Last Day In Cuba. Couldn't Come Too Soon This Time

Cuba Trip.  The Last Day: July 29, 2012

Well, this is it.  Up early and out the door for a trip to an artist’s house in Miramar.  An amazing place.  I can’t wait to post the pictures on line.  Not only is his house decorated with all this amazing art work, his stuff is all over the neighborhood, on all his neighbors houses.  It’s very surreal.  I took a lot of pictures, but since he works mostly in tile and I’m concerned about baggage weight, I didn’t buy anything.

Then it was off to the National Art Museum in Havana.  Deb and I saw this in 2003, and has nice as it is, I had no desire to walk through it again.  Neither did Deb or Danny.  They took off to find a street art fair a few blocks away and stumbled upon an amusement part.  Danny gave away a couple of baseballs to some kids there.  No word on if they started to kick them or not.

Yesterday, he gave one to a little kid, maybe four or five years old, and much to Steve Williams chagrin, the kid put it on the ground and started to kick it like a soccer ball!  It was really funny.

I walked across the street to the Museum of The Revolution.  I’d never had a chance to see it.  I thought I would be going in the big glass house in the middle, and seeing some interesting stuff.  And they charge foreign visitors $6 to get in.  No so.

The big glass house in the middle houses only, “Granma”, the boat that Castro and Che and 80 some other people came over from Mexico in, to start the revolution.  And the glass is not, non-glare.  So even though the boat appears to look like new, you don’t get a very good view of it, because you can’t go inside.

The rest of the grounds are old military vehicles, a car that belonged to Castro, and on the north side of the building were some tanks, a missile and some wreckage from the U2 that was shot down over Cuba during the Missile Crisis.  But that side was roped off, and like everything else in this country was undergoing renovation.  I believe that’s Cuban for, “It’s all screwed up, but we don’t have the money to fix it.”  Probably the worst six bucks (er, Pesos) I ever spent.

So, I went back to the Museum, and spent an hour watching some Cuban kids dance.  Mostly girls from probably five years old, to in their teens.  And I noticed something.  Dance club moms are the same in Cuba, as they are in West Jordan, Utah.  Fawning a little too much.  Putting on a little too much make up.  Running back and forth from the stage to the dressing room because some kid has forgotten some piece of clothing, or head wear.  It appears to be the same the world over.

But I will say this, these kids were talented.  Especially the older girls.  They could really dance.  And they moved so smoothly in those Spanish style dresses, where they pick up the dress and it looks like they have wings.  They were wonderful to watch.

When one of those girls put that dance shoe heel down on the tile with authority?  It sounded like a gunshot!  I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen Flamenco dancing in person.  I was impressed.

After the museum, Edelso decided that we needed a photo opportunity at the Capitol.  It was built in 1929, and is a copy of our Capitol in Washington DC.  I don’t think they would do that now.  All things considered.

While we were there, and it was like everything else, closed for remodeling, there were some guys out front with beautifully restored cars from the 50’s.  And since they are on a public street, they would have a pretty hard time arguing that you couldn’t take a picture without paying them.  So they have come up with another scam.  And poor, Dave in our group, fell for it.

I was talking to the guy with the Pontiac and asking him if he’d restored it, and telling him how beautiful it was, while taking some pictures.   He kept saying, “Here, get inside.  I’ll take your picture for you.”  Over and over again he’s saying this while giving me one word answers to the questions I’m asking about the car.  You would think if he was the guy who did all the work, he’d have been happy to talk about it.  He would have been proud of his work.  Now that I know what I know?  I’m pretty sure he DIDN’T restore the car, but he was using it for bait.

You get in the car, he takes your picture, and if you haven’t negotiated a price before hand?  It’s going to cost you.

Dave took the bait.  He got in the car.  And the guy asked for FORTY PESOS!  He was really pissed off.   He said he was able to talk him down to 20 pesos, but it still stung to get hit like that.

Someone had asked, Edelso to show them a typical Cuban, neighborhood market.  I’d like to see that, too.  So we drove to a couple before it dawned on him that it’s Sunday, and they are all closed.

So, back to the Hotel Nacional.  They have arranged for us, a lecture by a former Cuban diplomat, who has been stationed in Washington DC, Miami, Canada, and the Netherlands and spent the last four years as part of Cuba’s delegation to the United Nations in New York City.  He is going to talk about the relationship between the USA and Cuba.  And that he did.

He said that since we all knew the version from OUR country, he was going to give his countries version.  And that he did.

He traced the problems between the two counties back to John Quincy Adams stating that Cuba should fall under the US's influence, and not Spain’s.  I have to say, I think that’s a stretch.

He talked about how the Cuban people were looking for a way to get out from under the repressive and corrupt Batista administration, and how, Castro and crew saved them by running him off.  And the whole country was proud and happy.

OK.  I, and I’m sure most American’s would understand the desire of any people to be rid of a corrupt, puppet government who was killing people and oppressing people for their own ends.  Not a problem.

But what he failed to address is the fact that the same guy who lead the revolution, for alleged freedom, was still in charge 50 years later!  At some point, the, “revolution” turned into a, “Dictatorship”.  Because, no matter how much you like the leader?  You’re going to want a different one at some point in the next 50 years.

Unless you live in Utah, and keep voting for that asshole, Orrin Hatch.

There were some other lies this man told, but I didn’t want to be, “The Ugly American” so I just let it go, since I was in his house.  And he was a nice enough guy.  The bulk of what he said was true.  We do treat Cuba badly, and if we didn’t, I believe, the communists would be gone shortly.

We didn’t knock over the Berlin wall with a bomb.  We knocked it over with Van Halen records, and Levis jeans.  And we could do the same thing in Cuba, but we don’t have the guts to try.

Tonight’s dinner was awful.  It was at a touristy place on the other side of the Bay.  It was like any touristy restaurant at home.  The better the view and the more people rave about how much they liked it there?  The more it sucks.

This place is on the East Bay, and its right between the two forts.  I’m sure it gets a lot of tour group traffic.  It should not, but it does.  The Lobster was cold, and the beer was warm.  Nothing else needs to be said.

Then it was off to the cannon ceremony.  They do this every night.  In Colonial times, they would pull the chain up at the mouth of Havana Harbor every night at nine o’clock.  The harbor mouth is only 350 feet wide.  So it’s easy to defend if you can pull up a chain, and you have something like five forts all around the entrance.  And when they would do this, they would fire off a cannon, to tell the whole city of Havana that it was nine o’clock, and the harbor, was closed for the night.

I lost Deb and Danny in the crowd.  But since it’s dark, and even a good flash on an average camera, won’t get you any really, interesting pictures?  It didn’t matter.  You just watch the ceremony, and you wait for the, “BOOM!”

According to Deb?  The, “BOOM!” scared my son.  I guess he had no idea what to expect.  Deb said he about jumped out of his skin.  And she knows, she was hanging on to that skin when it happened.

We got back to the hotel, we got packed, I wrote this, and we went to bed.  End of story on Cuba.

I don’t think I’ll come back here.  This trip was not good.  Not only could I NOT bring back cigars, even though I’m here legally, I spent way too much time on a bus, and not enough time interacting with the Cuban people.

I was thinking today about what I have to declare when we go back home tomorrow.  And it appears NOTHING!  I bought cigars and rum, but I enjoyed them here, because I was told I couldn’t bring them home.  Deb bought no jewelry, because we didn’t have time to shop.  Danny bought two paintings, but the total value on both is $13.  Deb and I bought some ceramics at the studio we went to as part of the tour in Trinidad, but that HAS to qualify as ART!  Shit, we went there to meet the ARTIST who is so famous that he does this stuff and sells it worldwide!  And we spent a grand total of ten pesos for two items.

I brought $3K with me.  I spent, including tips for the tour guide, our Cuban, “Handler/tour guide” and the bus driver?  Less than $600 dollars, including what I converted to get out of the country tomorrow morning.

Last time we were here, and had some free time?  We pumped a LOT more money into the Cuban economy.

So I don’t know who’s setting the amount of time these kinds of tours need to be occupied?  But if it’s the Cubans?  They are really screwing up.