. If I'd arrived in a Rolls Royce I don't think they would have been any more impressed. These are fishermen after all and rich and poor we are easily impressed by a cool fishing gadget. 

So I fished with the chosen lure while they used bait in the shape of small fish. Some had rods but others just a handline and we stood and fished standing back as the big sets of waves came through and moving forward again during the lulls. Apart from from  the smallest guy with his handline who stood on the edge of the rocks with the waves washing around him, sometimes almost breaking over him. Every so often a bigger set would come through and a shout would go up to the little guy to get the hell out and he would scamper up the rocks to safety as all hell broke loose behind him.

I fished and fished but for all the money I'd spent on my fancy lures nothing was happening. One guy beckoned to me and showed me a bare hook in his hand. I removed the latest lure and he tied the hook on for me and attached a small live fish to the hook. I cast it in and instantly felt something hit it. I didn't want to strike too soon so I left it awhile and then started to retrieve some line until I hit something solid. The solid thing took off like an express train stripping line off the reel and the rod almost bending in half. The cheering and shouting behind me let me know I was in to something respectable. I guess it took around 5 minutes to get it to the base of the rocks, but now I had to land it. The trick is to use the swell to wash the fish on to the rocks then hold it there as the wave retreats, but I also had a secret weapon. The little guy who scampered down and grabbed it just to make sure I didn't loose it.

Lots of high fives and back slapping followed and of course a group photo. Fantastic. I gave them the fish and some spools of line I'd  brought with me by way of thanks and left them to the evening, although they said they'd be there at 6am in the morning and why didn't I join them . . . . lovely guys, so happy to share their expertise with a visitor.

Sink Holes and Snorkelling

This area is famous for its diving, snorkelling and having the largest sink hole in the Caribbean. So we hired a scooter for 20CUCs and set off to explore. It was impressive.

The sink hole is like a salt water aquarium about the size of a public swimming pool. The water is pristine clear and must be on a fault line of rock because it descends down into a chasm 50, 100, 500 feet, I have no idea but it is seriously deep. It also rises and falls with the tide and is populated with all the fish you see on the reef so there must be a linking cave or passage to the ocean just 200 yards away.

Snorkelling on the reef is excellent and swim out 100 yards or so and you come to the drop-off where the reef wall plunges down several hundred feet. I was hoping to see this but swimming out it descended in steps until disappearing into the deep so it wasn't easy to see. Of course the first person we meet when we came back is a German who went to a different spot a mile a up the coast where you paid to go in and the reef did plunge down and he saw huge fish, moray eels and a shipwreck. Doh!

Tomorrow we head for Trinidad farther down the coast.