Great Things About Cuba

Well mainly it would have to be the people, the music, the historic buildings.



Example: chambermaids at Hotel Sevilla make animal shapes out of towels and leave handwritten notes to guests, welcoming them to the hotel.

The people who deal with tourists display no envy, no resentment at all that these yumas get to enjoy life in a way that's denied to them. Even when they are asking you for something, they are keen for you to take something from them. A woman in Santiago begged me quite insistently for clothes of my five-year old daughter's, who she said was the same age as her own daughter (L). But by then I'd given away half of what we brought to give away and the rest was all promised. I'd asked L if I could give away her dresses and promised to buy her more in the UK, but L wouldn't hear of it. She's very attached to her clothes and I wasn't going to upset her - she wouldn't understand the argument of need. So I told this woman 'sorry, but no'. "Please," she said. "Or you give me something of yours," she said, "and I'll give you something of mine."

We were given salsa CDs, books in Spanish, necklaces made of seeds and beads, pottery ash-trays, little wooden dolls. Nobody took a thing from us without giving us something in return. The couple we befriended in Havana, Alicia and Giovannis, were desperate to take us to Coppelia, Cuba's favourite ice-cream chain (3 flavours!), where they insisted they'd pay for all of us (tourist money isn't allowed there).

Hotel staff, people in the street, everyone treats visitors well. It's a contrast with Mexico, for example, where tourists are also very important, but won't feel all that special.

Then there's the music.



It's incomparable and ubiquitous. Any band wandering the street is better than any so-called 'Cuban band' I've seen in most places, except top-notch Cuban restaurants in London and Mexico City. They'll play any Cuban tune you can name. In Santiago we asked for 'Donde Vas Domitila?' (the song played by the trio which follows Ralph Richardson everywhere in 'Our Man in Havana'). Well, those old geezers had never had the song requested, but they made a fair pass at it, improvising words for the verses.

It's awe-inspiring, such talent. Yulieski, the chisel-featured Santiaguero, a young salsa singer-in-training was the only uniformly cheerful Cuban we had dealings with. It was pretty obvious that he had music running through his head the whole time.


And then there's the gorgeous legacy of the Spanish - similar in grandeur to what you find in Mexico, but in the Oriente it also has a French twist that makes it all a bit New Orleans.

C'est magnifique!

Bad Things About Cuba

It's easy to fall in love with Cuba as a tourist. Cubans make you feel very special. As a tourist, you represent the best chance for every single person you meet, for the chance, even a tiny one, at a shot of something better. If you give them a dollar (a CUC), maybe they can buy something that would otherwise be out of their reach. That's why, like the guy who drove us to the airport the day we left (a former professor of English) and our bell-hop (tall, white, perfect English, I guarantee he was a former engineer or scientist), the poorly paid intelligentsia quit their jobs for a shot at a precious job in tourism.

Here's a country that has screwed up so badly that being a chambermaid beats being a doctor.

But I don't want you to think, reading this blog, that I'm infected with the sort of romanticism about Cuba that has the some people ga-ga for Fidel. (Mentioning no names, but has anyone noticed how many notable writers and actors have reported that they've been yacking to Fidel on the phone lately? It's a wonder he has the energy to recover, what with award-winning actors and novelists after him day and night on the phone...)


Walking the streets of Havana, you don't see well-dressed people. People wear cheap-looking, ill-fitting clothes, simple skirts, jeans or slacks with T-shirts. Cheap shoes, falling apart. No sunglasses, in a country where the sun shines brilliantly most of the year. The only women who have much make-up are the ones who work in tourist places.

They don't walk with the bounce and energy of people in a Latin country like Mexico. If you discount the energy which comes from anything associated with music, you begin to notice that the energy level of every person is low. When people talk to you about life, it's clear that just getting enough varied food to eat is a problem. People come up to you and beg you for spare sunglasses, sunblock, face-cream, clothes for their kids.

This does not happen in Mexico - beggars are happy with a few pesos. They can buy their own sunglasses etc - such products are available cheap in the massive, amazingly stocked and cheap supermarket chains. The energy levels of Mexico City are about a 100 times what you see in Cuba.

Crossing the island, two things impress:

1. The utter lack of any sign of the modern world. No traffic, the main highway is an almost uniformly lumpy thoroughfare that in Mexico would barely qualify as the 'libre' - the toll-free roads which meander across the country. Apart from the dreary communist/banana republic architecture (two storeys, long concrete blocks, often painted pink or blue, with shuttered windows, no glass, or lots of broken windows), you don't see any buildings dating after the 50s. Lots of nice art deco buildings too, but everything in a state of total disrepair. There are still lots of people living in tiny, weather board huts, and it isn't for reasons of olde-world charm, in case any visitors to the island have found this charming.

Near Havana you see lots of citrus orchards. These give away to sugar cane and bananas as you go east. The plantations don't look anything like as large and well-tended as what I've seen in Veracruz, Mexico, or the expansive strawberry fields of Irapuato. There's a marked absence of modern equipment. You might occasionally see a pathetic old tractor. Elsewhere, skinny men cut sugar cane by hand, stack it on their backs and carry it around. I even saw people carrying water across their backs, in two buckets.

2. The substitution of billboards advertising brands etc, for horrible, preachy communist slogans and propaganda. Photos of the eminently photogenic Che accompany slogans like 'Che- it's our hope that you'll all be like him', 'Socialism or Death', 'Imperialism - not even a tiny bit!' It's funny until you realise that this isn't a ubiquitous joke. Like citizens of former Soviet countries that I'm friends with, the people we met in Cuba just shrugged and told us that they ignore such stuff.

Well, not the enterprising rip-off merchant Daniru who took us for a very expensive rickshaw ride in Santiago. "Socialismo!" he cried, punching the air as we passed a poster of Che. "Socialism is the only way!" he yelled. Maybe he thought we'd come searching wide-eyed for a socialist paradise. But if he lost my sympathy, it was there. When it came to asking for money, Daniru demonstrated a perfect understanding of capitalism - the price of a thing is what someone is willing to pay for it, no more and no less.

Latino people are naturally pretty hot-blooded. How has an entire island of such people been suckered into accepting such a miserable existence. Is it really worth living like that, just to be able to boast that you're independent of the USA? Maybe I'm just a stupid yuma (Cuban equivalent of the term gringo, meaning foreigner, probably from the rich West), but I think Mexico's attitude to the USA is better, more practical, whilst also being ambivalent.

The only places you see Cubans looking really happy is in places where there's music and dancing. The world famous Casa de la Musica in Havana, which features in so many salsa songs, is only really accessible to upper-middle-class Cubans and those with links with tourists. The dance floor fills with a mixture of Europeans and Afro-Cuban salsa teachers. It's even worse at the Casa de la Trova in Santiago, which fills with middle-aged, non-dancing European tourists who have fallen for the world of Wim Wenders' film, "Buena Vista Social Club". Not that there's anything wrong with that, but if like us, you've gone out there hoping to mingle with Cubans dancing in their own environment, being crammed into a room with a bunch of white, middle-class European tourists to listen to Cuban musicians is not quite the draw is could be.

At times I actually longed for La Maraka of Mexico City, the most authentic latin salsa dance hall I've ever known. If only they played more Cuban music, it could be the best in the world!

Daiquiri en Sancti Spiritus

Our barman in Sancti Spiritus - King of the Daiquiri!

We enjoyed a two-night break in the middle of the island in the lovely old town of Sancti Spiritus. This felt almost like Spain. Not a single person hustled us, or even gave us more than a very brief second glance. We stayed in a lovely little hotel where they had the most fabulous, smoothily frothy, frozen daiquiris. My friend Sally (we've been pals since primary school, where we took cello lessons together) and I had promised each other that we'd devote the evening to drinking ourselves into oblivion on daiquiris.

Well, we were so tired after the 12 hour bus ride (and it's not very far at all!) that two cocktails each pretty much did the job.

Hero Pursued in Santiago

One of the charming (not!) billboards that plague the countryside of Cuba, reminding everyone how what a wonder the revolution is, what great things it's going to achieve. Cubans must wonder what happens when the revolution goes wrong, if a successful revolution leaves a Latin-American country, once a jewel of the Spanish Empire looking something like an impoverished African country.
This one says: Santiago - in the past - rebellious. Now - hospitable. Always - heroic.

It's no secret that I'm planning to set my next book in Cuba. (Well, it isn't now...) Not one of the Joshua books, something new. Well this is the story of how one Cuban received the proposed plot of the book I'm calling 'Jaguar's Realm'. (whoever publishes it - if anyone - may well change the title).

After the son lesson, we'd invited Yulieski and his girlfriend to join us for dancing at the Santiago Melia's fancy nightclub, the Santiago Cafe. Well, it's another shiny, cheesy latino nightclub where they play salsa for about half an hour and then solid latin disco music, just like most latin dance clubs in Mexico and apparently Cuba too. The setting is quite nice - an ersatz square in old Santiago, with reproductions of famous city spots, like the Casa de la Trova and a well-known bar. Yulieski turned up 30 mins late - sans jeune fille! I wasn't entirely convinced by his having apparently misunderstood that our invitation had extended to the girlfriend too. I figured she didn't like son but might like a fancy nightclub. "I thought you were just inviting me and the dance teacher", Yulieski said, all innocence.

The dance teacher had quite rightly turned up his nose at the invite. "That sort of place," he muttered, "is not really my scene."

Yulieski seemed keener. We agreed to keep quiet about the fact that he'd been out with us. I guessed that he had his reasons - didn't buy the mix-up. There was a live band playing son. They were good but not as good as the guys we'd heard in La Trova. Yulieski was keen to try out what he'd seen the dance teacher show us. He picked it up quickly, but was too shy to dance on the main dance floor.

Between dances he smoked and asked me what stuff I write. I told him a bit about Joshua and then told him I was planning another book, possibly a series, the first book of which would be set in Cuba. I told him the plot. Years and adult sophistication fell away as he listened. "And then this could happen...he said, jumping in with a series of suggestions. Pretty good ones too, but using a plot device which I use in Joshua 2, so that, I explained couldn't be used.

"Your story," he observed, "is the story of all boys in Santiago. We dream of crossing the island to Havana and finding a way to get to Florida. And like all Cubans, your hero is pursued in his own country."

"So it's a metaphor for the Cuban experience?" I said. Yulieski nodded. "I hope they let me back into the country if it gets published," I said. Yulieski's eyes widened in sudden realization. "...True!"

Yulieski kept making trips to and from the bar. "Maybe I'll stay on for a bit," he said as we got up to leave. "There are other girls to dance with," I said, looking around. Iran blushed and covered his face. "There are. But it's a secret, okay?"

Not anymore, pal.

Salsa al Contratiempo en Santiago

Santiago de Cuba as seen from the balcony of Sandra's house. We had a similar view in a house where we were taught by one of the most wonderful dancers I've ever seen - a young Afro-Cuban called Yoannis (it IS his real name - he deserves to be famous, he is AMAZING!)

Here's a clip of Yoannis dancing his smooth, Santiago-style salsa.

We met him in the Casa de la Trova, where the world's best son cubano bands perform. This is where Compay Segundo, Eliades Ochoa and those Buena Vista old guys used to play. It's an old house just off Parque Cespedes, the main square in Santiago. On the second floor, with an open balcony which overlooks the nearby alleyway, wooden ceiling fans fail to cool the air. By the time theyve danced a few numbers, all non-Cubans are glistening with sweat. The Cubans, however, wear white, stay cool and glide effortlessly across the floor, dancing in their unique Santiago style. We watch, mesmerised as old couples take the floor to the music of 'Los Jubilados' (the Retirees). In the hall next door, Yulieski takes me for a spin. He dances beautifully, quite unlike the Habaneros. It's graceful, his left arm stays rigid in the ballroom hold and he guides me around the hall. Before long, I'm totally converted to the Santiago style.

We've told Yulieski that we want to learn to dance son, the old dance from which salsa takes many of its basic moves. He finds a guy he knows, a dance teacher - Yoannis - signalling to the young dancer that I'd like a dance. Yoannis looks me up and down very briefly. He stares at me archly. "Salsa or son?" "Son," I say. "The timing is different," and begins to move. "2,3,4...6,7,8. See? Not like salsa, on the 1." We begin to dance. He doesn't try anything fancy - dance teachers rarely show off with a dancer they don't know. And I asked him to dance...so I get the bored-but-dutiful act. Yulieski watches. He's from Santiago but he's never tried dancing son. "I think of it as for older people," he admits. "But it looks pretty good..."

Sandra and Odris, Yulieski's girlfriend, are there too, but only Pupa seems to be having a good time. Odris looks bored rigid. "There's a Casa de la Musica here in Santiago too," she hints. "They play reggaeton."

Reggaeton! The youngsters are all mad for it. No need for partners and no need to learn steps.

After the band finish, the DJ plays salsa and timba. People dance between the tables - the dance floor is too small. Yoannis takes a stick-thin Cuban woman by the hand as Adalberto Alvarez's homage to the orishas of the Santeria religion, "Y Que Tu Quiere Que Te Den" begins to play. They begin to dance - son mixed with salsa. It's a casual dance, improvised, but better than any performance I've seen, with the possible exception of Rafael di Busto and Janet Fuentes, the world champions of salsa. Once the chorus starts to salute the orishas - Yoannis and his partner break apart and begin to dance folkloric style - rumba and proper African dancing, laughing and joking, teasing each other. Our eyes are popping out at how amazing they are. The table next door is filled with European women. One of them leans over and tells us "He's our dance teacher. Why don't you get him to give you a private lesson?"

Later, trying to cool off on the balcony, I meet Yoannis and ask him for a private lesson. "How much do you charge?" "Have you got a thousand dollars?" he says. "No..how much for two hours?" "Well...if you don't have a thousand dollars...then I charge ten dollars per hour per person."

We meet Yoannis the next afternoon and he walks us through the streets of Santiago, saluting pals on the way, to a house where he's borrowing the front room. There he spend an hour correcting some bad habits we've picked up in salsa, then we get down to the task in hand.

We've asked Yoannis to show us how to dance contratiempo - counter-time - the timing and movements of son, to the music of salsa. Proper Cuban salsa should mix son, mambo and rumba. But it isn't easy! He makes us find the countertime on a whole series of tracks.

Yulieski watches, and dances on his own. As we leave his eyes are gleaming. "Let's go out tonight and practice!"