Ahh Cuba.
When you step off the plane you feel Cuba's heat wash over you like a wave. This heat brings with it a scent of things to come and leaves you wanting more. Cuba, you learn pretty quickly, actually lives and breathes, you can feel it's heartbeat if you stand still for long enough.
Driving from the airport you are taken from cane fields to a colourful Havana, the place you imagined, the people you thought you would see, the cigar smoke you knew would hang heavy in the air. However after a few short hours a change in you will grow that you cannot deny, a change that will fester the longer you linger in Cuba's interesting socialist paradise.
Cuba without a doubt is a beautiful country, rich in history, (in)famous for it's revolutionaries and a stubborn little survivor in a capitalist world. Cuba however was a surprise, it came close to proving every preconceived idea I had about Cuba to be almost completely wrong. I learnt and confirmed it over the month I spent roaming Cuba's lush soils, that although Cuba lives and breathes, it's breath is closer to a smokers wheeze than a soft breeze and its heart beat is tired and slow.
When you step off the plane you feel Cuba's heat wash over you like a wave. This heat brings with it a scent of things to come and leaves you wanting more. Cuba, you learn pretty quickly, actually lives and breathes, you can feel it's heartbeat if you stand still for long enough.
Driving from the airport you are taken from cane fields to a colourful Havana, the place you imagined, the people you thought you would see, the cigar smoke you knew would hang heavy in the air. However after a few short hours a change in you will grow that you cannot deny, a change that will fester the longer you linger in Cuba's interesting socialist paradise.
Cuba without a doubt is a beautiful country, rich in history, (in)famous for it's revolutionaries and a stubborn little survivor in a capitalist world. Cuba however was a surprise, it came close to proving every preconceived idea I had about Cuba to be almost completely wrong. I learnt and confirmed it over the month I spent roaming Cuba's lush soils, that although Cuba lives and breathes, it's breath is closer to a smokers wheeze than a soft breeze and its heart beat is tired and slow.
Cuba is and isn't what you think it is, its loved and hated at the same time, it is communism that supports a small minority getting rich off capitalism more than it supports the people. The people are tired, they seem to have lost the energy they were so proud of in the 60s and 70s. They have been scarred by Fidels 'special period' and the use of the insufficient ration cards, they are sick of the rich getting richer and the poor staying poor. The people of Cuba seem to be waiting, whether its on a stoop smoking a cigar or napping with pistol in lap at a desk guarding some unknown warehouse entrance. Waiting for change but: too scared? tired? respectful of their benevolent leader Fidel? to make these changes. These questions I could not figure out nor could i peer any deeper into the lives, ideas or feelings of this country. It is strictly forbidden, not necessarily by the government (although there are jail sentences if you bad mouth the government and rewards if you dob in your neighbor), but these people do not like or want to reveal the true nature of this county.
In Cuba the traveller in you is forcefully pushed aside to the tourist in you. You are forced onto tourist only buses to tourist only restaurants to tourist only parks. Leave these places at your own peril. Dangerous? No! Outside these tourist zones is nothing, no food for sale, in fact no food, the locals surviving on there meager rations and a hard days toil in the fields. So fully air-conditioned buses take you along the well worn tourist path guided by the invisible and in your face government, with their political billboards and state supported graffiti artists.
I did enjoy Cuba but the lack of necessities, the poverty living side by side with the rich and the endless hustlers offering you cheap cigars and women eventually gets you down. They wear you out, or at least your ability to see the bright side of this Caribbean island and its people.
I did enjoy Cuba but the lack of necessities, the poverty living side by side with the rich and the endless hustlers offering you cheap cigars and women eventually gets you down. They wear you out, or at least your ability to see the bright side of this Caribbean island and its people.
All this aside, there are some very beautiful people and some areas in which the communist system function to the people's greatest benefit. Small communities thrive and networks exist which allow each and every friend, partner, family member or fellow Cubano to benefit from tourism. Casas link you to other Casas, taxis suggest their friends first, restaurants (when they have no food, which is quite common) will send you to another which offers equally Cuban food. One particulary funny and sad moment was when we visited a government run pizza chain, sat down and were given the menus. The waiter came out a few moments later and informed us that 'tonight we have no pizza'. They simply lacked the ingredients to make the base.
I loved Cuba and but I couldn't love the daily contradictions the people face. I loved many of the people I met and the places they lived but I couldn't love the restrictions and hardships these people faced. Cuba truly is a puzzle, a maze for the learner and a riddle I couldn't quite figure out.
Cuba is: Colour, Communism but most of all Cuba is a living, breathing contradiction.
Yours truly,
Mikey Fitz
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