Thursday 23 August 2012

Aug 23 Havana

Being tourists in Havana but also hearing the inside story of Cuban life today
Our last day and we walked around old Havana admiring the colonial architecture. We were taken to a tourist market where we could buy art ranging from African pieces to erotic lovelies. This was real Tourist tat, made to capture foreign currency and  I wondered why paint was available for workers to paint for tourists but there is none for the school children to use. We also visited National hotel a big art deco building. So many important people have stayed there that there is now a decade wise depiction of the film stars, musicians and more recently politicians who have stayed there.
Our guide Raimondo had allowed us to write down one question each about Cuba which he promised he would answer on the last day, our questions covered currency, censorship, travel, tourism teaching, buildings and health care and i wondered whether he would answer them or duck them.  I was surprised at his openness in answering many of the questions. A picture emerged of a Cuba that is sorely lacking in human rights and where people want the freedom to travel and communicate with others.
So i ended this holiday feeling that i had enjoyed being in Cuba, seeing the towns and the architecture, but i felt very uncomfortable about the lack of human rights and feel that i would not want to visit again until that improves. It was a rather downbeat note for coming home. I was also exhausted after our heavy programme of biking, seeing new sights and dancing and needed a weekend to recover.

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Aug 22 Santa Clara to Havana

Cuban censorship and revolutionary fervour.
When i offered my week old Guardian to a man picking up a newspaper in the Spanish colonial town of Remedios i opened up a tale of isolation and repression. The man was an unemployed journalist with minimal access to the internet. He had a Spanish passport and had been to Barcelona last year, the ticket bought by friends there. He related how it would take him seven years of all his salary to buy a ticket. He also told me that a bartender in the tourist area earns more in a week than a doctor in a fortnight. I have noticed the absence of newspapers and magazines, also that no-one in Cuba is writing with pen and paper. Later our guide told us how the government censors all the news and uses secret police. Critics of the regime find themselves in prison. Many Cubans appear loyal to their country but they would still like to travel but cannot since the government controls all the passports.   
I think we have seen every revolutionary monument in Cuba. Our guide Raimondo was deeply committed to the revolution and its history. It reached its apotheosis today with our visit to the Che museum in Santa Clara. A key battle in the revolution was fought there when the revolutionaries captured an armoured car in 1958. The site has been nicely preserved with railway carriages displaying the battle and a new concrete sculpture integrated into it. Che was an attractive revolutionary but he has been sanctified in the museum there. The display about his life captures his early life, his revolutionary zeal, his militarism and internationalism in a respectful display, even the spurs he used as a guerrilla in the Cuban sierra maestra. A vast statue of Che is battle fatigues looks out on the countryside from atop the museum. Communism meets Catholicism with the beautification of St Che. I wonder what Che himself would have made of it.  Castro himself seems to avoid a personality cult, his birthday was barely noticed but he is in posters exhorting people to live up to the revolution.

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Day 12: Camaguey

Rural Cuba, a fine community centre, and back to Camaguey and salsa. Beautiful day for a ride that started with a long descent. Our water stop was in a community shelter with poetic slogans such as "trenches full of ideas not stones".
We also stopped at a large community centre built in vernacular style the 1960s with Cuban American money and it housed a stage and dance room. Now all that was there was a dilapidated library. A rather poignant reminder of what could have been here.
We stopped in a bus station where people were crowding onto a primitive windowless people-carrier like something from the Third Reich. Many people are sitting around in the villages - evidence of under employment.
Ended the day dancing at an open air salsa bar where a plump moustachioed male voclaist serenaded us.

Sunday 19 August 2012

Day 10: Santiago churches and cemeteries

Day of churches, streets and cemeteries. We started the day visiting the Church of Our Lady of Cuba which was a vast airy church where the priest was celebrating mass. People came dressed in white and yellow and offered sunflowers and lit candles. It is a fusion of African and Catholic faiths aand the strength of devotion was touching. We then had a morning walking round Santiago where one sees every style of architeture,  highlights included a revolutionary monument made of a series of vast  metal rectangles set in the ground like a series of machete strokes. Then we walked around the streets with colonial style houses and Soviet style wiring. People were out in the squares relaxing . I explored an eccentric bookshop with books, rum bottles and notices all stacked up in an array. Santiago cemetery is a mass of white marble monuments and a large early 20 c mausoleum to Jose Marti who was the first Cuban nationalist. He looks down benevolently but every half half hour there is a changing of the guard and three young Cuban soldiers goose step out to change. It felt too militaristic for me and contrasted with the peace inside his tomb . The Bacardi family also have a very showy black memorial.  We then bussed up to the north of th island

Saturday 18 August 2012

Day 9: mountains to Santiago

A day of experiencing Cuban resourcefulness and then the salsa in Santiago We walked through the forest in the morning visiting small homesteads and farms growing cocoa and avocados. Life is quite remote up there and everyone travels on foot or by mule. One of our party almost collapsed on the walk through dehydration. She had drunk a litre of mojitos the previous night. So one of the other women, Maggie walked between us for half an hour until we reached a home. Here the midwife was visiting because there was a 3-day old baby. Here we revived Jane and the men made a hammock and carried her down to the hotel at an amazing pace, that is their ambulance!  I was touched by their kindness and resourcefulness,
We had a fine afternoon ride across rolling countryside and then a wonderful 4km downhill ride to Santiago. Spent the evening hearing an excellent salsa band at a famous bar with a balcony on the street  and the female  vocalist sang like Amy Winehouse. Ended the evening with drinks on the 15 th floor bar at our hotel. What contrasts in that day.

Friday 17 August 2012

Day 8: Banoa to the mountains El Solton

Today's ride was one of the toughest 60 km and with mountain climbs at the end. We had our food and water stops in small squares. One was hosting a sports day and kids played volleyball, the kit was minimal and I saw worn out boxing gloves and shuttlecocks made of maize cobs. There were several chess games being played . Public toilets here are less than pristine so our guide Raimondo arranges toilet stops every 20 km and it is a chance to see inside a Cuban home. Today's home was quite well off with pictures of Claudia Schiffer, the Cuban virgin and a cartoon about ozone depletion so touching on beauty, religion and politics. 
We stayed in a beautiful mountain hotel resort in huts clustered in the tropical rain forest beside a huge natural pool. The barman also made generous mojitos and we shared life stories and internet dating experiences.

Thursday 16 August 2012

Day 7: Camaguey to Banoa

A day for enjoying Cuban sculpture. In the morning we went round Camaguey in bicci taxis. Camaguey is a lively city with cyclists buzzing around and lively people. We had a city tour perched in bicci taxis after seeing churches we saw a artist's gallery. She did paintings and ceramic work featuring womens heads. In the afternoon I did not bike but went in the coach chilling out and catching up on my thoughts. Flat countryside with rice paddy fields. The afternoon ended with a violent tropical storm with lightening bolts coming down all around us. We stayed right on the square in Banoa  with the noisiest of starlings. After supper we  found a street full of zany street sculptures and a book shop. The cities in this western part of Cuba feel intelectually livelier.

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Day 1: Havana


In Havana!
Fine morning ride through the city passing colonial and revolutionary architecture. Paused in Independence Square with a huge billboard of Che. Then by bus to Matanzas, a town on the on coast. Stayed in a beautifully restored hotel on the main square. I walked out and could not find any shops, where do Cubans buy their houshold stuff? The tourist economy is very strange with foreigners having "convertible" pesos to use in hotels and bars. The absence of advertising is also strking. Nice group with a majority of teachers...

Day 6: Trinidad to Camaguey

We started off with a fine cool ride and then climbed up a high tower built in the 19 c  to  check on slaves. Now it is a major tourist attraction and surrounded by stalls of fine white tableclothes painstakingly made at home by Cuban women. We also had  a ride in an old train this looked 19 century but had come from the USSR in 1970. The ride up to lunch was through rolling countryside, a few cowboys were riding round and  we passed  a  state cattle farm.  It was so hot that we stopped at lunchtime. We then had a brief visit to Sancti Spiritus where there were shops for Cubans to buy shoes and clothes.
Then on to Camaguey where we stayed in cell like rooms in colonial elegance. Since this an Aug holiday 85 percent of the group are teachers or students and a quarter are Irish and bring a mellow humour... Age range 16 to 68. Everyone seems easy going and we have gelled well. Our leader is a  black Cuban, his grandfather was brought over as a slave from Nigeria which brings slavery to touching distance.

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Day 5 (Tues 14th): Trinidad - rest day

Spent the rest day appreciating the elegance of Trinidad and chilling out by the pool. Trinidad is a beautifully preserved old Spanish colonial town with houses painted in hues of blue and pink. One of the most interesting places was the Museo Historico in the former home of a sugar magnate. The elegant rooms with tompe d'oiel were preserved and I could imagine relaxing at the piano.  Trinidad revolutionary history was captured in documents and artefacts on the move away from slavery.  The  bell tower was crowded with  people  being photographed against the beautiful view for their Facebook page. Seeing a monastery that had been turned into a revolutionary museum warmed me.

Trinidad is heaving with shops selling tourist tat, acres of Che fridge magnets and Fidel in a cigar shape and I wondered about the economics of producing these goods for tourist pesos rather than consumables for Cubans. I wonder what the Cubans themselves think about the tourists who have so much in comparison to themselves.
I have also noticed an absence of engagement with the outside world. I have not seen any newspapers or magazines and certainly no internet cafes and very low mobile phone use. 

Monday 13 August 2012

Day 4 (Mon 13th): Cienfegos to Trinidad, Castro's birthday

We biked 88 km at 35 deg and by the end I had almost lost the will to live. In the morning we rode across a rolling upland with beautiful views. Later we crossed several rivers draining in the Caribbean where people  were out on the beaches. We also went into a village store which had no signs outside, inside it had pitiful stocks of rice, beans, spaghetti and expensive plastic buckets. The male household head holds the ration book and the rations are insufficient for a month so then people pay market prices. Poor quality and no choice. Very tough running a household here. 

I have been wanting to dance since I arrived so a group of us went down and danced salsa and heard rumba in open-air bars to celebrate my roommate's (Tamsin) birthday. Surprisingly there were no big celebrations for Castro.

Sunday 12 August 2012

Day 3 (Sun 12th): to Cienfuegos

Another hot day and fortunately we completed the biking in the morning along a beautiful coast road with deep blue sea on one side and forest on the inland side. Went down to the sea to dip our toes in but the coral was too sharp. Visited the Bay of Pigs Invasion Museum which was full of pictures of very young revolutionaries fighting off the USA-backed invasion. Ended the day in Cienfuegos which was founded by French settlers (1820) and so had a neoclassical square and town hall. Ended the day at a local carnival with packed crowds dancing on the seafront and drinking home brew dispensed from barrels. I watched the closing ceremony in London, Cuban-style, drinking moijtos.

Saturday 11 August 2012

Day 2 (Sat 11th Aug): to Bay of Pigs Swamp

Did all the biking in the morning through rolling conutryside with small farmhouses. Farmers using ox carts and smoking vast cigars. Small towns with crumbling colonial buildings. People live in small concrete bungalows with neat gardens. Obviously very houseproud. Endde the day in a Butlins-like beach resort in the swamp.

Monday 6 August 2012

Not German but Italian, experiencing the South Tyrol.

I enjoyed the differences between Italian Verona and German south Tyrol.
I found the jubliee overdone so i was delighted to escape to Verona for a dermatology conference. Verona is a lovely city and walking around one sees the marks of past civilisations. The Roman arena is used for concerts and this design template is visible 20 centuries later in the Olympic stadium with stands for merchandise as well as sport tracks. There are wonderful 14 century frescoes in the St Fermo, the ceiling has 400 saints heads painted on it which reminded me of the saints heads one sees in Ethiopian churches, notably Gondar. The Venetian occupation can also be discerned in the pillars with the Venetian lion and the shapes of the windows. The imaginative new photography gallery (Sacvi Scaligeri) combines old and new with subterranean galleries built around the roman foundations and one walks over roman roads, drains, and swimming pools. The ancient cobbles were hard to negotiate with the buggy carrying Joan, Steve and Eglantine’s 8 week old baby.. The exhibition was of Robert Capa’s war photos and we experienced war in Spain, London, France, Germany and then Vietnam. He captures emotions brilliantly, the steadiness of men under fire, the dejection of refugees, the fear created by a rogue sniper in liberated Paris, firing on the celebrating crowd. The exhibition ends with a series of portraits of Capa’s friends, William Faulkner crossing a river in Wyoming, Picasso on the beach holding up an umbrella for his second wife, all capturing the person’s character.
 Verona at night was very Italian with people sitting outside the arena drinking and much promenading going on. I think one gets the best Italian ice creams in Verona, we had excellent ones from a long established shop and then even found a shop open after midnight for that late night ice cream.
I then headed to the south Tyrol with a train ticket costing 8 euros for a journey of 312km, and not even bought in advance, unlike British tickets. The train goes along the Adige valley up to Bolzano.
I first came to the German speaking south Tyrol in 1994 when my friend Jorg came as a summer locum family doctor in Kurtasch/cortaccio village. The area was in the Austrian empire and ceded to Italy in 1919.  The houses are Alpine with sloping wood roofs, and the towns have a Germanic look with large houses. The area feels prosperous, the orchards on the flat valley floor are neat and tidy, even the vines on the valley sides are neat and the area oozes quiet efficiency and prosperity. It feels more German lite than Italian. Jorg is German, married to an Italian doctor Tina, their kids Martha and Frederico are fluent in Italian, german and English as well as being passionate about modern dance and football respectively.
We went up towards the Brenner Pass and walked around a small lake surrounded by pine trees, the meadows were full of daisies and buttercups. The village church (Durnholz) was tiny with medieval frescoes showing the day of judgement. Outside were the memorials for the soldiers killed in the two world wars, they all had Germanic names and they had died all over the Austro-Hungarian empire (Germany, Italy, Ukraine). That afternoon there was a terrific storm and which was followed by beautiful scenes with light coming through clouds and water glistening on steep rock faces.
On Sunday morning i woke to the sound of a village brass band and a Tryolean village procession was celebrating Corpus Domini. The women were all in dirndl skirts and the boys wearing lederhosen and the men had hats with feathers. They all then tucked into wurst and beer sitting in the village.
These borderlands are interesting places where cultures and boundaries clash. Geography really defines the inhabitants of a place. Here the Alpine climate defines the housing, the food and the transport but it is the historical associations that define the language and the ethos, so the South Tryol for me feels more German than Italian. At least one can transcend these geographical and national differences by being a European and i came home laden with Italian cheese.