Cuba, First Day

The Cuba Trip: 2012:  Day 1.  Monday, July 23, 2012 

I know a lot more about Cuba than I did the last time I came down here.  At least I know who all the players are, going back to Josie Marti.  I understand why Castro and Che wanted to overthrow the puppet, US backed government.  The last time I came down here, listening to the tour guides, I was convinced that Marti came over on the same boat with Fidel and Che and took over!  Without the knowledge I have now?  The story all kind of ran together.

So it was with a different eye that I left Florida this morning, looking forward to see what, if anything had changed.   The first thing I noticed was the charter.

I’ve never heard of Sky King Airlines.  Lets’ just say they aren’t in the American Airlines Terminal.  The 737, which is kind of the workhorse of airline travel these days, didn’t have the name of the airline painted on it.  But the tail was painted with a lovely picture of tropical fish.  If we go down in the ocean, I have a feeling this will make it harder to recover our bodies.

The second thing I noticed was that the label telling me that my seat could be used for a flotation device, and there was a life jacket under my seat, was in Greek first, and English underneath that. 

I know that Greece is in trouble, but now I’m nervous about just HOW much trouble?  Are they having a fire sale on airliners? 

We always get to board early since Deb can’t see.  This is a real bonus for us.  We always get to put our carry on’s right above our seats.  But this time we’re not all in the same row.  I’m four rows behind them, but hey, at least I got an aisle seat.

Well, I got the shitty end of the deal on this one.  Danny and his mother get two huge, comfy, first class seats.  And get to wedge my fat ass into a regular seat.  This does NOT go un-noticed by the others in our tour group.  A good laugh was had by all. 

Then the regular passengers start to load.  The folks allowed to go to Cuba legally from the United States are ex-patriot Cubans, or folks who have family there, and they are allowed to visit every so many years.  This means old men wearing five straw hats, one on top of the other, to take home for friends and family.  Women carrying boxes and bags that would never, ever be allowed as carry on luggage on any regular US airline flight.  And kids running around screaming,  and sitting anywhere and everywhere, regardless of assigned seat.  Pretty much a Latin bedlam. 

At this point we are a couple of cages full of chickens away from being a Mexican bus. 

But it’s a short flight.  As a matter of fact, we waited longer for our luggage to come off the plane than we were in the air.  “Island Time” does, indeed, make its home in Cuba as well as the rest of, “The Carib”.

Two things haven’t changed about the experience of flying into Cuba.  When the plane touches the ground, all the Cubans start to cheer and applaud.  Like something they didn’t expect to happen, that they were only rooting for, just occurred.

And outside the airport, there is a throng of Cuban’s talking, pushing, not allowing anyone out the door, and waiting for their American relatives.  Judging by the number of big, flat screen TV’s rolling off the luggage carousel, I now know why.  It’s like when dad comes home from a business trip, and the kids are all standing at the door with the, “What did you bring me?” look on their faces. 

Next came a long bus ride through the Cuban  country side.  I didn’t see this part of Cuba the last time I was here.  We stayed in Havana.  But it’s a very pretty, very green country.  In many ways it looks exactly like every other island in the Caribbean.  Everything needs a coat of paint.

The houses are run down.  Most of the roads are dirt.  There are way too many horse drawn wagons doing the work of trucks.  It is very obvious that this country is very poor.  Our Cuban tour guide blames this on the collapse of the Soviet Union, since they were the number one buyer of Cuban sugar.

Considering The Soviet Union dissolved in 1990, and they have had more than 20 years to have found another way to make a buck, or at least another place to sell their sugar?  This seems to be a bit of a stretch.

God forbid you should blame it on a corrupt, communist system that has made the Castro family rich beyond compare, and left the peasants and farmers, and everyone else for that matter, desperately poor!

Lately, I have had trouble with my feet swelling up when I travel.  My doctor says it’s because I’m an old fat guy with blood pressure problems, and that getting up in airplanes will cause this.  So by the third day in Miami, I’m miserable.  And by today, I can take it no longer.  I need a diacritic, and I need it now.  Lucky for me, there is a pharmacy in the all-inclusive resort where we are staying.  And like in Mexico, you don’t need to go get your prescription from a doctor if you know what it is you need. 

Unlike a lot of stuff in Cuba, like the power, the water system and some other things, the medical system is really good.  Everyone can see a doctor, and get medicine when they need it.

When I finally make my needs known to the pharmacist, she tells me to wait a minute, and when she comes back, she has a blister pack of hidroclorotiazida 25.  In her broken English, she explains to me that the pharmacy is out.  But this is her medicine, and she has plenty more to wait until the pharmacy has more, and she wants me to have it.  And she didn’t want any money for it.

Any  one in Utah ever have THAT happen when you went to pick up your overpriced drugs at the local pharmacy? 
 
I finally left a $10 pesos convertibles and thanked her as much as I could.

The toilet in the room didn’t work all afternoon.  And when a guy showed up to fix it, he didn’t have any tools.  It fills pretty slowly, but at least it works.  The shower barely works.  There is only internet access in the lobby.  But hey, it’s an all-inclusive, so the drinks are free.  At least I got THAT going for me.

Dinner was back in Trinidad.  And it turned out to be a lot more interesting than I thought it would.  I learned on the last trip down here, not to believe the BS the government guys will tell you about buying cigars on the black market.  Yeah, they might be seconds, and they might not be as fresh as you get in the State run stores.  But the chances are they, as the locals say, “fell off a truck”.

That’s Cuban for, “as we drove through our neighborhood, we tossed a few boxes to our friends.”  That’s how cigars end up on the black market.  They are always stolen from the legitimate sources.  There is no sense in going to all the trouble to try and forge cigar bands and labels when you live in the land of the stolen cigar.  This is Cuba, not Mexico.

Tonight, I wanted to buy a couple of cigars from the bar where we had dinner.  They wanted $20 for a Cohiba , Especial, and another $7 for a cigarillo I was going to give to, Danny.

Now before you revoke my nomination for, “Father of the Year”, hear me out.  Our Cuban guide told us today, that depending on where you go, someone is going to sell your kid a drink, and a cigar at either 16 or 18, or if they think he looks old enough.  Knowing that he would try this all on his own, I thought that the least I could do was teach him the correct way to smoke a cigar under my supervision, instead of letting him get sick cause he didn’t know what he was doing.

I thought that was too much money.  So I offered $20 for both.  The lady behind the bar, said, “I can’t do that, it’s not my business.”  I understood.  She had a price list, and her orders, and wanted to keep her job. 

I asked the guy who was there, kind of running the cigar room.  And he showed me some boxes of five cigars, but the price was high.  So I just kind of gave up, and decided tonight, was not the night.

But as I’m leaving the kid came to me in the hall way and said, “I can get you a box of cigars for forty pesos.”  Meaning $40 CUC.  That’s less than $10 a cigar.  That’s great.  Even if they prove to be seconds, or not quite up to international standards, I know from my experience down here, they are going to be fresh, and well made.  I tell him I’m in.  And I agree to meet him at the corner in ten minutes.

Well ten minutes comes and goes.  Now, I’m holding up a whole bus load of people.  He keeps telling me that he’s guy is going to come through the door any minute, but I just can’t wait any longer, so I tell him I’m sorry, but I have to go.  And I walk back to the bus.

I know he’ s disappointed, as am I, but I have to think about all the other people on the bus.  I get on with Deb and Danny, and we leave. 

Pretty soon, Danny says, “There’s a kid running, trying to catch the bus.  Is it the guy you wanted to buy cigars from, Dad?”  I look out, and sure enough it is.  And he’s FAST!

I was just going to let it go, but he was really persistent, and I think the bus driver felt sorry for him, so he stopped.

I went up to the bus door and he’s taking a box of Cohiba’s out of a back pack.  Not a five cigar box, a WHOLE, 25 cigar, BOX of Cohiba’s out of the back pack.  I open them up, the cedar is there, the official paperwork and stamps are there.  So I give him the $40 and take the cigars!

The latch on the box is broken.  So this tells me that they are probably seconds, or literally DID fall off that truck, but they look good.  And at $40?  Even if they aren’t that good?  They are going to be pretty, darn, good!

When we got back to the resort?  I passed them out to a few of the guys on the tour, and we smoked them.  They were great!  One of the other guys gave Danny a cigarillo, and he seemed to enjoy it.

He ended up hanging around with some Russian kids his age in the game room, while a group of the adults all sat around talking college football, and smoking cigars until midnight.

This is a really strange story.  But I couldn’t make this stuff up if I wanted to.

And the best part?  If I have some left, and take them home, and Customs takes them from me?  I already got my money’s worth.