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| Tight moves for tight asses |
Travel Feature |
Words by: Dave Strong
Like so many people, I have always wanted to travel to Cuba before Fidel Castro died. I wanted to see the romanticised Cuba I had imagined for so many years. The Cuba where old Chevrolets barrelled down the streets, Salsa was played live in every bar and people were happily smoking Cohiba cigars and drinking Havana Club at all hours of the day. The Cuba I was sure would disappear when Fidel was no longer leading the ‘revolution’.
This year I arrived in Cuba just as Fidel was handing over his power to his brother Raoul. Fidel was being treated for a life threatening illness.. Reading the news from the west one could have be forgiven for believing that Cuba would experience another revolution the moment Fidel passed. This is why I was so keen to get there before he died. However speaking to Cuban’s on the street nothing could seem further from the truth. Most Cubans believed it would be business as usual with Raoul in charge and that the country would continue very much in the same way it had. Though there was no real vision about what Cuba might look like if they both died.
In many ways, like most romanticised fantasy, mine was half based in truth and the other half was complete fiction. Cuba is an amazing country. It is full of stunning old American cars (you can only own a car in Cuba if it was built prior to the revolution, cars built after are owned by the government). Cuban people dance better than our pop idols could ever hope to, they love rum when they can afford it and they would probably smoke cigars all day if they could afford those too.
Cubans on the whole are proud of being Cuban, they have a passion for life and happiness, this is infectious, they are incredibly friendly and they live in a country that is so visually stunning you feel like you’re on a film set most of the time.
While I’m making mass generalisations, Cubans are very aware of their own history, you feel the revolution is omnipresent, they are happy to have a health and education system that the revolution has provided them, they are acutely aware of its accessibility and how this differs from so many other countries. But since the collapse of the USSR and its support of Cuba, most Cubans are less than satisfied with the economic situation in the country.
It is tight in Cuba. Damn tight. I was told on a couple of occasions that the average wage of a Cuban doctor is twenty-eight US dollars per month, now when you consider a beer in Cuba is One US Dollar you can see why it is so tight.
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You may think that this should make any Cuban holiday very affordable, but like nearly every expectation you bring to Cuba, this one is instantly smashed. Cuba’s main source of income is tourism and the government and the people of Cuba seem to have invented a thousand ways to make sure that you spend as much money as possible while you are there. So much so, that there is a completely different currencies in Cuba for tourism, one which specified for tourism. This currency (the covertible peso) has somehow become almost mainstream in Cuba and as such the Cubans rely on it. Cubans are constantly trying to interact and do business with foreigners to get access to it. All under the watchful eye of the Cuban Police who appear to have a million regulations to minimise this interaction.
Amongst all this, I must say that one of the very striking things about Cuba is that it has no commercial advertising, after a few days there you become aware that there is something missing from your normal landscape, for me it was incredibly refreshing when I realised it was advertising. The combination of there being very few products available and no advertising in Cuba took me to a sort of serene space of having very few desires for anything I didn’t immediately need. This in itself can be a sort of revolution in your mind, because this massive amount of energy that is normally devoted to sifting and filtering the bombardment of modern marketing suddenly becomes available for something else.
For me what it became available for, was trying to understand the complex nature of the interactions between Cubans and foreigners. Desperately trying to count 1,2,3 and to move my feet at the same time so as to not feel like I was committing social suicide on a Cuban dance floor, but more than anything I was completely in enthralled by the sheer beauty of a place, that visually seems like it stopped still in 1959.
If you love travelling, make Cuba a destination. The country oozes charm, and the combination of people, politics, beauty and tight, tight asses make it completely unique. The ‘revolution’ is still alive in Cuba and while the Castro’s are still its guardians it should stay this way. But make sure you get there soon, because they can’t live forever.
See images in our Cuba gallery here.
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Tags: Travel
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