Talking Tacos

i travelled with the spanish photojournalist to santiago. arrived at the station to be greeted by a window of cubans pointing enthusiastically to business cards of casas, and a4 sheets of paper of someones name. stefan, stefan? no, not me. everyone in cuba seemed to think i was german, though most recognised i wasn't a german man. after some throwing backwards and forwards we ended up in a casa run by an out-of-practise english speaking pregnant doctor, poor timing as i now had a spanish translator in tow. she cooked us up some breakfast and we set out to explore the city. the social plazas, parques, were set up high in the city. and views from the junctions on each corner were of climbing roads of a number of hills. i found the plaza, parque jose marti, here quite disappointing. the band was playing for tourists, and given that it is a major hub there was a constant flow of cubans asking for a peso, or a pen. hello, where are you from? england. i used to be an english teacher. oh really? yes, can i have a pen? i saw a girl offer him a 10 inch pencil, 1 inch diameter. no, no, pen? no shortage of pencils in cuba, then.

we walked around and down the hills, we might have stopped off at an ice cream parlour and we might have each ordered 5 scoop sundaes in an old fashioned glasses. and they might have been highly enjoyable. we walked around the city, stopped into a recreational sports ground where some kids were playing baseball - the national sport of cuba, and walked down and up the hilly streets. in the evening we went to a paladar - locally run restaurant for pork, rice and beans, and mojitos. in the week following, santiago had 3 earthquake tremors, one lasting for a good few minutes, far more frequent than normal for them.

keen to get to guantanamo, we left the next day. for the first time there was no greeting of jiniteros at this stop. jiniteros/as are touts of some sort - ranging from touting their casa or transport, or a woman asking for drinks or offering more. relieved, but in need of direction to the city, we found ourselves at a bus stop. up pulled our horse and cart transport, and inside sat our helper to be - decked out in hair rollers, and a ring on each finger. trotting and rolling down the muddy streets of the neighbourhoods surrounding guantanamo, i saw another side of cuba. guantanamo city is the first stop into guantanamo province, on the far eastern side, and the surroundings become more tropical and lush, as you near the jungle rainforests of baracoa. aligning with a disused railtrack we pulled into a more suburban area and left our transport with our helper to be who guided us to our street.

i thoroughly enjoyed my time in guantanamo. it isn't pitched as a pitstop, there aren't significant monuments, a remarkable art scene or significant outdoor pursuits touted here - though i heard of rivers nearby worthy of a swim. there were pink cherry blossom trees sporadically placed around the city, on residential streets, surrounding the pretty small yellow church in the middle of the main park, parque jose marti. i think my fondness for the city leant from being able to observe cuban daily life from afar. the video i posted was of a group of guys who i happened to stumble across whilst walking down a quiet street and sat and watched awhile. they weren't playing for money, and so was what i had hoped to see in cuba. here there weren't any set ups. if a man was walking down the street with a cigar sticking out of his mouth, he wasn't about to suggest you take a photo for a cuc, cuban convertible, or two, as so happened in havana and trinidad, and i imagine would in santiago.

here, we stayed in by far the most ostentatious casa yet, throughout which hung several tacky nude paintings. the couple living there were highly respected within the community. the husband, a senior doctor, professor, was giving conferences whilst we were staying there on the relationship between emotional trauma and cardiac arrest and other related problems, as well as on transpsychicsomething that i can/t remember but was very interesting. upon arriving we applied for the visa to caimenera, the small area near to the base which allows you a view. after three days we learned they would still not issue these to tourists, but would under a journalist visa, which the spanish photojournalist had not yet obtained. we were informed of this on the last day in guantanamo; the ministry of interior called to ask the journalist to come in for a talk. we caught a bicitaxi, bicycle rickshaw, to the ministry, which so happened to be our slowest bike yet by an impressive amount. the bici driver got chatting to us and revealed he had just got out of guantanamo bay prison himself, having been in there for five years; he was caught out at sea trying to escape to florida.

for part of our stay a canadian sports teacher was also housed at our casa with his cuban girlfriend. he has known her for two years and comes to visit regularly. the day we met them he had taken her family and her out for dinner and to a hotel swimming pool. after they left, somewhere on a street they were walking, a police asked to see all of their ids. he then quizzed the canadian's girlfriend's twin sister. she explained that the canadian was her sister's boyfriend and the police refused to believe that she wasn't a prostitute. she was taken down to the station and a mark of some sort was put next to her name. three marks to your name and some sort of punishment, likely imprisonment, ensues. the canadian tried to protest throughout and was completely ignored. his girlfriend was shaken up and distressed from the experience, the id checking is a constant hassle. the lady of our casa suggested a solution. unbeknown to them they can sign a contract which indicates the intention to marry, and passes as official id. so the next day they went down to the city hall and alike to carry this out. the canadian later relayed, it cost five hundred dollars, which is ok, but then there was a 5 per cent surcharge on my visa and i nearly pulled out.

i rejoined solo travel enroute to baracoa, and after a barrage of jiniteros, i jumped in a bicitaxi with nellida to stay at her norje's white house with blue beams and blue shutters. i had half of the upstairs floor to myself, pine wooden panelled walls, two double beds with red satin spreads, a balcony and a kitchenette decked with a fridge filled with water and chocolate. following each meal they asked me to ring a bell to know i was done. i would have been happy to clear the plates myself but in each casa i stayed in, i recognised the privacy and reservation of the owners. though the houses were comfortably decorated, often their own living space was more modest and humble in size and adornings, and i noticed them uncomfortable if i would happen to see this space.

a typical snack in baracoa is a chimichurri. this taste embrace was a grainy quince like paste, concocted of coconut, honey, nuts and seasonal fruits - i recognised mango and apple in mine. this paste is served in a dried banana palm leaf shaped into a triangle cone with a specially crafted lid. baracoa is also renkowned for its chocolate - this is the casa where i was served an entire thermoflask every day. bars went for 5 moneda naciona without milk, and i think 6 with. this casa also caught the camarones (prawns) caught fresh from the sea.

baracoa was cut off from the rest of the land for years due to the rainforest jungle blocking travel. it is on the eastern side coast, sporting nearby beaches, a long malecon running by the sea, and is surrounded by fantastic hills for trekking. it also sports a fickle climate, as demonstrated by the black clouds and rain during my stay. i went on a seven hour trek one day, seeing orchids and cocoa, wild birds and other exotic animals like pigs and goats.

to keep this still ticking, i am breaking down my cuba entry.

part one

The eighty nine year old woman in cienfuegos supports the revolution. She remembers life under batista. Now, education is free, the health system is free; if I were to live for twenty more years, I would happily live under this rule; viva fidel.

Soy un animal, soy un animal; I am an animal, you are free, I am an animal. The thirty something man in baracoa, had a different point of view. Exclaiming his points by slamming his fist down on the table in the bar cum cafeteria after each one. Why is it that I can not use the internet? Why is is that if I can, I can not see many websites? If I want to travel, firstly, I have to apply, then, if my name gets called, I have to submit information. If you wanted me to visit you, they would look at you, unmarried? Oh, sorry, you’re not going. I work seven days a week, for what?...for what?

In every city I came across, on trees, on concrete walls of buildings, cdr is inscribed. Comite de defense de revolucion (more or less), which translates as commited to the defence of the revolution. Along with this are depictions of che guevera, home made shrines to the five cuban heroes, and quotes from fidel, jose marti, and other respected greats. schools named after lenin. In guantanamo, the headquarters of something important though I can’t remember exactly what, have blocked letters at the top of the building socialism o muerte: socialism or death.

Cuba loves ice cream. Apparently it is one of fidel’s favourite foods – good man. Often you will come across a coppelia indoor cafeteria, or, as I came across in havana, and santiago de cuba, a big outdoor complex devoted to ice cream, with bars and stools, outdoor seating and indoor cafeterias, with waitresses in white shirts and white skirts and fish net tights. Although not of the coppelia brand, whilst in havana, I had condensed milk flavoured ice cream.

I flew into havana and shared a taxi into the city with a middle aged conservative french couple, the wife was unable to stop throwing herself forward to meekly yelp at the driver to slow down. He enjoyed pointing out the sights to us in spanish (I am obviously getting better at convincing people I understand them) and after dropping them off and collecting double of what the fare should cost, we carried on. He pulled down into a neighbourhood of extremely neglected buildings, and asked some kids playing baseball on the streets for directions to my casa. Turning 2 corners we pulled up at a door on a street with a stained sign with a symbol which indicates this residence is a legal casa particular; the symbol is consistent, and the colour is dependent on whether the casa is registered for foreign (blue) or domestic (brown) tourists.

From havana I travelled to cienfuegos for the night, where I met the eighty nine year old woman. besides this lovely encounter, a waiter that gave me a flower and proceeded to watch me eat every mouthful of my pork steak, and spending half an hour with some local guys who were dredging for shrimps, i was none too excited by cienfuegos. it seems a pleasant enough place to live. but i couldn't find the attraction to visit there. so the next day, i moved on to trinidad, just under a few hours away.

Trinidad is a beautiful colonial city, made up of faded coloured one story buildings, narrow winding cobbled streets, all of which draw upwards to the nucleus – the plaza and catherdral with it’s grandly blemished walls. Adjacent to the cathedral are steps climbing its walls, which teems with people in the evening, collected to enjoy the entertainment at the idyllicly placed la casa de la musica – the stage sits halfway up the steps – whilst waiters from surrounding cafes weave the crowds taking drinks orders. Following this, along with german, finnish and english girls, a cuban rastafarian took us up and over the steps, and just over a hill – on top of which sits an abandoned old church – to a set of large caves; in which sits club ayala. Club ayala takes up a large space down inside the caves, sporting a dance floor and lots of salsa-ing locals and a few tourists. Discoballs hang from the ceiling, and at about 1am a pop group of 3 guys started belting out from a small balcony above – 1 of whom wore a gold sequined baseball cap with sunglassed balanced on top. One song I now associate with cuba is the one that goes ‘tonight’s gonna be a good night, tonight’s gonna be a good good ni-ight, I feel it, ooh-ooh’. I felt rather sick.

Talking of food, I did take peanut butter with me, and granola. The latter of these i finished though i never really needed it, because it was so good. It’s not impossible to find food at times. Budget wise it is difficult to find a variety of budget options at times, but I found there to always be a little house selling pizza in a free standing oven for less than 30 pence, or a cheap roll – very often filled with cheese and ham. It can be tough to find a healthier meal – which will basically be chicken or pork with rice, salad and beans - in the local currency ie cheap, otherwise it will usually be around 6 pounds plus.

Eating out is none too exciting, and the best bet is to eat in your casa particular. I always ate breakfast in mine, as this was often incorporated in the price, and with the amounts served, would keep me full for pretty much all the day. The breakfasts were pretty consistent – plate of fruit, freshly made fruit juice (jug or glass), coffee (often a whole pot), basket/plate of sliced bread or rolls and a plate of eggs of some sort (they tend towards tortilla, omelette style). Better breakfasts included whole pots of hot chocolate made from cuban cocoa (and still accompanied by the pot of coffee), omelettes stuffed with peppers and great honey; worse breakfasts included heavily diluted juice, heavily oiled and salted eggs, and pots of sugar spilling with ants. The fruit plate always contained or was solely made up of fruta bomba, papaya, which I always forgot to tell them in advance I can’t stand, and to spite myself I forced down every day. I started having frequent dinners in my casa from guantanamo onwards. The portions of which matched breakfast. Highlights included camarones, prawns, and all dinners would include a big bowl of rice, bowl of beans, plate of salad, plate of fish/meat of some kind, and occasionally a bowl of banana chips or fried plantain. From sharing casas and dinners a few times, I found the amount given was the same for two as it was for one.

At the bus station in trinidad I ran into a photojournalist I’d met on my journey out of havana, who is writing a piece on the cuban side of the naval base at guantanamo bay. i travelled with him to santiago, where we found a casa run by a doctor. It seems every other person is a doctor or is related to a doctor. I heard that cuba can train 25x more doctors than the united states, though I’m not sure this figure is correct, it gives an idea of the importance they have placed on medicine. it seems cuba's achievements barely make the news. the numbers of doctors that volunteer for humanitarian missions around the world, in africa, the advances in their research. apparently cuba offered to send out doctors to new orleans following hurricane katrina; the us declined this offer, and instead in many nursing homes, old people died by euthanasia, to avoid their inevitable deaths by drowning.

....

whilst i work out how to summarise my last three weeks in cuba, here is a link to video i took in guantanamo city. excuse the shaky hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF5TCkRRyfc

it´s an adjustment to readily accept a kiss on the cheek from your taxi driver. but as i paid my fare at mexico city bus station, i did so for the third time from a mexican. until a while after this, i hadn´t asked another traveler if this was customary, but didn´t think 3 occasions was coincidental. i have since researched and had confirmed this is normal practice, though when mentioned to a few travellers a week later, they looked back at me as a naive blonde girl.

relating to this, i´ve found mexicans to be very warm, friendly and helpful people. i have had 3 hour chats with taqueria owners (who wiped clear my whole bill), drunk beer with men in cantinas (with a doctor buying my drinks), had city tours by lawyers i meet on the street, and often have approach me on the street to help me find my way. i have had mexico city police working outside my hostel invite me to ´party´ at the weekend - thus i made sure to depart by the weekend, and last night a Pizzeria owner invited me for a pizza after the restaurant closed.

i think this is the first time i have visited a country where, in the bus station, alongside an ´in case of fire sign´ there is an ´in case of earthquake. the day before i stayed in puerto escondido on the Oaxacan coast, there was a minor earthquake, and the day i arrived, unbeknown to me there was a tsunami...well, the water went far out, but no wave ever materialised. i visited puerto escondido to watch the surfing, at the beach that has hosted the surfing olympics. however, being off season, there was really nothing to see. i didn´t give much thought to the police riding the highway in open trucks and patrolling the beach, but later found out they had discovered a head in a cooler, missing from a murdered body a few months prior.

speaking of the headless, during my stay here i spoke to a couple from Minnesota. the woman was horrified to find out i was travelling on my own, and more so when she found out i´d been to mexico city. ´do you know what happens there?´. yes...what?´. ´they roll heads around dancefloors´. ´sorry?´. ´it was on the news a few months ago, some drug people chopped off peoples heads, and rolled them around dancefloor in a disco´. ´oh. i didn´t go to any discos´.

foodwise, i have eaten tacos, tortas, corn on the cobs and milk jellies from street carts, quesadillas and enchiladas de mole. mole (mol-ay) is a general name given to several sauces, however this one was made primarily from dried chillies and chocolate...tasting strongly of the latter, which personally i wouldn´t recommend accompanying with chicken. i´ve drunk mexican beers and cocktails, different flavoured tequilas and mezcal- it is made from the agave plant like tequila, but with with a different taste, also served straight, and pox-pronounced posh, a drink of the indigenous people in chiapas. am i the only one that finds it strange that i was the only one out of 6 twenty somethings that knew how to drink tequila with salt and lime?

mexico is classed as a developing country, this can be seen in on the edges of city centres, by the waiflike children and mothers in market centres selling fabrics and dolls, and in the rural areas passed through on the bus, with houses made of not more then some wood and a corrugated iron roof, and very elderly men and women hiking up hill with material across across their head keeping tight the wrapped loads of farming materials balanced on their back. in many ways the country is very developed, there are often well built highways, and the roads winding around and up and down the mountains are fairly smooth. there is no train system throughout most of the country, but a well organised bus system, with internet booking available, and 2 or 3 different classes. the buses are air conditioned coaches, with a bag checking system preventing anyone walking off with a bag, and often with tvs playing terrible movies - one that stands out was a dubbed showing of Inkheart, starring Brendan Fraser. There are 2nd class local buses, however these do not travel all routes, have far fewer buses and are stopped and searched at most checkpoints. On the last bus I took, an 18 hour trip from San Cristobal in Chiapas to over developed Cancun, with adverts of Chippendales and lap dancing clubs signalling you´ve arrived, we were pulled over 3 times. Police, immigration patrol and the Army each pulled us over - the latter of which, when everyone except me and an English boy had got off the bus, started asking the boy for money. I think i handled the situation excellently, responding with a strong ¿Que? (What?!). They left us alone.

I have mostly slept in dorms, with girls having panic attacks, men snoring loudly, and my current dorms are priced accordingly with mattress thickness desired. I have once had my own room, and spent a few nights on buses. On Puero Escondido I slept on a mattress suspended in the air on open decking just off the beach with the sea 20 metres away in view - this was easily the best nights sleep apart from being woken at 4 every morning by dogs barking madly on the beach.

I´ve climbed the Aztec ruins in Teotihuacan, walked around Mexico City, down streets full of music shops, with Mexican punks hanging out on the corners, visited Metropolitan Cathedral - the largest in Latin America. If you look closely, you can see the cathedral is leaning slightly one way. Mexico City is sinking. Parts of the cathedral are nearly 8 feet deeper then others. There are significant efforts to restore monuments such as this - I think work on the Cathedral has been completed. The city´s main water supply, over 70%, comes from water pumped from aquifiers that were part of the original lake - the city was built on an island in the middle of a lake. Thus poor conservation and a large population using and wasting more water than is being replaced, results in a dry lake bed and a sinking city.

I visited Oaxaca City, in the Oaxaca State. A wonderful colonial city and UNESCO world heritage site, made up of narrow often one way streets and faded colourful buildings,and with a lovely bustling zocalo (main plaza or square). A hotbed for food and drink, especially known for it´s chocolate - and thus this and other types of mole sauce - and mezcal. The city is known to breed creativity, producing reknowned artists such as Rodolfo Morales and Francisco Toledo, and Benito Juarez - Mexico´s beloved and first indigenous president, who was born in a Oaxacan village, and later studied law at the city´s University.

From here I travelled to San Cristobal in the highlands, and visited some indigenous villages surrounding it. In the heart of the Mayan village San Juan Chamula, alongside a market is a large church. Inside the floor is covered in fresh green pine needles and replacing pews there are groupings of lit candles stuck to the floor by their melted wax ends. Around the sides of the church are small shrines to Mayan Gods, adorned with flowers, photographs and toys, and with a group of candles in front of each. Photographs and drawings often depict people who have survived an incident, e.g. an illness, or a drawing of a car crash. In the church there is always a Shaman, a spiritual healer, whom people in trouble come to. The advice often given could be to sacrifice a chicken, by bringing it live into the church and breaking its neck as an offering. Walking around the church there are Mayan people kneeling in front of shrines, of standing facing the head of the church chanting, with a bottle of beer or coca cola by their side, often drunk during the chanting. The side effect of burping, letting out gas is considered to release evil spirits from the body. Their holy water is pox (which i mentioned drinking before), cane alcohol, 38% concentration. At the head of the church in the centre is a picture of St John the Baptist, whom the church is dedicated to. During one evening here I went to a small home made cinema to watch a documentary on the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, who are based in Chiapas and have since 1994 been at war with the Mexican state for oppressing the working class, and denying autonomy to the idigenous people in Chiapas, due to the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

I am now staying on Isla Mujeres. I arrived at Cancun at 6:30am yesterday, and got out of there within an hour with a short ferry ride to the island. It is very touristy here, but charming all the same. Unlike Cancun, the beaches are not unaccessible due to large private hotels. I´m staying here for a couple of days before my flight from Cancun to Cuba on Sunday, to prepare for the trip. From what I´ve been told, it is very expensive there for tourists, difficult to use bankcards, with little street food, government priced ´budget´ accommodatio and a huge lack of resources....it can take days to find somewhere with a toothbrush in stock. I am expecting to live off fruit from the market and bread, which is also cheap, and may take a jar of peanut butter for protein. As far as internet goes, apparently it costs approx 6USD per half hour is commonly an incredibly slow connection. That said, I´m not sure when next i will be able to update this, but seeing as i have been fairly slow with getting started, i suppose it is just keeping in pattern. I will be there for 3 weeks.

Given my late start to this, I will upload some photos and captions from New York, Los Angeles and more from Mexico to fill in some gaps before I leave the island. Tonight I have met a retired teacher called Jerry, he took me to a local bar accessible through a long narrow doorway, and later to another subtle bar run by a transvesite, and tomorrow will take me to the island´s strip club. Amongst dodging the tourist hired golf carts, and visiting the crowded white sand beaches with pedal boats and canopy covered massage tables, I am discovering the other side to Isla Mujeres.