My trip to Havana

I’d like to say I visited Cuba, but it was really just Havana for a few hours on two consecutive weekdays in August, 2017.  Nights were spent on the cruise ship that brought me to the island.  Saying I visited Cuba is like saying I visited the United States but only saw Washington, D.C. 

The Havana I saw was a study in contrasts.  From a five star hotel built in 1930 to run down and crumbling buildings, at least on the outside.  Cuba is a Communist country and as such, the government runs and controls everything.  Even the cigar stores are controlled by the government, although I was approached by locals wanting to sell me cigars on the black market.  Fortunately, I am not a smoker.

Since Castro took control of the country on January 1, 1959, things seem to have been going downhill.  I was in Havana on a Wednesday and Thursday in August and although I saw scaffolding on a few buildings, I saw no workers.  Indeed, it seems people don’t have to work because the government supports them.  I met one woman from Tampa,Florida, who told me her cousin was a doctor in Cuba and earned just $17 a month.  That’s just $2 more than I tipped the taxi driver who drove me through the city in a 1955 Buick.  These old cars are kept running, not by mechanics, but as they say, by “magicians” using Russian car parts.  They are passed down within the family and very few other Cubans own cars.

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Cows are nearly non-existent, so there is no beef.  The meat they eat is chicken and pork.  For a port city in the Caribbean, I saw no small boats – they are banned for fear they will be used to escape to Miami.  I saw no grocery stores, no fast food restaurants, no movie theaters, and no banks.  These things are not necessary when people have no money.  I did see one church, which charged an admission to tourists since the government wasn’t supporting them.

There were two forms of currency, one for the locals and one for the tourists.  Americans are charged a 13% tax both when purchasing Cuban money and when exchanging it back for dollars, for a total of 26%.

The people seemed friendly enough, but I got the impression they have no idea what the outside world looks like.  Police and soldiers are everywhere and you are not allowed to take pictures of them.  One elderly woman  begged me for a ballpoint pen I was using,  It was a Bic, worth about ten cents, but to her, it was the world and she thanked me profusely when I gave it to her.

The bottom line is that if you are wealthy, you can do fine (ambassadors live in mansions), but if you are poor, you don’t know what you are missing.  Castro had banned Christmas until one of the three Popes who visited the island convinced him to allow it and now it is a national holiday.  But the everyday life of the average citizen of Havana seemed to consist of waking up, standing or sitting around and going to sleep.

The rest of the island may have beautiful beaches or other amenities but I did not leave Havana, which seemed stuck in 1959 and is taking its sweet time moving into 1960.