I recently went to Cuba for the first time

motorcity

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Thu Mar-04-10 01:14 PM
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I recently went to Cuba for the first time

I have family in Cuba, so I was able to fly legally from the US. I see many discussions about Cuba on this board, so I thought I would post a little bit about my experience there. These are just my observations, and I by no means think I am some authority on Cuba. I didn't have an agenda before I went there, and I don't have one now. I apologize in advance for bad spelling and grammar. I am not a writer.

I don't look Cuban and my Spanish isn't great, so I was pretty worried about getting grilled by US officials at the airport. I had heard stories about Americans being harassed for legal travel to Cuba, fined and even jailed for illegal travel to Cuba. A friend of mine was wearing a "Cuba" shirt when he came back from Europe, and US customs grilled him and enthusiastically searched all of his bags. These stories all seemed to be from 2003-2008, when Bush really wanted to crack down on illegal travel, and wanted to make legal travel even harder. Since Obama has rolled all of this back, I have not heard a single story like this. The paperwork pertaining to my flight was pretty annoying, but I dealt with no hassle from the US when I went to Cuba. When I came back I was asked one question and waved through.

Cuban officials asked me more questions than I have ever been asked in any country I have visited. Most of the questions pertained to where I was going and who I was staying with. They gave my bags a once over as well, but nothing to out of the norm.

I rented a car and drove all over the island. I would say that Cuba has about 5% of the road signs you would expect in a country of this size. You can drive for hours and not see a single road sign. I stopped and asked for directions many times a day, and everyone was always happy to help. The main autopista that goes along the island is pretty interesting, as I saw more people hitchhiking on it than cars. If you are driving a car with government plates you are legally required to pick up hitchhikers but I felt like I saw a lot of government vehicles break this rule. Given the low numbers of cars and the high number of hitchhikers, they must spend a lot of time waiting. The Soviet Union collapsed before they were done building the autopista for Cuba, and it looks like it hasn't been worked on very much since. Large sections of the autopista are missing, and it is lined with half finished bridges. There are so few cars on it that it is still pretty easy to drive though.

Though there were few road signs, there were many billboards and signs about the greatness of Che, Fidel, Camilo & the revolution. Some of these signs looked like they were spontaneously made by locals, but after talking to many of them, I don't think they are.

It felt like a bit of a time warp walking around neighborhoods. People would be sitting on their doorsteps watching a bunch of kids play baseball with a broomstick and a wad of tape for a ball. A 1940s vehicle would honk as it passed a horse drawn carriage (bus) full of people. Everyone knows everyone in the neighborhood, and most people I talked to had been in the same neighborhood since they were born. I was told that no one is allowed to sell their house for a profit, that they can only trade it for a house of equal value, and it is a huge pain to do this. That probably makes people a little less inclined to move.

I have been to a lot of poorer countries, but the stores in Cuba are the most unique I have seen. It wasn't unusual for several stores on the same street to sell the same bland glasses, buckets, book bags, and pvc pipes, with a lot of empty shelves and surprisingly long lines. Most stores look like they were 75% empty.

I rarely encountered beggars, which is pretty unusual for me when I am traveling. I also never saw extremely diseased or deformed beggars that I have seen in a lot of poorer countries. In that regard it was closer to Canada or the US than Peru or Colombia. I was often harassed a bit by touts looking to direct me to a restaurant, but I never felt unsafe at all. Despite our goofy hats, dirty clothes and greasy, sunblock covered skin, men were constantly blowing kisses and whistling at my wife. It was probably just in fun, but I think it would get annoying if I was a woman.

They have two different currencies in Cuba, pesos for locals, convertibles for tourists. The goal is to keep tourists paying more than Cubans, but it seems to create a situation where Cubans who have contact with tourists are making a lot more money than Cubans who don't. For example, I could and to tourist oriented shop buy an ice cream cone for 1 convertible ($1.10 US) or go next door to the Cuban place buy one for 3 pesos (4 cents US). If the employees at these places take tips, they is going to be a massive difference between what they take home every day. One of my family members is in medicine and spent a lot of time complaining about how many of her coworkers have left the field to make 20 times more money busing tables at a tourist restaurant. I think the dual currency system will be scrapped in the next several years, especially if all US citizens are allowed to travel to Cuba.

My Cuban family told me that very few Cubans are allowed to use the internet. It was pretty bizarre to go into an internet cafe and see nothing but Europeans. They usually checked (and sometimes copied) my passport, I guess to make sure I wasn't Cuban. Half of the internet areas had surveillance cameras in them, and I doubt it was to protect their pretty bad (and slow) computers. Another weird case of getting preferential treatment was at the banks. They usually had big lines but they would separate out the tourists into a shorter line.

Cuba has the greatest collection of colonial buildings that I have seen in this hemisphere. While they do not have the tear down mentality of many countries, most of these buildings are in horrible shape. I hope someday they have funds to fix these buildings up, as I think Cuba could be a colonial Bruges. There are a few areas in Havana that are in pretty good shape, but they are mostly inhabited by foreign ambassadors and the like.

I talked to many different Cubans of many different ages and backgrounds, and not one was very happy about the state of Cuba, especially under Fidel. Some felt life was a little better under Batista, some felt it was a little better under Fidel. Everyone was pretty happy with education and health care, but not much else. They were all hopeful that Raul would be more open minded to change, and they were all hopeful that Obama and Raul would normalize relations. They all saw Fidel to Raul, and Bush to Obama, as a step in the right direction.

I went to look at the US interests office in Havana, which used to be the site for some seriously ridiculous propaganda battles. Under Bush, the US had a electronic billboard that had displayed quotes like "How sad that all the people who would know how to run this country are driving taxis or cutting hair," which is a George Burns quote. Fidel responded with billboards of Bush as a vampire right outside the building. Under Obama, the billboard has been removed and the Cubans removed their billboards as well. Now it just a bland looking building with a huge fence and tons of Cuban guards around it.

I have read in many travel books about how some countries are full of people that are so much more friendly than other countries, and I never really get that sense. If I had to pick one country where people seemed to be the most helpful, I would pick Cuba though. I definitely needed a lot of help on the road, and help finding available places to stay (I stayed in rooms for rent in private homes for the whole trip). Everyone was pretty eager to help. Most people assumed I was Canadian but when they found out I was from the US they didn't treat me any differently. Most of them seemed happy to see an American there, and asked me a lot of questions. I only saw one other American while I was there.

It was amazing to finally see this country I have heard so much about. I think anyone who is interested in unique, not necessarily convenient, countries would find Cuba fascinating.