Cuba charming as ever

Cuba charming as ever
Amid crumbling buildings, smells and noise, you'll fall in love with the
people
By Mark Harvey, Freelance

A family road trip can be stressful. But a driving holiday in Cuba? That
could be a recipe for family breakup. It starts as a compromise between
the three ladies of the family who want a sunny break from an Edmonton
winter, and my wish to see one of the most intriguing countries in the
Western Hemisphere before it changes forever.

Booking flights with Aeroplan meant planning months in advance and
having a long time to research our trip. A good idea, since countless
e-mails to Cuba went unanswered, and many other exchanges lasted weeks
and read more like formal letters of the 1950s.

We decide to split our two weeks: half all-inclusive and half private
B&Bs (called casas particulares in Cuba).

Evora Rodriguez's casa occupies the top floor of a nine-storey building
on the border of historic Old Havana. Before the revolution this was a
prestigious address with its panoramic view of the harbour entrance and
Morro, the old fort that guards it. Today, the building fares better
than its neighbours that are crumbling under assault from the sea and a
half-century of neglect. Still, hundreds of buildings are being rebuilt
as tourist money pours into this World Heritage Site.

Before leaving home we've contacted private tour guides. It's a great
way to help us understand this weird and wonderful city of two million
people. Those old, smoke-belching American cars aren't tourist props;
they're an essential part of Cuba's stumbling transportation system. The
women on street corners? Like everyone else, they're waiting for a ride.
A hundred shouting men in front of the Capitolio building? Just arguing
baseball. One guide is a university language teacher, the other an
electrical engineer. Their monthly salaries are less than some Cuban
waiters can make on a Saturday night.

We've been warned about Soviet-style service, but this is changing in
Cuba. Never have I seen a slightly stained tablecloth laid out with such
formality and ceremony, and never has a wobbly table been levelled as
carefully as at Cafeteria Prado 12. Never mind the fact we've already
begun describing the food as "diesel-fried pork": the music is stirring
and the mojitos potent.

Our car rental begins badly when a stone-faced clerk tells me we can't
drop the car at our resort as we'd been told. Their nearest office is in
a town 50 kilometres from the resort. Then, 15 minutes after leaving
Havana, we're lost, having foolishly assumed a national highway would
have a sign marking its on-ramp. A helpful police officer (one on every
corner) leads us 10 kilometres back and onto the Autopista.

The collapse of the Soviet Union meant this ambitious freeway was never
finished. Its six lanes of blacktop are unblemished by lines and I drive
well below the 100 km/h speed limit dodging holes, livestock, bicycles
and vendors waving five-foot strings of onions. I'm not even
flabbergasted when, without warning, oncoming traffic appears on our
side of the divided highway because the other side is being tarred.

Cuba's other main highway, the Carretera Central, is a two-lane road
built in the 1930s. In Edmonton, using your horn is reserved for
expressing rage. In Cuba, honking is expected whenever you're passing
cars, slow-moving motorbikes or horse carts.

After 300 kilometres, my grip on the wheel loosens and I relax, until it
dawns on me that we're once again lost.

We ask a man by the roadside for directions. Not only does he know the
way to the town of Trinidad, he lives there. And since we can legally
carry one more passenger, we feel obliged to take him. A nice man, he
occasionally reaches over to give the horn a friendly toot when I'm not
honking enough.

As we come down out of the Sierra del Escambray toward the ocean, we
steel ourselves for his inevitable offers. Of course his family must
indeed run a fine, (but illegal) restaurant, but we already have a
reservation. We thank him for recommending a wonderful Casa but again we
have a reservation (at the fictitious "Casa Jorge"). And alas, I don't
smoke or I would certainly buy cigars from his father.

We part somewhat coolly, and plunge into the extremely narrow, ancient
cobblestone streets of Trinidad and conclude that, for the third time
today, we're lost. But this time, luck has shone on us. We are in fact
only one street from our destination, the 200-year old home of Julio and
Rosa Munoz. The heavy doors open into a large, colonial, walled house.
It's large, airy and furnished with original furniture. Friendly dogs
have the run of the place, though thankfully Luna the horse remains in
her stall near the garage. Julio is a photographer and is fluent in
English. His is one of the best private homes in the town. But with more
than 300 casas particulares in Trinidad and only a handful of hotels,
it's virtually impossible not to mix with Cubans.

Lonely Planet calls it "Varadero in reverse." It's easy to see why
Trinidad is one of the country's biggest tourist destinations with its
"living museum" feel and its beautiful setting between the Sierra and
the Caribbean. Sadly, after Old Havana, Trinidad probably has the
country's highest concentration of hustlers, although Cubans will take
"no" for an answer.

The drive north takes us through small, dusty villages and past
plantations and organic farms. Since we don't get lost this time, we
reflect on how after Communism, hurricanes and the U.S. embargo, the
Cubans remain so friendly and courteous. I almost cease to be shocked
when people wave at us.

The dreaded problem of how to get to our hotel after dropping off the
car turns out to be no problem at all, when the cheery clerk happily
agrees, for a generous tip, to lock up the shop and drives us the 50 km
himself.

Cayo Santa Maria is a small island at the end of a 48-km causeway poking
into the turquoise Atlantic Ocean. The causeway took almost 10 years to
complete, and since it was finished in the late '90s, the building of
resorts

hasn't stopped. The five-star Melia las Dunas is one of the newest, and
is immensely popular with people from Central Canada who wander the
grounds and spectacular beaches sipping from Timmy's mugs and Bubba
Kegs. You hear more French here than at a Habs game at the Bell Centre.

The Cuban government is churning out thousands of eager-to-please
service workers trained to serve vacationers from another world. Just
don't expect the food to be a world apart: I politely finish half an
elegantly presented soup that tastes like warm barbecue sauce. Still, we
find ourselves oddly satisfied when strange concoctions are served with
such formality and courtesy.

Four days into our stay at las Dunas all the girls can talk about is
getting back to Havana. Despite the crumbling buildings, the smells and
the noise, they've fallen in love with the charming people of this
living historical and political museum.

It's unlikely to stay unchanged for long.

Half the passengers on the Air Canada flight to Havana were Americans,
undoubtedly getting a jump on their new government's pledge to loosen
the embargo sooner rather than later.

Mark Harvey is producer and reporter for the program Edmonton AM on CBC
Radio One.

IF YOU GO

What to take

Canadian cash. Cuba is a cash economy and you will need to exchange your
dollars for convertible pesos (CUC) at the airport as soon as you arrive
(you can't buy them in Canada). Never accept bills that don't say
"convertible peso;" there is another peso, the national peso, and it's
worth 1/24th what a CUC is worth. ATMs don't work and neither do credit
cards from U.S. banks, including AMEX. Most hotels and car rental
agencies take credit cards, but there's often a price for cash, and a
much higher one for credit.

Flights

Air Canada flies scheduled service to Havana's Jose Marti International
Airport three to five times per week via Toronto. Sun Wing and Air
Transat each fly seasonal service from several cities in Canada.

Car rentals

Cuba has at least four rental companies. Be prepared for a manual
transmission and to pay more than $100 per day for a Kia, Hyundai,
Peugeot or Skoda. Gasoline is currently $1 CUC per litre (about $1.44
Cdn). Agencies can run out of cars, so book ahead. Shop around and
compare prices and drop-off fees. Learn about the scams that are
occasionally pulled by rental clerks and NEVER lose your rental
contract. Don't turn right on a red light.

Be sure to have a good road map. The best is the Max guide, also known
as the Guia de Garreteras.

It's hard to find, but worth the investment in time and money to find.

Resources

Consult Lonely Planet, Moon Guide and others. Be sure to use the latest
edition possible, as the situation in Cuba is constantly changing.

www.tripadvisor.com is a valuable place to go for reviews, discussion
groups and advice from people who have just been or may still be in the
parts of Cuba you want to visit.

www.cuba-junky.com is a somewhat flaky travel agency site, but packed
with plain-language tips about travel, cars, hotels as well as crime and
scams.

www.gocuba.ca is the official website of the Cuba Tourist Board in Canada

More information

Check out the website of the Embassy of Cuba in Canada for a revealing
window into the preoccupations of the Cuban government and its relations
with the United States.

www.solwayscuba.com is another Cuba-based travel agency and can
sometimes get the independent traveller a better price on hotels,
flights or cars than Canadian travel agencies can. They also helped us
cut through the "wall of silence" we sometimes faced when e-mailing Cuba.

Free advice

Take plenty of patience, humour and flexibility. And be careful what you
bring back. Cuban Customs can be very enthusiastic when enforcing laws
against the export of art. They can apply these laws to folk-art bought
in a tourist market as well as to genuine antiquities. If you really
must buy a painting, put it in your checked baggage or get an export permit.

Cuba charming as ever (12 June 2009)
http://www.vancouversun.com/Travel/Cuba+charming+ever/1678056/story.html