The real face of Cuba

The real face of Cuba
Break out of the all-inclusive box to meet ordinary Cubans
Andrew Renton , Freelance
SANTIAGO, Cuba - The young waitress, wearing a smile and a well-worn sheen to her blue serge skirt, made my selection. "Criolla Deliciosa" (delicious local food) was boldly emblazoned in white chalk across the blackboard.
My opinion of Cuban fare as a gastronomic nightmare was to be challenged yet again. Chicken, fried to a crisp? Canned sardines? Bread that fragments into low flying missiles at the mere approach of a knife?

No -- this time it was a pork steak, large and tough enough to resole my Rockports. I manage a grin "Mmm - deliciosa indeed," praying that my crowns would hold!

I have opted for a small, government-owned (they all are), hotel in Ciega de Avilar. With rundown balustraded sidewalks and horse-drawn traffic, the town has a hint of the Wild West. Oddly the toilet flushes with hot water that the shower fails to deliver. Otherwise, the price seems reasonable at 25 CUC (convertible pesos) or around $30 Cdn which includes breakfast.

There are two ways to visit Cuba. The all-inclusive resorts of Varadero, Holguin and Cayo Coco provide an all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink closeted beachfront experience. A great way to spend an "it's all about me" week, away from the bills, boss, winter blahs -- and well away from real Cubans who are banned from resort areas.
When Russia collapsed, the peso tanked. Fidel Castro's revolution guaranteed free medical, education, housing, and a ration book granting subsidized staples for life. Imported fuel, parts, and medicines require scarce "hard" currency.
In 1990, Castro announced a "special" period. Oxen replaced tractors. Horse-drawn wagons replaced local buses. All very cute for a "Kodak moment" but tough for a people used to modern amenities.
To get around, Cubans still catch open cattle-trucks to official hitchhiking points along the autopista. Vehicles with blue licence plates are government-owned and required, by law, to pick up passengers.
An arrangement to visit granny in the next town can be hazardous unless booked weeks in advance on the much cannibalized, shrinking bus fleet.
Breakfast brings the same grinning waitress. She carefully arranges a basket of week-old bread, a watery "cafe Americano," and an omelette the size of a wafer-thin hockey puck, then suddenly launches herself forward to "buss" me on both cheeks. "Buenos dias Senor." McDonald's could learn from this server!
To reach Santiago, Cuba's second largest city, my choices are limited. Hitchhiking sounds romantic but impractical for the 400-kilometre trip. Car rental at $75 CUC a day is over the top. Trains run at night and all flights are full.
The government owns a fleet of comfortable tourist buses which run between popular centres, via rest stops where a limp cheese sandwich will set you back a cool $3 CUC-- a week's pay to a local. Ticket prices on "Viazul" buses rival Canadian Greyhound at around $6 CUC per journey hour.
Cubans are banned from tourist accommodation -- Fidel's unsporting way of intervening between lustful foreigners and the amorous overtures of hot-blooded Chicas and Cabana boys -- (It seems the urge for an illicit dalliance is no longer a male bastion). But "amor" did find a way -- for a while anyway. To fill the void, illegal "Casas Particulares" or Bed & Breakfasts, proliferated like mushrooms on a soggy log.
Alas in 1996, the state thwarted these cupids' corners by bringing them under a similar regulatory blanket. Transgressors faced fines or even loss of their homes.
Two blue inverted V's displayed above a door like a military ranking, indicate approved tourist accommodation. For $25/$30 CUC a night this is a great way to meet real families, throw some money into private pockets and, with luck, enjoy a decent home-cooked meal. (Much of what you pay is taxed back by the government.)
In Santiago, I haul my pack from the bus depot into a waiting coco-taxi. The yellow snail-shaped vehicle has three wheels, a set of handlebars and an open-fronted roof which curves shell-like over the back and side and acts as a "rain scoop" in downpours.
Most doorways on the narrow lane bear the inverted blue V. I opt for a tall house requiring a full flight of stairs to reach the entrance. Maybe there'll be a view?
Arturo leads me through his home. Stone steps take me up to a room on the roof and a view of the bay. I will share my penthouse with a cunning cockroach the size of a sand crab -- for a few days anyway. The vociferous pig, tethered by day on the neighbour's roof, sleeps peacefully at night -- in their kitchen -- away from light fingers.
Arturo is a single, 40-something, English teacher at the medical school. His monthly income of $30 CUC a month is double the national average. My daily rent of $30 CUC pushes him into the upper middle-class. For an extra bit of "convertible cash" he will prepare black-market lobster and rum-based mojitos.
He beckons me furtively to a pile of rusting iron sheets stacked vertically under the staircase. An assortment of chains holds them together. "They'll steal anything they can get their hands on," he announces, unlocking the hasp of each padlock with a separate key. Eventually the last sheet is freed and laboriously pulled aside.
A shard of sunlight catches the polished chrome exhaust pipe. His baby, a gunmetal grey motor scooter built in Czechoslovakia, a 1963 CZ-175, glints from within its secret lair.
"You buy the gas; I'll show you around," he adds, relishing the thought of being financed to indulge his weekend hobby.
I park my 6-foot-3 frame on the passenger seat. We race up and down steep alleys. An agitated man stands at the curb with two bleach bottles filled with fuel. Three convertibles are snatched from my hand and stashed hastily into his trouser pocket.
"My friend was a doctor, now he drives the school minibus. It broke down when the mechanic was on sick leave. He used his own hard-earned cash to fix it privately."
"Wow," I respond, trying to imagine a Canadian driver digging out his Visa to keep things rolling. "Fidel sure knows how to pick 'em!"
But this is Cuba. "Luxuries" from toothpaste to toilet paper can only be purchased with hard currency from the 600- plus government-owned "convertible currency stores." The duties of my "hero of the people's paradise" include collecting and delivering food for school lunches -- from which he skims enough to feed his family with a little left over to trade.
Furthermore, his weekly gasoline allowance provides a chance to siphon off a few litres for the black market. Ah, the bleach bottles. "As a driver, he earns way more than a doctor, but if the bus breaks down ...?"
I lose the rest as we speed up into some serious hairpin bends. At the hilltop restaurant a top-notch band is belting out salsa to the gyrating crowd. The lead dancer from The Tropicana nightclub has just married a Dutch businessman three times her age.
"She wants to leave the country and needs to marry a foreigner to get a passport," adds Arturo, eyeing my quizzical, and slightly envious, look.
Survival for the average Cuban is a constant struggle. Water shortages and power outages are normal fare. Meagre rations of cooking oil are often replaced with rendered pig fat by month's end. Soap is a luxury as are razorblades and pens.
An indomitable spirit. The kindnesses. The music. The artwork. The smiles. These are the qualities that bring people back again and again. Break out of the box -- go and see the real thing!
IF YOU GO:
- VISAS: Not necessary for Canadians.
MONEY: One convertible peso (CUC) is about $1.3 Cdn.
- FOOD: To supplement the lack of restaurants outside major centres, the government has licensed private in-home "Paladares" allowing a maximum of two tables. Meals cost around $9 to $15 C for lobster. The food is vastly superior to normal restaurant/hotel fare. You will find these places easily as touts on the street will constantly approach you hoping for a commission.
- Note: It is better to book in the afternoon so the owner can shop to order.
- ACCOMMODATION: Casa particulares are the way to go. Mine varied from a historic mansion in Trinidad to a simple bungalow in Vinales where the table always groaned with delicious dishes. The tastefully renovated colonial Hotel Gran in Camaguey was also a great find with excellent buffets and a pool. Phone ahead to avoid disappointment.
- UNOFFICIAL CASAS PARTICULARES: The government has cracked down on these establishments which pay no taxes. There is a snitch network not to mention the ire of legitimate operators to contend with. Avoid, unless you don't mind being turfed out by the authorities during the night.
- CAR RENTALS: The government has a hand in every enterprise in Cuba so the prices generally are non-negotiable. The longer the term, the cheaper the rate. You are required to buy a tank of gas with no refunds at the end. Check the gauge before departing. Short filling is rampant. Cuba is frustratingly short of road signs and maps.
- SAFETY AND SECURITY: Cuba is the safest country in the world in which to travel, but take normal precautions. Avoid talking politics with your hosts. Big Brother is everywhere and the jails are filled with political prisoners and journalists.
- WHAT TO TAKE: The climate is hot. Sunscreen. A good map. Flashlight for blackouts. Cubans are short of everything:clothes, pens, soap, makeup, nylons, razors, blades -- the list goes on.
- COMMUNICATIONS: A few lucky people have computers and e-mail but the Internet is blocked. You must show your passport at official centres to access hotmail or webmail. Expensive international calls can be made from telephone offices. Internal calls are cheap. Post is unreliable. People will ask you to mail their letters from your home country.
- TIPPING AND MONEY: Canadian credit cards can be used and travellers cheques can be cashed at resorts, high-end hotels and banks. Tourists can rarely use local pesos. Tipping is survival for many and a chambermaid will cover you in kisses for a small gratuity left in the room.
USEFUL GUIDEBOOKS: Moon Handbooks Cuba by Christopher Baker is excellent. Lonely Planet does a moderate job, but is easier to follow.

http://www.canada.com/topics/travel/story.html?id=de46e7f4-ef87-44b8-a130-a6141c9828c8

Rock climbing by Cubans discouraged

Posted on Tue, Dec. 26, 2006

CUBA
Rock climbing by Cubans discouraged
Rock climbing -- an extreme sport brought to Cuba by foreigners -- has begun to irk the Castro regime as an outside influence.
The Wall Street Journal

VINALES, Cuba - Seventy feet up a sheer limestone cliff known as La Cuchillita, or Little Blade, 17-year-old Roylandi González held onto a ledge by his fingertips. Then he glanced down to check the harness around his waist, grabbed hold of the rope that was tethered above him and started shimmying downward.

Over the past several years, adventurous Cuban youths like González, schooled by an influx of foreign rock climbers, have turned this western town into an extreme-sport magnet. Climbers test their mettle on dramatic crags, barely touched by man, which soar above a green valley designated as a U.N. World Heritage Site.

But climbers who have conquered Viñales' jagged peaks are now up against a more formidable obstacle: the Communist political system.

González cast a wary eye for park rangers and police.

''There's something about rock climbing that really seems to worry our government,'' he said.

As Cubans begin contemplating life after Fidel Castro, rock climbing has emerged as an improbable battleground between the government and young Cubans eager to embrace the latest foreign fashions.

PERMIT REQUIRED

In 2003, amid a broad crackdown on civil liberties and fraternizing between tourists and Cubans, the government announced that rock climbers henceforth would be required to obtain a special permit. But the government has never granted the required permit to the many climbers who have requested one.

Adrian Pérez Martínez, a 20-year-old art teacher, says that police showed up at his house recently to warn him against climbing, especially with foreigners. ''Good Cubans don't do this,'' he says they told him. ''Climbers use drugs. And you shouldn't take foreigners to militarily significant areas.'' Indeed, some caves in Viñales are designated as civil-defense sites in the event of a U.S. invasion.

Some of the official anxiety over climbing seems to be based on Cuba's revolutionary history. The revolution that brought Castro to power in 1959 was launched from a clandestine encampment in the Sierra Maestra Mountains on the eastern end of the island. ''The Revolution was the work of climbers and cavers,'' Castro is reported to have said.

Now the government may be worried that history will repeat itself. 'The system is paranoid about Cubans' private activities, but especially when those activities are occurring in hills away from sight and when foreigners are involved,'' says Vitalio Echazabal, one of the first Cubans to take up rock climbing in the 1990s. 'The authorities would ask, `Are they spies? What are they plotting up there?' ''

Echazabal got so fed up that he defected to Spain during a climbing expedition in 2001, one of three Cuban climbers who have escaped the island during international sporting events. About a half-dozen others got off the island after marrying foreigners they met on the hills.

The exodus of climbers has only served to intensify official suspicion of the sport. ''Climbers are very independent people, and the Cuban government has a real hard time with anything it cannot control -- even a form of recreation,'' says Armando Menocal, a 65-year-old Wyoming lawyer who is the leading international proponent of Cuban climbing. Menocal, who runs the Cubaclimbing.com website, has been caught in the backlash himself.

TURNED BACK

Beginning in the late 1990s, Menocal, who has family ties to Cuba, started training Cuban climbers, mapping local routes and importing donated equipment. But after about 15 climbing trips to Cuba over the past eight years, Menocal has been turned back by immigration officers at the Havana airport the last two times he tried to visit, most recently earlier this month. The authorities, he says, offered no explanation.

The 100 or so climbers remaining in Cuba would certainly welcome his return. Without official funding, Cuban climbers rely on equipment sent by Menocal or donated by tourists. José Luis Fuentes, a 20-year-old climber, says his shoes were given to him by an Italian, his rope by a Canadian and his harness by an American. ''You speak a common language with other climbers no matter where they come from,'' he says.

`CRAZY KIDS'

He isn't sure it's a language Cuba's leaders could understand. ''Older people just think we're a bunch of crazy kids,'' says Fuentes.

Climbing has attracted a special breed of Cuban youth since Menocal and some American friends used a slide show to recruit a core group of about half a dozen Cuban climbers in 1999. One Cuban went AWOL from his military unit to go on an outing with Menocal, subsequently earning two weeks in the brig.

Official eyes were watching. ''The Cubans were always being persecuted because it was not looked upon favorably to socialize with foreigners,'' says Craig Luebben, a rock-climbing guide and journalist from Colorado who has made several trips to Cuba. As the pressure increased, the Cubans and their American climbing partners would avoid appearing together publicly, arranging separate transportation to a rendezvous at the secluded climbing site, Luebben says.

Climbers say official government climbing policy has been inconsistent. A few years ago, Hollywood, a cigarette brand partly owned by the government, launched an ad campaign featuring a climber. Yet at around the same time, a visiting Menocal was called before two different government authorities and told climbing wasn't permitted.

The inconsistencies continue today. On a recent day at the park visitors center near the Viñales climbing site, there were large posters of climbers in action. Nevertheless, the park ranger on duty insisted that climbing without a permit wasn't allowed under the 2003 law. ''It's not something one should even consider,'' he said, though he had no idea how one might go about getting a permit.

The climbers are regrouping under the leadership of Alexei Suarez, a medical worker who sometimes reaches his second-story Havana apartment by scaling the wall. He has been talking with government officials, trying to better climbing's image, and he says the Cuban sports ministry has been very supportive. ''We are loyal Cubans who want to make Cuba famous for climbing champions,'' Suarez says.