A friend of mine just returned from a covert vacation to Cuba. Good for him. The Cuban travel ban is asinine, an anachronistic vestige of the Cold War. I asked him to keep a diary for me, which I promised to post on my blog. He’d like to remain anonymous. The threat of a $20,000 federal fine tends to promote anonymity. Here’s his report:

First thing I did the moment I got back from Cuba was eat. Castro, you see, is a Communist. Communist countries tend to neglect some of the standard vacation amenities – good food, for example.

I know, I know. Who am I, wee little capitalist, to ask for variety? I guess I could live without variety. But if I can’t have variety, quality would be nice. No go. Because in Cuba, it’s for the PUBLIC GOOD, comrades, to serve exactly three horrible fucking dishes of food – no matter where you are in the country: fried fucking pork, fried fucking chicken, and fried fucking fish. It’s hell on your digestive system. Americans fight terrorism. Cubans fight constipation.

So yes, with romantic visions of cigars, mobster hotels, rum, and 1950’s roadsters dancing in my head, a few weeks ago, I waved a giant middle finger at the fascist American embargo, snuck through the Canadian portal (Toronto), and, yes, flew to Cuba.

My romantic vision soured. Believe none of what you hear. Don’t let that crunchy European backpacker you met on the train in Barcelona convince you that Cuba is “unspoilt”—one of the last inexpensive backpacking destinations to be unclaimed by Western capitalism, and thereby robbed of it’s “natural” charm and beauty. Cuba is beat-up, worn out, and half dead. And you’ll pay out the nose to experience this “utopia.”

When Fidel took over in Havana, he “nationalized” all the houses from the upper-middle class. They’re architectural gems, street after street of grand Spanish colonial style mansions. Castro took possession, and made public housing of them. Architectural gem becomes cubic zirconium shithouse. We libertarians call this “tragedy of the commons.” Many of them have collapsed. Of those still standing, dirty clothes hang from wrought iron balconies, chickens shit on marble tiled courtyards, and sad faces stare down at you from broken French shutters.

At the top of Fidel’s favorite stolen structure, a 22 story modern concrete hotel, turkey vultures encircle a giant sign that proclaims, “Havana Libre,” or, “Free Cuba!” I felt like a soldier returning to Rome after the Germans had conquered.

The cigars in Cuba are the same price they are Canadian duty free shop. Despite the grand moniker, a “Cuba libre” is just a rum and coke, and it will cost you $US 3-4 dollars. A meal of fried pork/chicken/fish costs anywhere from $10-$20.

The 50’s Chevrolets belch thick black funk from duck-taped tail pipes. They wobble by on bent axles, usually teeming with Cubans, arms and legs flailing from windows. A taxi ride in one of them will cost you $US3-5. Barely refrigerated bottled water will cost you $US 1.50-3.00. The last truly glittering hotel, the beautiful “Hotel Nacional” costs US$ 200 a night, and an 35-65 bucks to get in the cabaret, “Tropicana.” The food’s still shit, but it’s pricey shit — $30-40 a plate.

The average Cuban makes the equivalent of $10 a month. How can this be? As a tourist, you feel constantly swindled. There’s a state police officer on every corner of every block in Havana, watchfully supervising the swindle.

Don’t get me wrong. My vacation wasn’t all bad. Once we got out of Havana, we hit a beach in the south, Playa Alcon, just outside an old cobblestone Spanish colonial town called Trinidad. We stayed with a Cuban family, renting a private room, right on the ocean. As the sun set, we ate illegal fresh fish (i.e. caught privately) that our house keeper Olympia prepared. We rented beat-up 1950’s bikes, and rode down to the whitest, white sand beaches I’ve ever seen. We snorkeled along gorgeous blue coral reefs, and hiked to a mountaintop waterfall. At night, we wiggled our hips to soulful Cuban traditional music. The Cubans are the happiest, and most talented dancers I’ve ever seen. In Trinidad, we were suitably charmed.

You have to hand it to the Cubans. They’re a proud people. Our housekeeper would hide his hardship. He’d say that times have been tougher — that Cubans will always look out for one other. And he was very quick to note the two (and only two) things the country’s got going for it: health care and education. We’ve all heard that line. So we pressed him a little.

Cuba’s health system isn’t voluntary. A government agent comes by your house with a register of what vaccines you should get, when your last trip to the dentist was, what you’re eating, etc. If you haven’t gotten something someone in Havana has decided you need, you’re off to the doctor. What if you don’t want that injection? What if you’d like to keep that tooth? Too bad. The State knows what’s best for you. Roll up your sleeve, put out your arm. It’s not your body. It’s Castro’s. Fidel wants the healthiest populace in Latin America. Step up to the plate.

Cubans are also selectively educated. Fidel, for example, has a thing for farming. Consequently, every 13 year old Cuban kid spends a month at “farming camp” where he learns how to tend the fields like a peasant, growing sugar, rice, and beans with wooden tools. Fidel’s likes languages, too, so a good number of Cubans can speak either German, Italian, or English. But they can only read what Fidel tells them they can. They can’t leave, so travel’s out of the question. Serving tourists is about the only productive use of knowing a second language that’s permitted. So yes, they’re educated. But for what?

Cuba certainly isn’t the backpackers paradise. I did take solace in the feeling I got that the country’s teetering on the edge of revolution. Once that happens, it’s pretty easy to see the island’s potential — fantastic natural resources, a hard working, relatively well educated public, they even respect Castro’s rule of law, perverse though it may be.

Give capitalism ten years in Cuba. It’ll be a backpacker’s dream.

Nicely done.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 29th, 2002 at 6:55 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.