Cuba libre? Famous last words...

On my last facebook status update before I left I joked that despite not having the iphone I would have a temporary sim and “I would, of course, have facebook”. Ha.

Having not seen the ‘no wireless networks available’ appear on my laptop/iphone/retina for quite some time I couldn’t quite believe what I’d read about the scarcity internet access, nor the government censorship which extends to emails. And I certainly never put two and two together to believe that writing a blog would be at all difficult beyond any lack of basic discipline that prevented me from writing one. I was wrong – in part at least.

I have at last found an office where tourists willing to spend the equivalent of a Cubans average monthly salary can access the internet (almost no local access to the internet is permitted) and I’m currently attempting to prevent a word spill onto the page. Some topics can be saved for later; censorship, food in general, rationing in particular, social history etc -  as far as I’m qualified to write on it – but for now I’ll limit myself to the couple of days in this hot but amazingly welcoming county – and hope it will suffice.

So, I arrived on Saturday evening around 9pm Havana time / 2am ours. I was fighting the urge to curl up right there (having not slept the night before through no one’s fault but my own) but soon reawakened to the routine of baggage collection, money changing and how to reach my hotel. All three took slightly longer than anticipated, but did all end in success; the first being uneventful but lengthy, as to the second, I can now divulge that I accomplished this with sterling. (Each bank, travel agency and veteran traveller told me something different and al final it turns out euros, dollars or sterling would have sufficed but given the 10%+ commission on US$ and the fatal exchange rate on former, sterling was ideal.) And finally my taxi driver, though almost certainly charging me too much (but at least he bore a blue number plate – blue is for government, black is private, etc) and spending half the time showing me photos of his children rather than following the road, did deliver me in one piece.

The stop over I’d been recommended to stay for the first couple of nights was called Hotel Villa Panamerica. I choose to brush off my guidebook’s helpful comments on this place (“that it offers nothing but regret for tourists”) and its comments that Cubans are altogether too generous with their star rating system (it claims three, but think one by UK standards) and popped in my ear plugs to drown out the Saturday night Karaoke and work on the jet lag.  

Sunday, fortunately, was another day. After picking up some fruit from the breakfast bar (despite normally being quite adventurous I really couldn’t see anything else was remotely recognisible/appetizing) and negotiating with the hotel staff to let me use the phone to call Isis (Isis works at the Organoponico and had both organised my volunteering and offered to pick me up to take me to Alamar where the allotment is) I took a (very) quick reckie around the town. Villa Panamericana was built for the 1991 Panamerican games and sadly now resembles LOCOG’s worst nightmare.

Fortunately it was merely a stopover, however, and I was relived on all accounts by Isis. As well as being one of the most welcoming people I’ve ever met, spending the afternoon showing me around the organopónico and then taking me out to lunch (no small luxury on a Cuban salary) her and her husband also invited me to their house to stay whilst I’m here for just  a small daily fee. Not only is this the golden ticket to experience exactly the kind of Cuban living the government tries hard to ensure you cannot do but, given that Alamar isn’t exactly a tourist hotspot (again, described by my guia as a rapidly becoming slum) it would have been near impossible to find a Casa Particular to take me in here.

So, it seems I’ve totally lucked out. Alamar is not a slum; it seems to me to be a wonderfully friendly town with a thriving organic fruit and vegetable business at its heart. And to ensure no one gets into trouble for having to work and stay, we’ve woven a story around who I am and what I’m doing. (Something to do with Italy, Slow Food and smiling sweetly if anyone asks…) It’s apparently unlikely that tourist correspondence such as this will be checked, so it’s OK to divulge. However, since my passport cannot be tracked whilst I’m here, it could become a problem when I need to renew my visa, or if the government attempts to account for my relative disappearance. Whichever happens first I guess…