Searching for Cuba'snext big revolution

CUBA
Searching for Cuba'snext big revolution
By SPUD HILTON TRAVEL WRITER
May 20, 2009, 12:36PM

HAVANA, CUBA — Every last bit of Havana — Cuba's roiling, spicy,
sensual, celebrated capital — is laid out before me.

The windows at the top of the 358-foot José Martí museum tower are a
View-Master wheel (or Flickr site) of "Cuba Highlights:" the seven-story
brooding face of Che Guevara; the mobster hotels of the 1950s; Habana
Vieja's 19th-century Spanish architecture; the vividly colored,
smoke-belching Caddies and Buicks from Eisenhower's era; and even the
waterfront Malecón, where cubanos do social networking the original way
— with actual faces and books.

What I can't seem to locate, no matter which direction I search, is the
Axis of Evil.

It should be here somewhere. Despite having almost every kind of
attraction travelers want — from postcard beaches to ancient cathedrals
to rain-forest adventure — Cuba has been forbidden fruit to U.S.
citizens for half a century because it is so, well, evil.

So my plan is to spend five days in and around Havana sifting the past
and the present for answers about the future, especially in the wake of
recent moves toward lifting U.S. travel restrictions. Are mainstream
U.S. tourists ready for Cuba? Will a few million more visitors corrupt
the vibrant, authentic culture in one of the last places on Earth
without a McDonald's or a Starbucks? Will Fidel Castro's coffin be
cylindrical to allow for easier spinning?

The rest of my plan is to experience a sneak preview, the travel version
of theatrical coming attractions, on the chance that the micro-Cold War
will finally thaw — but also to get a glimpse of the real thing, just in
case it all turns into Cancún 2.0.
Getting an education

Cuba is deceptively big. The largest of the Greater Antilles, it is 766
miles end to end, roughly the flying distance from Beaumont to El Paso.
With just five days, including departure and arrival, I confined my
plans to Havana, a city of 2.2 million.

Having had no objective education in Cuban history, I opted for a crash
course at the ornate three-story presidential palace, a sprawling marble
manse that now serves as the Museo de la Revolución (Museum of the
Revolution). Room after room full of newspaper accounts, photographs and
artifacts (including Fidel Castro's pants and a gadget for pulling
fingernails) chronicle the island's geology, history and culture.

The 1959 revolution that ousted President Fulgencio Batista (and Yankee
imperialism, according to a few of the displays) is a major focus,
including the comical Corner of the Cretins (unflattering caricatures of
George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan); a creepy life-size diorama of Che
climbing out of the jungle; and the Granma, the small yacht Castro used
to return to Cuba from exile.

The boat lies "in state" in a barn-size glass coffin behind the museum.
China has Mao, Russia has Lenin, but Cuba still has no one for crowds to
stream past. For now, a boat is it.

On the way out I hit the gift shop full of T-shirts, bandannas, fans,
boxes — all bearing Guevara's bearded mug — and bought five key chains,
unsure if they would make it past U.S. Customs in Miami. (They did.)
Touting Havana's highlights

After leaving the museum and spending the afternoon at the Plaza de la
Revolución and the José Martí museum, I caught a ride to the Vedado
district via Coco Taxi, a three-wheel scooter that is the unholy love
child of a pitcher's bullpen cart and a can of frozen orange juice
concentrate.

The Vedado is a tree-lined district that includes part of the Malecón
and most of the former mobster properties. It was along La Rampa (23rd
Street), a bustling boulevard thick with restaurants and nightclubs,
that I met the Guy.

Cuba has been open to foreign tourism since 1980 and (after Soviet-bloc
tourism dried up) has been relying on a few million Europeans, Aussies,
Canadians and South Americans.

As tourism grows, so does the army of touts on every corner offering
Cuban cigars, bookings at guest houses, guide services, introductions to
chicas and, in some cases, "boyfriend services" for single women.
(Because the convertible peso that tourists use is 24 times the value of
the national peso, anyone making tips is earning more than doctors and
lawyers.)

The Guy, a skinny 20-ish man, was drumming up business for a nearby bar,
and because he spoke English (and because I needed a bathroom), I
offered to buy him a drink.

"A lot of people think Cuba is a tough regime like North Korea. It's
nothing like that," the Guy told me over his second cuba (the
rum-and-Coke cocktail renamed cuba libre by Cuban-Americans ) on my tab.

We agreed to meet the next day so he could show me Havana's highlights,
including a few not on the tourist trail.

Habana Vieja (Old Havana) is a long-lost sibling to the French Quarter
in New Orleans, only with bigger cathedrals, idyllic European plazas and
half a dozen bars that thrive on the fact that Ernest Hemingway drank
there. The Guy took me through each of the Spanish plazas, up the
rapidly gentrifying Calle Obispo shopping row, and to Hemingway hangout
Bodeguita del Medio, where the bartender keeps 40 highball glasses
filled with ice and mint to meet tourist demand for the author's mojito.
Playas of the people

It probably wouldn't occur to most people to attempt Spin the Bottle
while waist deep in the ocean, but the group of young Cubans on Playa El
Mégano seemed to have it mastered. (The secret: Use a rum bottle and
drink two-thirds of it first so it floats.)

El Mégano is the west end of a 31-mile stretch of white sand beaches
known as Playas del Este (Eastern Beaches), just 25 minutes from
downtown Havana. Not reserved for rich tourists, the beaches attract as
many Cubans as foreigners.

The same is not true, however, farther east in Varadero, Cuba's answer
to Cancún, a stretch of pencil-thin peninsula with flawless beaches and
more than 60 hotels, most of them all-inclusive resorts. About a third
of all tourists stay in Varadero.

On the public-access Playa El Mégano, large families arrived with
cooking pots full of lunch (rice, beans, fish, rice, soup, beans and,
for good measure, beans and rice). At a nearby beach cafe that was
barely more than a palm-thatch roof, posts and a tiny bar, the legs of
my chair sank into the powdery sand. By the time I settled in, a
sweating Cerveza Cristal was on the table, and shrimp and Caribbean
sweet potatoes were on the way.

Trying to refine and package the Caribbean, I considered while watching
the waves, takes away its soul. When the travel ban falls, how many of
the American tourists will end up here, I wondered, and how many will
opt for Varadero's all-inclusives?

In many ways, Havana today may be too authentic for mainstream American
tourism — a little too gritty and rough around the edges for some, not
cheap enough for others and with not enough spoken English, good
restaurants or toilet paper for everyone else. Evil? No. Is it ready?
Yes. Are we ready? Maybe, but only when they take American Express.

The Cuban people, it should be noted, do not match the rhetoric in the
museum or on the news. I was welcomed at every turn, and urged to return
— soon.

Those who cherish the authenticity need not panic: Cuba is a force that
didn't evolve overnight — both good and bad — and it's unlikely its
flavor, its culture or its history will disappear any faster. It is,
after all, the Caribbean, and nothing moves fast.

Spud Hilton is deputy travel editor for the San Francisco Chronicle. He
visited Cuba legally as a journalist but traveled anonymously.

Visiting Cuba?
IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: With few exceptions (diplomats, journalists, those on
government business), U.S. citizens are not allowed to spend money in
Cuba, essentially making it illegal to travel there. But you can get
around that by going through another country, such as Mexico, Canada or
Panama, the national airlines of which all have regular flights to
Havana and Santiago de Cuba. If you travel through Mexico, book the
Havana flight at the airline desk.

For this story, I flew through Panama City, Panama, in part because the
national airline, Copa Air, has four flights daily to Havana, and also
because I was able to purchase the ticket online (which you can't do
through the Mexican airlines). A test booking with Air Canada allowed
booking online, although flights go through Toronto.

Global Exchange offers limited legal trips within research delegations
on a variety of topics, from art to health care. www.globalexchange.org.

WHERE TO STAY

• Casa de Jorge Coalla Potts, Calle I .456, Apt. 11, between Calle 21
and 23, Vedado; 07-832-9032; www.havanaroomrental.com. Rate: 30 CUC
($32.40 U.S.). Low-frills casa particulares (private home) convenient to
Vedado, the Malecon and the Hotel Nacionale.

• Hotel NH Parque Central, Calle Neptuno, between Prado and Zulueta; 07
866-6627; www.nh-hotels.cu. Dutch-owned, upscale high-rise on Central
Park, convenient to the Prado, the capitol building and Habana Vieja.
Rate: 108 euro ($143 U.S.) per night, including buffet breakfast,
booking through Cuba Travel Network (www.cubatravelnetwork.com).

WHERE TO EAT

• Las tres B, Calle 21, between Calle L and K, Vedado. Private home
(paladar) that serves authentic local and Latin American favorites.
Entrees: $10-$15 CUC ($10.80-$16.20 U.S.).

• Restaurante Anacaona, Paseo del Prado. 603, at Dragones, inside the
Hotel Saratoga; 07-868-1000. Chic menu with some of the best (and most
expensive) food in Havana. Entrees: $15-$25 CUC ($16.20-$27 U.S.).

MORE INFORMATION

• Cuban tourism: www.cubatravel.cu.

• Global Exchange: www.globalexchange.org

• Christopher Baker's blog: www.moon.com/blogs/cuba-costa-rica

Searching for Cuba's next big revolution | Travel: Around the U.S. and
world | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle (21 May 2009)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/travel/features/6433040.html