our trip to cuba

day 1 wednesday 25th may

well today was the start of the trip, left sydney airport on china airlines bound for taipei. well qantas can get stuffed! china airlines seem great, nice new plane, fantastic in flight entertainment, films, shows, games. the food was yummy and the service first rate and friendly. most of the things qantas isnt!

kai had a great meal, lots of fruit and smoked salmon, 2 of his favourite things. he is very noisy tho’, only slept for an hour after the plane took off and he is overtired but wont sleep so the other passengers must suffer!

the flight is about 10 hours so it could drag on!

kai has made a little friend, tessa, and has gone to play with her so sal and i are having a break for a while.

it feels at last as if we are on our way, even if it is only to taipei!

we are flying on an A340, they are a really nice plane, very comfortable. it helps that we have a whole row of 4 seats to ourselves.

we had a lovely few days in sydney, was nice just hanging out with geoff and jesse, my sister jo and my nephew, max came over for a couple of hours yesterday. so kai got to meet his cousin, max, they seemed very taken with each other!

day 2 thur 26th may

well we spent the night at the miramar golf country club, taipei!! it is a bit of a weird place, a huge resort golf course with very nice rooms, but the place is completely empty! doesn’t look like anyone comes here to stay except china air transit passengers!

we awoke to beautiful views of the golf course, the countryside and the ocean! the rooms are great and we were given two adjoining rooms because they only had two 3/4 beds. go figure! so kai got a room to himself.

day 3 friday 27th may

omg! for a start this is really confusing, we are in vancouver and it is friday morning – but its early saturday morning back home. it has been a pretty hellish x hours!

we left taipei at 2 in the afternoon and flew up over japan to vancouver. it was funny seeing the track of the flight over japan, over sal’s mum, mahni! she is over there working and we were so close, and yet… anyway it was a tough flight, chocker block full, not one spare seat, so kai had to sit on our laps all the way, and it was an older 747 rather than the A340 so not as comfortable.

he got a few hours sleep on the floor under our feet but we got none, on a 10 hour flight. we got into vancouver at about 0930 in the morning. what an amazing site, flying into vancouver in the middle of summer, a lovely warm, sunny day and the city surrounded by snow capped mountains!

anyway it was late morning by the time we were checked into the hotel and kai had a sleep in the taxi so he was ready to go! we were absolutely shagged, but excited too so we spent the rest of the day exploring vancouver. managed to get kai down for another little sleep but still didn’t get any ourselves.

we went for a walk late afternoon to a nice park behind chinatown to give kai a play and runaround. he fell asleep in the stroller as we were walking back to get some dinner so we had a yummy japanese meal as he slept!

sounds good, but, he woke up as we finished our meal so we went backto the hotel with the idea of putting him down – no way! he figured he had enough sleep in the last 24 hours, his body clock was telling him it was midday so party time! we ended up walking the streets of vancouver at midnight to keep him entertained – we must have looked like zombies!

finally got him down about 1 oclock and got some sleep ourselves at last

….and that’s how we woke up in the morning! (i am down on the floor on his matress.

ok, heres my feelings about vancouver & canada, vancouver is an odd place, its about 2 million people but it feels dead in a lot of the city, a lot of it is derilict and there doesn’t seem to be much happening at night – and this is in the middle of summer, long twilight, warm , balmy nights.

2nd thing is, they kicked all the loonies out of the bin, seriously tho’ there are a lot of mentally disturbed people living on the streets, really sad.

3rd thing is, this city has a big drug problem. ok we are staying in the dark side of downtown, (crack alley behind the hotel & deal park across the road) but it is everywhere, people openly doing deals up every alley and in every bit of park. people are doing crack, ice and smack openly in the middle of the day.

in general tho’ i don’t think i like travelling in counties like canada because culturally they are too similar to us and all i can see is what i don’t like as much – if that makes sense! at the end of the day it is just like being in an austalian city, except the restaurants are not as good, technologically they are miles behind us, tipping, driving on the wrong side of the road, blah, blah, but hey speak english and are a western, christian, democracy.

give me a third world, currupt dictatorship anyday – especially if they speak a different language, eat weird things, pray to a different god and have different values and cultures.

otherwise i will save the money on airfares and go to surfers or sydney for a week.

now the good stuff! well the weather has been amazing, mid 20’s clear blue skies, light breezes, just beautiful. stanley park, a huge park just on the edge of downtown vancouver, absolutely stunning, forests of cedars, conifers, redwoods and other trees, sprawling lawns, surrounded by the sea, squirrels running around, racoons raiding the bins, beluga whales in the aquarium, and big duck/goose things for kai to chase around.

we spent most of the afternoon there and had a great time. kai made lots of friends at the various playgrounds. we got some whopping electric shocks picking him up after he had been on the slides, they are plastic and build up a huge static charge on his clothing, it feels like about 20,000 volts and an inch long spark!

saturday 28th

well another late night last night, we ended up having a coffee in a café at about 1130 after which he was finally tired enough to get to sleep!

today we took it pretty easy, coffees, breakfast and a bit of shopping before heading off to the park along the foreshore, lots of big boats and sea planes taking off and landing much to kais excitement! another glorious day, i think we have really been spoilt with the weather. we packed our bags this afternoon and then headed out for an early dinner, had great japanese including wild salmon sahimi, yummy!!

have just taken off now for toronto, it’s just before midnight and kai went to sleep as soon as the plane took off – he was running riot at the airport playground in the lounge, made new friends and wore himself out.

we are both feeling very excited tonite, the trip really starts tomorrow, we get to havana mid afternoon and the dream is close to reality now!

sunday 29th

woooohhh!!! i am writing this a few days later, it has been a totally mad few days, kai slept most of the way to toronto and most of the way to havana, we slept very little!! arrived in havana and cleared thru immigration & customs which was easier than i expected, as we walked out of the airport it was like walking outside at home on a decent build up day, hot & humid.

helen, our driver was waiting for us and squeezed all our gear and us into her tiny peugot car and we headed into town, for those of you who have not been, cuba is like NOTHING you have ever seen, it is like NOWHERE you have been. it is hard to describe this in a few words but in so many ways it is unique. the first impression driving to havana was decay, everything is crumbling, falling down, decrepit, delapidated – the cars, the roads , the buildings, the lot! and that really is cuba, but it is also indescribably beautiful, the same crumbling , falling down, decrepit, delapidated buildings are some of the most fantastic buildings you will ever see.

anyway back on track, we arrived into the centre of this incredible city to discover we were not at the casa we had booked to stay at, things got a bit hairy for me, we could barely communicate with the owner of the casa where we were meant to be, or the family were we had been taken! the only communication was thru a guy who spoke a little english who acted as interpreter, he explained that due to electrical problems we could not stay at the original casa but had to stay here – for up to 2 weeks while our place was ‘fixed’.

once he left we had no way to communicate with anyone, we were exhausted, kai was upset, i was thinking i was mad, we should never have come here, it was too hard, it wasn’t going to work, it was overwhelming, i freaked out!

anyway, we decided to go out for a walk around the area where we were staying and things started to look better, then when we nearly back at the casa we heard this woman behind us calling out, ‘excuse me, excuse me” and turning around we realised she was speaking to us. from our stroller we bought in sydney she recognised us as australians!! (they have one the same.) norma and her husband, steve live in sydney, she is cuban and he australian. they have a little 9 month old boy, alijandra.

they were a great encouragement, they stay just around the corner and have been really helpful with local info – like where to buy nappies!

steve buys cuban art and sells it in australia, he came over originally at the request of the cuban baseball team to teach cricket which apparently used to be quite popular!! then he met norma and one thing led to another.

suffice to say i have got over my freak out! i think the whole father, husband responsobility thing overwhelmed me a bit, of course sal is a pillar of stone and got me over it because she stayed on the planet!

the people are amazingly friendly, they all love kai and he is a real hit, has a ball playing with the kids and just loves the music! sitting in a bar, listening to a cuban band play while sipping a beer is pretty hard to beat!

food is ridiculously cheap – if you eat like the locals, buying food out of a doorway on the street, $2 feeds all of us, pork, rice & beans! pizza for 1 is 25c – and yummy!

fresh fruit is great and also cheap at the local markets, less than $1 for a mango, 4 bananas and a pawpaw today!

tuesday 31st

we went and looked at our casa today, everything will be ready next week and we will move in, it is beautiful, 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom and a balcony overlooking obispo which is the pedestrian thoroughfare thru the middle of havana veija. it is a primo location!

wednesday 1st june

we woke to thunder and lightning and torrential tropical rain, nice for a change as it has been very hot and humid. makes it a bit harder to keep kai occupied tho’, especially until we move into the other casa which has more room for him to run around.

we havent even bothered getting the camera out yet, just soaking up the sights, sounds & smells! i am not sure that photos will do this place justice anyway.

we bumped into a couple from australia today, he was wearing a cape tribulation tee shirt and so i asked him if he had been there recently, turns out they live there now – but had been living in millingimbi!! so we bumped into another couple from arnhem land in cuba, it is indeed a small world.

enjoyed a beer in a bar with a 5 piece cuban band, kai had a go on their tom toms! had dinner in a local café with a cuban band playing while we ate

friday 3rd

sals b’day today, we went and had b’fast at the hotel ingelterra this morning with mel & lisa – a couple from adelaide who we met on the internet on a cuba site last year. it was great to finally meet them – they have been down in trinidad for a week or so. after b’fast we went for a walk thru havana and ended up at floridita’s which is where hemingway used to drink his marguritas. mel & lisa shouted us drinks for sal’s b’day which was very nice!

friday night we bought the beers and the cuban family we are staying with cooked sal a b’day dinner! had a great night drinking bucanero beer and habana ron (rum).

saturday 4th

pretty quiet day, raining in the morning, breakfast at the ingelterra again and this afternoon we walked all the way along the malecon on the foreshore up to verado to the hotel national – where winston churchill, frank sinatra and ava gardner all stayed in cuba. magneficent building, high set in a park with views across the bay and back down along the malecon. had a couple of drinks and then caught a taxi home as the storms rolled in again. apparently there is a cyclone off florida.

sunday 5th

well we have been here a week already! had a pretty quiet day today, its finally stopped raining so kai had more time playing in the park with other kids, which he loves. he made a new friend in the bar where we dropped in for a couple of drinks before dinner. we got some great video of them playing.

hopefully tomorrow evening we will move our stuff into the new casa, it will mean more room for kai to play and a kitchen for us.

monday 6th

we are happily settled into our new casa, it is fantastico, lots of room for kai, our own bathroom & kitchen, and a lovely balcony overlooking the obispo – the main pedestrian thouroughfare in havana veija.

as sal said, it was great to have the experience of sharing a house with a cuban family in our other casa, we have made great friends with them and it was something we might have missed out on if we had come straight here. but, sharing a bathroom between 10 people has its drawbacks and no kitchen made it hard.

sal & i are sitting in rocking chairs on the balcony, the tropical breeze wafting across us, the sounds of havana at night drifting up from the streets and across from the buildings surrounding us, sipping on a havana rum and thinking this is exactly how i pictured cuba!

we had a totally bizarre experience today which just proves what a small world it is. we were sitting in a bar this afternoon having a beer and listening to a band when a woman came up to sal and said, “arent you mahni’s daughter?”, turns out she is mahni & geoff’s next door neighbor from sydney. they are off travelling the world for a year and while in mexico decided to do a side trip to cuba!! it is so weird, we were tossing up which bar to go to and might easily have gone to another and it was their last night in cuba! the chances of us being in the same place at the same time must be millions to one and yet it happened. should rush out and buy a cuban lotto ticket!

tuesday 7th

we went shopping for stuff for the casa today, now shopping in cuba is quite different to anywhere i have ever shopped, maybe like the eastern block used to be. firstly most so called supermarkets have almost nothing in them, lots of shelves and display cases but no stock, so you have to search around till you find one that has what you want, there are lots of staff – none of them have any interest in serving you or anyone else! things are stocked with no perceivable order, we saw a ‘g’ string in a display with a few watches and a tire repair kit. having perhaps found what you want you wait patiently until under great obvious duress a shop assistant gets what you want.

this is overlooking the fact that as you entered the store the security man tells you, no bags, no prams, just you and your clothes! so finally having paid for the item you bought , another person then checks inside your plastic bag against your till docket, then he seals your plastic bag with a bit of tape before you can leave that area of the store.

so you end up with this collection of plastic bags with a couple of items in them, all sealed up, then the security guy at the door checks that all your bags are sealed and you can then go and join a queue to collect your pram and bag to carry all the other bags in!

it seems to be designed to employ a great number of people while making it totally disheartening to do much shopping therefore stopping the rise of any materialistic tendencies!

a little snapshot of the ‘macstation’, ipod, powerbook & jbl on tour speakers. while it’s a bit of extra stuff to lug, the luxury of being able to use the lappy, listen to all our music and download the photos on the go make it worthwhile.

wednesday 8th

we finally got to the playground with kai today, the playgrounds are fenced off and this one which is the biggest and best we have found is always locked when we go past. today we went in the morning and got there about 10 30 and found it was still shut! the security guy told us it opened at 11 00 so we went for a bit of a wander and then came back. the playground is run by sort of bolshie wiggles, all the staff wear bib & brace overalls like the wiggles but they are all army green! it was a further education in the cuban ‘everyone gets a job’ system. (a bit like little johnny’s work for the dole – the extreme left and the extreme right are often so similar). anyway, the system is you buy a ticket at the gate for 1 peso (4c) which gets you 3 tickets for the family! sitting half a metre from the ticket seller is a ticket disposer, she takes the 3 tickets you have just been given, rips them in half and throws them in a bin – that is easily in reach of the person who sold you the ticket!! then every section of the playground has its own bored attendant, who doesn’t seem to do anything except sit in a little hut looking bored. then when you are ready to leave there are 2 more attendants at the exit gate. there must have been at least 20 people employed in the playground – which outnumbered the children about 5 to 1.

thursday 9th

the 21st century comes to cuba! today we caught a taxi up to the hotel melia cohiba in verado and they have wifi internet access so i can update the website, do banking etc. all on my laptop thru a wireless connection that costs the same as the crappy connection in the internet cafes! hello world!!

there is apparently a cyclone between florida & cuba, so we could be in for our second cyclone in a year! it has been drizzling & raining all day today so we are already seeing the effects. it makes it a bit hard with kai during the day because the streets don’t drain very well and everything is wet, muddy and slippery – at least there is room in the casa for him to run riot!

strom brewing, view from our casa

it was great getting online today and reading the emails from everyone! i resisted the temptation to look at any news so we really have absolutely no idea what has happened in the world since we arrived in cuba. which is not a bad thing i suspect!

friday 10th

pretty quiet day today, very windy and wet with the cyclone hanging about. we got out for a couple of hours when the rain stopped to give kai a run. went to a couple of the produce markets and got some more fruit and veg. what a contast to home, beautiful fresh produce, obviosly organically grown as it doesn’t look all that flash but tastes fantstic!

it is mango season so we are pigging out, kai sits in the shower or on the balcony chewing away on a mango, there are fresh pineapples, oranges, bananas and papaya at the moment. i suspect it is totally seasonal. we were going out to dinner with steve & norma, the australian/cuban couple but the weather is too rough so it will have to be another night.

saturday 11th

it was a stinker today, the cyclone has passed, the sun has come out and it is hot & humid! the sun is soaking the water up and its about 100% humidity and 35c.

had a lovely walk tonite along the malecon which is the seawall along the coast and one side of the rio alemendares which is the river that runs thru havana and has the old spanish fort on its eastern bank.

the malecon has wide walkways, parks and a metre high stone wall all along its 8km length. at night familys, lovers, loners and fishermen line its length enjoying the balmy night air and the sea breeze. tonite we walked the section along the river to give kai a run and to cool off. kai loves walking on top of the seawall, (holding my hand!) and always makes new friends along the way!

sal scored me a habana cigar in the street today so i am sitting on the balcony updating the blog, with the sounds of the crowds strolling the obispo wafting up on the breeze, puffing on a cigar and sipping on “habana ron siente anos” (7 year old havana rum)

other than that today has been pretty laid back, sal did a few buckets of hand washing, i boiled a few litres of water for drinking, we did a bit of shopping and had a nice long siesta in the middle of the day!

view from our balcony

this afternoon, while playing with kai in the plaza armas, i got talking to a couple of cuban rastas, we started talking about reggae in cuba and one of them, danyos spoke really good english, his friend juan carlos also speaks english although not as much.

they ended up asking us to an african dance performance that night and so we went along to it, it was amazing! it was a combination of dance, theatre and comedy sketches backed by afro-cuban musicians. the performance was interactive in part with the actors/dancers mingling with and involving the audience. we met some more rastas there and have discovered it is quiet big here – not altogether surprising given the closeness of jamaica. it was terrific to get out to a live performance, it was held in an open air auditorium and the atmosphere was electric. kai saw some of it and then fell asleep.

danyos & juan carlos come back to our casa and we all drank far too much rum!!

mum, this photo is for you! its not very clear but it was the best i could do, it is looking up our street, calle obispo, and the neon sign in the top right hand corner is the sign for floriditas which is the bar where hemmingway used to drink his daquaris. we will go back for a drink again one day and get a photo of me puffing on a cigar and drinking a daquari while sitting beside the statue of hemingway!

macaw in casa de simon bolivar

sunday 12^th

we finally got to have dinner with steve & norma at their favourite restaurant, it was a bit of a battle with kai because we didn’t leave here until about 8 00 and it is about a 20 minute walk away so kai was pretty tired and restless but it was ok. the restaurant is so popular with the locals that you have to queue up to get a table but it was well worth it. sal and i both had a huge plate of prawns which came with salad and rice and beans. we also shared a tall glass full of oysters in a sort of tomoto sauce which sounds odd but was delicious. including a couple of beers each it only cost us 20 convertible pesos for the meals so it was great value for what is the best meal we have had in cuba. the restaurant is called “Bavaria Dragones” or “Wong Kong Ja Tong” at 414 Calle Dragones.

pineapple at el templete - site of first mass in cuba in 1519

monday 12^th

spent the afternoon in the plaza with juan & danyos again, i took them some cd’s i made of peter tosh and also yothu yindi – they were blown away by the yolngu music, especially the yidaki.

tuesday 13^th

this afternoon we went out to a suburb of havana with steve, norma & their baby, alejandro to visit relatives of norma. they were holding an important afro-cuban religious ceremony in the house. the religion is called santeria and there are about 7 different gods, it came over with the sllaves form africa and because they were not split up from their tribal groups like in america, and the african drums were not banned like in america they have retained their cultural practices such as the music, languages and religion.

when we arrived at the house we were introduced and then sat down to yummy meal. we ate with the sounds of the 3 african drummers in the next room where the shrine to the 7 gods was, there were very old carvings representing the gods and most of them were shrouded with cloth. there was also special foods laid out in front of the shrine which could not be eaten until after the ceremony.

after the meal we went into the shrine and we had to lay face down on the ground in front of it and shake a maraca and put a small money offering in a bowl.

the actual ceremony was for an old woman who had converted to the religion 15 years ago. she had been confined to her bedroom and today was the first time in a week she was allowed out and to see other people.

the 3 drummers and a special priest who could sing in all 7 languages for the different gods sang and drummed while the women danced and the old woman was brought down from her room.

it was fantastic to be invited to such a ceremony and see some of the real afro-cuban culture. it reminded me how lucky we are to share the yolngu culture also and to be involved in their ceremonies.

there are so few cultures now that have not been overrun by the american cultural colonisation, the music, the film, news, mcdonalds,coke, etc etc. it is so important that the world resists this americanisation of culture and we retain cultural identities.

santeria shrine

wednesday 17^th

we spent time in the afternoon again with kai in plaza armas playing with danyos, juan and some other rasta friends. walking back to the casa with danyos we again saw the ugly side of cuban officialdom. not for the first time when the police saw our friends walking and talking with us they stopped danyos and questioned him about what he was doing talking to tourists and checked his identity card. it is actually illegal for ordinary cubans to talk to tourists and they can be fined for it, juan showed us two 30 peso fines he had received for talking with tourists. they seem to be particularly aggressive towards the cuban rastas and we frequently see them taken aside and questioned even if they are just walking down the street.

danyos says they are concerned that tourists will be told bad things about cuban society & or politics. the silly thing is the only bad impression we have of cuba is the heavy handed treatment of our friends!

thursday 16^th

we spent the middle of the day at the pool at the hotel sevillia which is fun for kai, i think he misses his little pool at home and the hose! we had a late lunch in a fantastic, secret restaurant, not even many habaneros know about this one! for those of you who know havana, it is across the street from the barcardi building, it is in the building for the society of the canary islands, there is no sign about food at all but downstairs is a cheap peso café with pizza and stuff while upstairs is a lovely restaurant with nice tables, fans and big windows. the food is either in pesos or convertibles, really cheap, and tasty for cuba. the funny thing is if you pay for your food in pesos you have to pay for your drinks in convertibles! anyway it doesn’t make much difference the convertible price is worked on about 22 peso to the convertible – as opposed to the official 24.

friday 17^th

well today was one off those days! we were meant to go with steve & norma to the hotel melia cohiba in verdado so i could use my laptop to help steve set up a domain and hosting for a website for his business, steve said they would meet us at 12 00 and we would get a taxi over there. he turned up at 1 00 to tell us they couldn’t go because there were big problems with a friend of norma’s who had been sentenced to 2 years jail for not working. (she has a 2 year old son). i bet little johhny likes that aspect of communism, that would get rid of all those dole bludging, lesbian, single mums – throw ‘em in prison!!

anyway, back on track, we decided to go ourselves anyway because i wanted to update the cubablog and check emails as well as do a bit of banking so we got a taxi up there and as we were getting out of the taxi, at the lobby of the flashest hotel in cuba, kai projectile vomited all over himself and sal! i think it was a combination of teething and motion sickness from the taxi, it was stinking hot and he was sitting between us on the back seat and in hindsight couldn’t see out.

so we managed to clean up the mess, took his clothes off as they were too far gone, and went inside. while i was on the computer he had a nothing giant vomit over sal and himself and filled a nappy full and more of explosive teething poo – so sal had her hands full!

then things got really bad! while trying to upload the new version of the blog with another week of writing about our adventures i made a mistake and downloaded the existing copy from my server and overwrote the updated version on my laptop. so i lost a whole week of writing and thoughts and feelings – which is pretty bloody disheartening. the data is completely irretrievable to i will have to try to remember and redo it all.

then when we went to leave we realised there had been a humungus storm while we were inside, it was absolutely hosing down, the roads were all flooded and it would have been easier to take a boat back to our place than a taxi!

danyos, sal, kai, juan carlos

saturday 18^th

we had danyos and juan carlos over for dinner tonite, they came over in the afternoon and danyos gave sal a massage, he is studying massage, english & french so he got to practice massage & english!

i cooked up a lamb stir fry with rice and salad, which everyone seemed to enjoy. we spent the night drinking rum and listening to music on the ipod. they really enjoy listening to such a range of music – it is simply not possible in cuba.

late in the afternoon and early evening there was the most amazing electrical storms so we sat on the balcony and watched the sky explode with lightning. it was one of the best displays i have seen anywhere! some of the storm cells passed directley overhead with startling thunder claps, scaring not just kai!

the view down obispo from our balcony

sunday 20^th

well today is fathers day in cuba – my fourth fathers day and kai is only 17 months! the first was when sal was pregnant – i knew i was a father, i could see the lump! the second was fathers day in thailand last year, then in australia last year and now here. i will have my 5 th fathers day in september in australia and kai will not yet be 2 !! sal is less than impressed, she has only clocked up two mothers days!

danyos asked us over to his casa to celebrate fathers day with his family, he lives in an outer suburb of havana called diaz de octubre. we caught a taxi over there and met his mum, her husband, and a couple of aunts, uncles and nephews. kai instantly made friends with all the kids in the neighborhood, he has absolutely no reserve now, as soon as he sees cuban kids, big or small he just runs up and starts playing with them. it is fantastic to see him so involved and so happy.

one of danyos’ aunts had cooked us a yummy meal, a sort of cross between a stew and a soup made with red beans, vegetables and pork bones. it was served with rice and a plate of sliced cucumber, and it was absolutely delicious, sal and i both had 2 big servings!

after dinner we sat with the family while they sung cuban songs – without any instruments, very loudly and very good! we put kai down for a sleep in a bed so we could stay on talking, drinking rum and listening to the singing.

the sense of community is amazing in these outer areas where the real cuba is, everyone who walked by the house during the night stopped to chat, everyone is greeted like a long lost cousin, and there is great warmth and respect. the rum is shared with the neighbors and passers by alike and everyone is up late into the night sitting out on the footpath or wandering the streets enjoying the balmy tropical air. we didn’t end up leaving until about 11 00 and actually had a bit of trouble getting a taxi home!

monday 21^st

it was stinking hot this afternoon, with very little breeze, so we went for a walk down to the malecon on the banks of the river to catch a little breeze and let kai have a run around. everyone was very listless, couples lazing on the seawall, fishermen quietley dangling lines in the river in the hope of catching some fish, old men nodding off on park benches.

it was overcast but very steamy, barely a ripple on the water, a storm brewing out in the bay with the odd flash of fork lightning and distant rumble of thunder. the sort of day your clothes cling to you like wet washing.

suddenly there were mad, screaming cubans running up and down the seawall frantically, those with bycycles weaving crazily thru the strolling crowds with fishing rods held in one hand, those without bikes sprinting and jostling for position, the schools of trevally coming down stream had been spotted, plopping lazily on the surface as they fed.

lures were cast in a frenzy, lines flyng over the top of each other, rods being pumped and reels wound furiously, fish plopping on the pavement, lines recast, lures humming thru the air like a swarm of mad insects, then everyone taking off for the next school spotted. arguments about who spoilt whose cast spat in fast, angry, arm waving debate. within a couple of minutes the peace of the tranquil afternoon settled again as the fish disappeared, chatter stilled, successful fishermen bagged their catch, cigars were lit, a little rum sipped and normality returned to the malecon as the heat seemed to ease a little

wednesday 22^nd

another internet story, i went over to the hotel melia cohiba with steve to do some stuff on the laptop and update the blog and website. we caught a taxi over there and when we got there went up to the 20^th floor where i buy the ticket with a password and username so i can access the wifi internet with my laptop. they said, sorry no tickets! i asked what do you mean no tickets? and they told me that the service provider who set up the wifi network come once a week and deliver the tickets and they didn’t turn up this week – so no tickets!

in typically cuban they really couldn’t care less, no ticket, no problem – for them! anywhere else and a big international hotel would find out where the tickets were, or send someone to get them, not here, they will just wait and see if some turn up next week. so sorry guys, no update this week!

we went to the art gallery today, the “museo nacional de bellas artes”, it has two buildings, one has all the cuban art and the other an international collection. we visited the cuban one, it is a very impressive building with sculpture around the outside of it and highly reflective glass that reflects the old havana buildings around it. the collection is laid out over 4 floors, the ground floor has a shop and café and a central water feature surrounded by more interesting sculpture.

the next three floors then have all the cuban art in a chronological arrangement, so the contemporary art is on the first floor, the second floor has the art from pre-revolution up to the contemporary and the third floor has all the art back to the spanish arrival in the 1500’s.

it was very well hung and laid out with groupings of works by particular artists and in the centre of the wide galleries was more sculpture. there was some fantastic art, the contemporary stuff was great and it was interesting to see the parallels with art history in the rest of the world, contemporary stuff similar to tim storrier, the influences of pop art in the ‘60s, the influence of artists like picasso and dali and then the early colonial art. some of it was very reminiscent of colonial australian art, there were pieces very similar to von guerrard’s and glover’s.

then the older stuff again was like any other collection of art from the classical periods. obviously with a strong catholic theme from the spanish. there was a huge, marvellous piece depicting columbus landing on cuba which was a real stunner.

we really enjoyed our couple of hours there, and had kai not run out of steam we would have stayed longer.

reflections on the art gallery glass

ordered our cigars today, we are getting a range of types and sizes, we are getting them for a great price, they will not be in the boxes but they are the real deal from the factory via the ‘back door’. I had no idea how expensive they are here – let alone by the time they end up in australia. We are getting 5 lots of 25 cigars and they would retail for a couple of thousand in australia!

thursday 23^rd

well i must be beginning to look like a local! i went out to get some fruit and vegetables from the agro…… and the little one round the corner had everything i wanted but tomatos so i walked down to another one at the other end of havana vieja – they had none either so i walked up to the other end of havana vieja to the big market which i figured would have them – but no they were out to!! i think maybe the big rains wrecked the crop.

anyway while walking up calle sol i saw a shop selling huevos (eggs) which are always hard to find so i backtracked to the store and joined a queue, asking, “ultimo?” which is how you check that you are joining the end of the queue. after about 20 minutes i got to the head of the queue to be asked for my ration card!! it was a store for cubans only where they produce a ration card and get an allowance of eggs at a reduced price!

street corner

friday 24^th

did the nappy run this morning! we heard that a store up the road had some in stock so we went up there this morning to get another 4 packets, we have to get them when ever we spot them because they go very quickly and the same store might not have them again for weeks. we have got used to browsing all likely looking stores for the hard to get items whenever we are out walking, then we stock up at the time. examples are nappys and wipes, plain yogurt and eggs.

kai is sporting a big bump on his head tonite, he made friends with some kids at the plaza this afternoon and they had a bike with trainer wheels, the bigger kids were pushing him around and he had a big crash and cracked his scone on 400 year old pavers!!

picked up the cigars tonite, we have had them packed with a couple of each type separate so we can try each type. it is rum & cigars after dinner tonite. also rang and found the hotel have the tickets for the wifi internet so tomorrow we will go and update everything and check the emails.

saturday 25^th

as you will know by now we did the internet thing today! all updated and emails answered, banking done etc. we spent the rest of the day in the swimming pool next door at the hotel riviera. this was one of the hotels built by the mafia prior to the revolution and has that gaudy las vegas look about it. it was home to hoods and stars alike.

the pool is very nice tho’ it has a covered sitting area parallel to the malecon with a glass wall so we sat under there with the ocean 20 metres away, thru the glass wall and across the malecon, and the large pool complete with diving platforms on our other side.

for $15 each you get into the pool and $10 to spend on food & drinks so it is probably the best deal out of the hotel pools that allow non-guest use. the food was quite good too.

cannon at castillo de san salvador de la punta, built 1589

monday 27^th

we went on the great wipe expedition this morning! one of the hardest to obtain items here are wipes for kai’s bum!! we bought a lot with us and norma and steve got us a couple of packs about two weeks ago, but we were getting very low so we went off to try and find them in the store that norma & steve had found them in.

this store is just a little store in suburban verdado and they only discovered it had packs of wipes by using the cuban shopping method that you go into every shop you pass to check if it has anything you do or might need in the future. ( the real trick is in remembering just where you saw that thing that you now really need!)

so we caught a taxi to the area they had described the store as being in and after a bit of hunting found the right shop, unfortunately they had long sold out of the packs of 80 wipes, but they had a huge stock of packs of 20 – for $1 each, so we got 10 packs of 20 wipes – the most expensive wipes in the world! the equivilent of 2 1/2 packs which sell for about $A4 each in australia, cost us $10 plus $10 for taxi fares, so $20 cuban or $A30.

flush with the success of our wipe hunting we walked down to a nearby park, parque almendares which is on the banks of the rio almendares. it has the potential to be a pretty park with huge banyan trees providing shade, a path along the edge of the river, an ampitheatre and quite a big childrens playground. unfortunately it was in a cuban state of decay! the paths all broken up and covered in mud and water, half the playground equipment broken or unsafe, and generally looking pretty sad. as usual kai had fun and made some new friends so it was not a total loss, while not living up to the descriptions i had read of it!

tuesday 28^th

one of the really noticable things about cuba is the lack of institutional racism, unlike australia and for that matter most other countries i have travelled to. here there is a sense of complete racial harmony, cubans vary from very black, african looking through hispanic looking to very fair, caucasian looking and every shade of skin & hair colour between. yet there is no apparent distinction on where people live, work, go to school, socialise, etc based on race. families seem to be a mixture also with an extended cuban family often having the full range of racial types.

fidel’s cuba has some very obvious things lacking from so called western democracies, free and good health services, a high standard of free education, racial harmony, less sexism, and much less obvious distinction between poor and rich. i am sure it exists to some extent, but there is not the sort of distinction you see in australia say between the homeless and the obscenely rich. here nearly everyone seems to be at a similar economic level with almost no evidence of real poverty – no homeless, no street people, no junkies!

another subtle but pleasant difference is the almost complete lack of any advertising, of course there is not much point when all the shops are owned by the state but it is still a pleasant change from our materially obsessed culture.

habana vieja

one of the many things that living in cuba has made me think about is that we tend to dismiss communism/socialism in ‘western capitalistic democracies’ saying things like, “it’s a good idea in theory, but it doesn’t work in practice.”

it does beg the question tho’, what works well in practice in our system? we have lots of people living in poverty, we have rising levels of suicide and mental illness, people are visibly less happy than in materially poorer countries, we have huge problems with drug abuse, high levels of violent and property crime, we have expensive user pays health systems, our education is increasingly user pays, and our family and community structure is largely disfunctional.

of course cuba is not a communist or socialist state in reality and a lot of the hardship here is caused by the american embargo and the secondary boycotts it imposes on any countries that try to trade with cuba. for example any ship that docks at a cuban port is not granted entry to an american port for 6 months. it is a sort of economic terrorism that has a terrible impact on ordinary people – 80% of the imports blocked are food & medicine.

anyway i’m starting to sound like i am doing ‘revolutionary theory 101’ so i will stop now.

eternal flame for the fallen heroes of the revolucion

wednesday 29^th

i must be in the mood! today we went to the museo de la revolucion, it is housed in the former palacio presidential which is one of the landmarks of the havana skyline, (its dome is the one on the left in the photo of habana vieja above.) the building’s interior was decorated by tiffany’s and it is quite awesome. the museum has an enormous collection of documents, photographs and objects from the revolution and it was a fascinating couple of hours wandering through the huge collection. at the back of the building is a park with various vehicles used in the revolution including planes, tanks built from tractors and the boat that castro and 81 others arrived from mexico on to start the revolution in 1956. it is called ‘granma’ and is housed in a glass enclosure that is a sacred shrine for the cuban people.

bread van used in the revolution, note the bullet holes!

interior of the museo de la revolucion

i think there is something special about a country that has had a revolution and fought for their freedom in the way that cuba has, it gives the people a special pride in their country and its history. it is something lacking in australia, a country settled by deported criminals on stolen land!

thursday 30th

we had not seen our friend danyos for a few days and we caught up with him this afternoon at the plaza armas. he had a nasty accident on monday and had been in hospital. he was getting on a camello, the huge buses pulled by a semi trailer prime mover. they have 2 sort of humps hence the name camello! anyway as danyos was getting on the bus the operator closed the auto door as he did not notice danyos and his hand was squashed in the door badly damaging one finger, then hearing danyos scream out he opened the door again and danyos fell backwards off the bus, the back of his head smashing into the road and knocking him out. the next thing he knew he woke up in hospital, not knowing what happened or how he got there.

he came back and had dinner with us, i tried out one of my concoctions on him! i had bought some red beans this morning and some carne de res (beef) yesterday and i made a sort of steak and bean stew with rice. it is nice to do a bit of cooking now and then, although it is also good having a break from the routine of it at home.

friday 1^{st july}

a pretty quiet day today, but this afternoon at the plaza armas there was a performance by a street theatre group with amazing colourful costumes, people on stilts, music and a verey funny performance for kids – which kai loved.

the street theatre was followed by a performance in the plaza by an orchestra, which was kai’s first live classical music.

these sort of free street performances are common in havana and are an example of the very strong support for the arts from the state, barely a day goes by without us coming across something happening, somewhere.

We stopped at bar oro for a beer on the way home and kai gave a performance of his own, joining the drummer for a guest appearance!

saturday 2^nd

we went for an early morning walk this morning to see a part of havana we had not visited yet, we filled up on egg rolls & roast pork rolls at the markets before visiting a park we have not been to before, it is in the center of a big crazy roundabout but it is a peaceful, green & shady oasis despite this! kai had a good run around and we then headed off to try and find another shop that supposedly had wipes in the bigger packs. we were successful in this venture although we had to wait for 45 minutes for the store to open at 1030 (pretty normal opening time in cuba) and then fight our way in with a crowd like you would see at a boxing day sale in australia! i then had to queue for an hour to get the wipes, anyway its all good therapy.

the best thing about the long wait for the store to open is that we found a local bar with beer on tap, the beer was cold, not particularly strong but refreshing and only 7 pesos which is about 30c for a schooner sized glass.

in the afternoon we went over to danyos’ house because one of his cousins was being initiated into the afro-cuban santaria religion. the ceremony was similar to the one we went to with steve & norma, and again we had fantastic food and plenty of cheap rum and home made beer. there was a lot of excitement on our arrival because the santaria priest had just left and he had told the girl that red and black would be special colours for her and we turned up with kai in black pants and a red top!

at the markets

sunday 3^rd

well we have finally made it to the beach! danyos suggested we go to the beach so we arranged for him to come to our casa early this morning and then we went and got an illegal taxi to guanabo, playa la este, which is the nearest decent beach out of havana.

playa le este is about a 9 km stretch of beach, starting 18km out of havana, the first beach is santa maria which is the tourist beach, next is boca siega which is where the cuban holidaymakers stay and then guanabo which is the real cuban family beach.

the most exciting part of the day really was the illegal taxi ride, we paid $15 instead of $25 each way for a tourist taxi so it was quite a saving, the car was a pretty clapped out lada sedan (russian shit heaps that are very common here), the windows were all tinted and we had to sit in the back with the windows wound up so the police would not see us! the roads are crawling with police on the weekends and they are constantly pulling vehicles over to check them. every time we passed a police checkpoint i expected us to be pulled over – we had worked out a story about the driver and danyos both being friends of ours and we were all going to the beach for the day! we paid the driver well before we stopped so no undercover police would see money changing hands.

anyway we got there and back without incident and had fun at the beach, it was absolutely packed with cuban families and lots of fun for kai, the water was cooler than sal and i expected – at home at this time of year i.e the wet season, the water would be much warmer. nice soft sand and a gentle offshore breeze made it very pleasant tho’.

capitolio natcional

tuesday 4^th

yesterday was a day of discovery, we have been living in this casa for about a month and we did not realise all this time that we have access to the roof of the building – simply by walking up one more flight of stairs!! we have sat on our balcony in the evening and watched all the cubans sitting up on their roofs and thought how good it would be!

it is a big flat roof with a balastade around it so it is safe for kai and it catches all the breeze at night and has stunning views across the city.

sal and i went up for a quiet beer last night after we had put kai down, we got talking to the people on the roof next door, an elderly cuban couple who live there, a big canadian/phillipino and his cuban girlfriend, a young cuban couple, and a swedish girl who has also been here 2 months.

it turned into one of those fantastic impromtu parties, we got the ipod and ontour speakers up there for music, a handful of cuban cigars and a bottle of rum, they had a bottle of liquor rum and away we went! we could climb over the low wall seperating the roof tops and we joined them for a delicious meal – but not before the girls had given sal some salsa lessons, which she had wanted since we arrived but it has not been possible to arrange with kai.

the swedish girl and the canadian and his girlfriend all fly out today so it was a big night for them. sal and i are both nursing hangovers this morning, but it was a terrific night and having the ipod to provide music was a bonus, i managed to play just about alll the requests for the night, i guess having over 6000 songs helps!

i think we finally finished up at about one oclock – after kai had woken up and joined us for a little while. he of course still woke up at 4 30 this morning! oh to sleep in again one day.