CUBA FROM BOTH SIDES

         

          Varadero is often referred to as a city.  It is really a region consisting of a 12 mile long peninsula with the Atlantic Ocean to the Northwest and Cardenas Bay to the south.  It is a center of tourism with dozens of posh all-inclusive resorts.  

 There is a tourist centered town where the peninsula joins the mainland.  A very different Cuba exists just a few miles from here.

            Cuba is still an agrarian nation.  A Trip from Varadero in the North to Cienfuegos and Trinidad in the South and through the rain forest in the mountains will paint a more revealing picture of Cuba.  You will pass fields of sugar cane.  Sugar used to be the biggest industry but has been replaced by tourism.   There are fields of corn, rice, herds of cattle and goats and sheep. 

 Banana trees abound everywhere as do coconut palms.  Pineapples, guava, fruta bomba (you can’t call it “papaya” since that’s the local word for ladies’ private parts).  Tobacco is grown for those prized Cuban cigars.  Citrus is exported to Japan but don’t expect to find limes in the market.  Acres of lush, raised-bed truck gardens produce beets, radishes, lettuce, etc.

 

            It is often said that Cubans are not allowed to own boats.  In fact, they can.  There is a vibrant fishing industry.  However, fishermen are restricted to lagoons and inland streams and estuaries.  It is possible to obtain a special license to fish in the ocean but for security purposes, fishing in the ocean is a closely monitored activity and offshore fishing and shrimping is done from state owned boats.  On the other hand, Cubans can spearfish or surf-fish in the ocean.

            Outside the cities, horses and horse drawn carts and wagons often outnumber automobiles.  Cars are expensive and a 1980s Russian Lada can fetch $14,000. 

 Nearly everywhere you go, you see signs extolling the virtues of Socialism and the Revolution. 

 On the side of the roads you will find fruit and vegetable stands where you can buy bananas, pineapples, honey and so on.

 Most people that we met have been quick to say that things are much better for them today.  While socialism has provided free education and free health care for years, employment has been scarce.  Today, thanks to tourism, many more jobs are available.  Even so, it is common to find people with university degrees doing things completely unrelated to their education.  In addition to more jobs, it is now possible for people to own private businesses.  While life is better for city dwellers, it remains largely unchanged in the rural parts of the country.  This becomes evident as soon as you drive a few miles out of the city.  Homes become smaller and shabbier.

                                    So Cuba has two faces and they’re both beautiful.  Regardless of whether you are in a city or in the countryside, everyone is friendly, happy and willing to help.

FEEDING THE BODY AND THE SOUL

            For me, some of the most

exciting parts of travel are markets and street music.  I love to see all

the stuff that people use in their

daily life and street music is just

plain fun.

          Farmers’ markets exist in

every country in the world.  Often

they are the only source of food for

the people outside of things they

produce themselves.  Markets in

Cuba are no exception. You can buy

nearly everything you need to feed

your family at the Sunday market in

Santa Marta.  Vendors hawk long

braids of garlic and onions.  There

are piles of carrots, cabbages and

tomatoes.  Sides of pork, delicious

sausages and skinned rabbits

hang from hooks in the meat

market.  Or, if you prefer, you can buy a rabbit to butcher at home.  Missing from this is beef.  In Cuba, it is illegal to kill a cow.  Doing so will bring a 20 year prison sentence.

Cubans like to joke that killing one’s

 mother-in-law will get you only a

10 year sentence.

             

The prohibition against killing a cow

dates to the early 1990s.  Prior to

that, Cuba’s primary ally was the

Soviet Union.  The USSR provided

big sums of money and Cuba’s

exports went there.  When the

Soviet Union fell apart, this source

of money dried up.  The Cuban

economy collapsed and the people

suffered greatly.  Food became scarce and people began

killing cows-cows they did not own so it became illegal to kill a cow.  Cubans refer to this time as their “special period”.  They emerged from it in 1995 when they began 

to exploit tourism.  Today, tourism is the biggest industry and people consider themselves lucky when a family member becomes employed in it.

            If there’s anything you’ll find everywhere in Cuba, it’s music.  “Guantanamera” is virtually the

national anthem.  The song is about

a young girl from Guanatanamo province with whom the singer was in love and who left him.  So, it’s kind of sad.  However, a poem by José Martí can be sung to the tune of  Guantanamera  so the song was  

often looked at as a coded way to

sing the poem.  José Martí is a great

hero of the Cuban people.

          

THE ANSWER MY FRIEND?

            If indeed the answer is blowin’ in the wind, we’d have it by now.  It’s been blowing 20+ knots non-stop for over 72 hours and there’s more to come.  Chris Parker, our weather guru said that if we could make port in Cuba by mid-day Friday, we’d escape the nasty front that was on its way.

            Actually, the adventure started in early December when we left home and headed for Fort Pierce, Florida.   

We spent the next 2 months getting the boat ready for the trip.  It had been on the hard for a year and the engine had run for about 30 minutes during the 18 previous months.  So there was a lot to do.  Much of  it more easily done out of the water..

 We buffed the hull to a glistening shine and redid the upholstery in the salon.

  

We were visited each evening by a great blue heron who stood guard over the skeleton of a tree.

Naturally we had some mechanical problems when we splashed (ships and sailors rot in port!) and spent a frustrating day tracing them down.

             

         Bruno came with us, of course, but he is not a sailor.  He decided to retire from a life at sea and went to live with Theresa (Kathleen’s sister) and her grand kids Lea and Roman in Madeira Beach Florida.  Maybe he’ll learn to paddle board.

            We took a few days to work our way down the 100 miles to Ft Lauderdale where we joined our friends on s/v Sparrow, Al, Frank and Carol and a new friend, Jim.  Together, we headed down to Biscayne Bay and points further south.  We enjoyed some fine sunsets which were naturally saluted by the blowing of the conch.  (Turn your speakers on)

Key Largo gave us a fine welcome with a spectacular fireworks show.

            We took advantage of the small weather window to head from Marathon in the Keys to Varadero, Cuba.  We had to leave earlier than desired in order to escape the approaching weather in Marathon.  That put us at the Varadero entrance at 4 AM, way too dark to try to negotiate the 6 miles into the marina, so we circled like sharks waiting for the sun.

            Checking into Cuba was a long but easy process.  A parade of officials came on board the boat.  First was a doctor who made sure we were healthy enough to enter Cuba.  Then there were customs officials, agricultural inspectors, immigration agents.  In all, the process took about 2 hours.  It was a pleasure to meet all of the officials.  They seemed genuinely interested in us, our personal lives and histories. Thanks to them, we immediately fell in love with Cuba.

            Gaviota Marina is a modern 1000 slip facility but there are only about a dozen private boats here.  It is surrounded by shops, restaurants and all-inclusive hotels filled with people from all over the world, but especially from Canada.

            We took a bus the 12 miles into town.  Most of the passengers were tourists from the surrounding hotels and the bus was packed.  

 After a ride in a 1956 Chevy convertible, we changed money and asked the bank doorman about a restaurant.  He told us about one nearby.  “I know the owner.  Tell heem that the man at the bank send you, he treat you real nice.”  We did and he did.  It was wonderful.

            Latin America is very much present in Cuba.  There are parks and plazas where friends and families gather.  Flowers abound everywhere.  Caribbean whimsy produces visual jokes like mustachioed gates.  Old houses, sandwiched between more modern buildings are monuments to the past.

            The wind does not seem to have kept people off the beach.  They were there in full party mode—drinks, volleyball, salsa, dancing.  We took advantage of the free drinks offered to the all-inclusives.  We didn’t have bracelets, but nobody asked.

           

              Cuba is an amazing place filled with proud, happy people who love their families and cherish friends.