Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.05.2007, Síða 20

_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 06_007_TRAVEL/CUBA REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 06_007_TRAVEL/CUBA_3
Coming out the door at Havana’s José Martí
Airport, hygiene goes right out of the window
as dirt, sweat and clammy handshakes start
melding with my body like yellow pulsating
maggots consuming me.
Claus, a bum-looking German, plants his
skinny ass in the cab along with a sorry pale
Briton, itching to prove his uselessness. As
Europe’s The Final Countdown sets the tune
for Havana over the car radio, Claus fails to
keep his stories straight and I plot accommo-
dation and Mojitos with Eddie, the nervous
Londoner whom I just recruited out of the
ATM line.
The heat immediately hits like a sucker-
punch but is blessedly free of humidity. My
over-stuffed suitcase berates my poor research
out of the grimy trunk, and every sleeved and
hooded article starts feeling the lack of love
in the air. After a cold shower in a hotel on
the main drag, the further lack of research
unveils the surprise of two different local cur-
rencies, one 26 times the price of the other
– a Commie device to milk the tourist dry.
The street is still a mystery and the vibe is
yet to be felt, so we stroll down the boulevard
as blank slates for the onslaught of Cuban
mockery of all things culinary. Five time zones
and nine hours of flight out of Gatwick and
I never thought I’d encounter a plate I’d be
willing to trade for the vile vein clogging ways
of an English breakfast.
Not ones for the soft-sell, these capitalism
craving hustlers, vendors and service provid-
ing men of Havana. I hone my deaf, dumb
and blind act further for each assault. Walk
straight and goal oriented while turning a
blind eye and feigning ignorance of both the
English and Spanish language. Turn reason-
able doubt on its head and acquit no smile
of guilt or you will find yourself so deeply
befriended you end up in someone’s living
room battling incredible deals on stolen cigars,
crap weed, black market casas particulares
(i.e, Bed & Breakfast) or an undesirable piece
of ass.
On the Road
Eddie is slowly slipping away and I let him and
his touristy ways go without a care. We are
just back from the road and traffic bears new,
preposterous connotations. Hitch-hikers of
refugee camp proportions give way to rickety
horse and carriage, melding with traffic going
the wrong way or a pair of oxen with cart,
trudging forward in medieval slow-motion
with produce in tow for a trek the length of
the Crusades.
Fact or tourist book legend has it that
filling vacant seats with hitchers is compul-
sory in Cuban law and the sheer amount of
raised thumbs supports it. Eddie pops his
cherry driving on the right side of the road
and raises desperate cries of distress from
a ravaged gear-box whose stick he’s accus-
tomed to fondling with his left hand. The
vehicle – which is neither washed or cleaned
out between customers – rolls its merry way
on my credit card and I quickly strip him of
his driving rights so that he may focus his
terrified little worldview on refusing even
those hitchers who give us directions at rural
intersections.
The landscape is like beauty stacked upon
beauty ad infinitum. Eddie’s hesitant, accented
Spanish is engaged with a blond eyesore of a
girl he reluctantly picked up as a reward for
her directions. My keener and more cynical
eyesight, coupled with my lesser Spanish skills,
flash us back to where Eddie went from be-
ing a fellow adventurer to an untrustworthy
object of scorn, where common love of rum
and photography ceased to matter – the point
where my communist curiosity folded in front
of the forces of suspicion.
In the street every impoverished soul is
happy as can be and I wonder why because
this does not look like a façade. And we’re
exploring and we’re walking aimlessly and
we take friendly smiles and gestures at face
value…and we’re in for a surprise. Or at least
I am. Eddie is a dozen paces ahead of me
and we’re barely talking, just exchanging
observations.
Making New Friends
The guy is young, tall and slender and he
slides up to me like a serpent while employing
stock hustler terms of endearment. We’ll call
him Pedro, as it’s the first name that comes
to mind and you’ll go along and he’ll be a
person and not just an object signifying the
moment Cuba became a chore. Naturally he
informs me of our friendship, like they all do,
and of course he wants to know where I’m
from; he’s not thrown off by my unorthodox
answers. I instinctively never let go of my
high-end camera, although it hangs on a
leash around my neck.
I reject his attempts at bonding through
musical tastes and he goes straight for the
kill with his left hand, still holding my corre-
sponding shoulder, while the right one lunges
for the camera – only to find itself dropping
down rapidly along with his scrawny legs
pursuing in an arc where his face impacts
with pavement alongside the lens.
People tend to freeze with fear I am told
and I have seen it in the faces of witnesses
at fatal car crashes before, but I have seldom
frozen myself. So with my arm around Pedro’s
neck for a brief moment, with my elbow
and knees to the blacktop, I glimpse Eddie
looking like a wild eyed statue and his kick
will not come to my aide. So Pedro slips out
like a snake and scrambles to his feet and
the locals are as blind as Eddie is immobile.
Even with my camera still in my grip, blood
thirst swells within me and Pedro retreats
backwards from my gathering fury and pulls
a long, double-edged, ornately hilted knife to
sedate my urge for a cold blooded hunt just
before turning to run like Forrest Gump.
And Eddie still stands there as if made
from stone. I might well just slap him out of
his stupor or part my disgusted way with him
right there – but I don’t – and as I walk away
blood trickles down my forearm from where
gravel is lodged deep in the elbow.
Caribbean Dreams
Back on the road, the girl leads us to a hilltop
lookout so scenic I’d buy property if some-
one were standing there accepting Visa. We
find our way to a restaurant at the edge of a
field, where a guy hand rolls cigars sitting at
a workbench and the food is just as terrible as
everywhere else. The patron takes me into the
tobacco drying barn where I finally invest in
some cigars because nothing can be as perfect
as this – or because the Mojitos are kicking in
and it buys me some time away from Eddie
and his little 50 mile romance.
Hours later we roll through an army check-
point, from the directions given by a hitcher,
Scenes From a Dying Dream of Cuba
Text and photos by Bogi Bjarnason
while still unaware of the signature Cuban
practice of charging tourists for services they’ve
unknowingly received – which we’ll soon be-
come accustomed to at possible gunpoint.
But the beach is serene and the scuba diving
spear fishermen we encounter is exactly the
stuff my Caribbean dream is made of.
After paying through our noses going
back the way we came, we end up where
superlatives go to die: A deep valley modelled
after heaven with sheer rock walls hundreds
of meters high, painted with Jurassic scenes
commemorating the archaeological finds made
right here at this spot with cheap, rustic huts
converging on a pool and a small museum.
The price is right and joy starts bubbling
inside me again. Inside our bargain hut there
a two cots and nothing else but my brimming
glee born out of large cigars and swigs of rum
straight out of the bottles offered poolside by
vacationing school kids. At last I find an edible
meal hidden in a backyard full of Scandinavians
and Britons dining under the cover of dark-
ness.
Inefficiency Cuban Style
Mastodon is spinning on the car stereo as
we run out of asphalt. I’m looking back at
the police cluster under the overpass behind
us when Eddie starts screaming and I see
we are rolling on grass. No signs are posted.
The officers aren’t waving people to slow
down. The road just ends. What will they
think of next? How about having you go to
four different registers to pay for different
kinds of merchandise at the Supermercado
or checking your bag with an old lady? Yup,
you bet they got that kinda backwardness in
check. Such a sweet vacation spot for queue
aficionados indeed. Nobody does inefficiency
like the Cubans.
How about me getting the fuck out, I say,
although my flight is in 3 weeks and I haven’t
been to a Spanish tutor yet. So I go find one
and my handful of Spanish trumps her table
scraps of English. We give and take for a while
and I learn some and she gains some. But the
armed robbery jitters funnel down into my
paranoia tank and I’m spending more and
more time hanging out at the Hotel Nacional,
which looks Bond movie sleek apart from the
explosions and long legged Bond girls.
Eddie is history – having hightailed it for
the airport amidst a scene where our landlords
are desperately trying to sell him whatever
shit he had said he might possibly buy later
every time they pushed it on us. I, on the
other hand, cruise Havana for a few days
and spend my nights in an easy chair writ-
ing prose while hooked to a Cuba Libre I.V
listening to a city where living rooms open
to the street and keeping secrets must be a
bitch, as you can hear every word said – even
if your neighbour’s wife is faking it.
Goodbye Cuba
I slip out under cover of night and Landlord
Luis won’t be on my case again with the cigars
his grandma heisted from work. I won’t be
roused every day by friends rapping on my
door trying to get in. No more street corner
Domino games where I’m expected to donate
a bottle of Havana Club. Only one last day
of endless walking and clicking the shutter,
turning architecture – glorious, colonial and
crumbling – to pixels, capturing street life
in its vibrant vitality and leaving only tourist
revenue in return.
The Sunday street market is like a carnival
and elsewhere men mix cement with shovels
right on the street to patch their derelict
homes or take the wrench to their aging La-
das. Canine faeces leave trails like Hansel in
the bewitched forest and open sewers run like
babbling brooks by foot-high curbs of roads
where chariots of Detroit motor companies
jerk you kicking and screaming back to the
50s in full Technicolor, spewing plumes of
exhaust like Indian signal fires.
Early morning I sit headphoned and finish
the last paragraph of my book on the floor
of José Martí. The gate is about to open and
half a pair of Swedish girls is on the last page
of her book as well, and the other half looks
surprised when I propose a book trade in
Swedish – and behold, I’ve got me a posse
for the Mexican leg of my journey.
Five time zones and nine
hours of flight out of Gat-
wick and I never thought
I’d encounter a plate I’d
be willing to trade for the
vile vein clogging ways of
an English breakfast.
MAKE TÓPAS NOT WAR!
TÓPAS TO THE PEOPLE
FREEDOM FIGHTERS