Cuba - Day 1

It is time to write a little bit about socialism... isn't it?

Well, this post is based on writings I made on my trip to La Habana in September 2006. While visiting my family in Venezuela, I decided to pack my stuff, and have a 4-days long visit to La Habana Cuba. Since there are lots of things to write about, I will divide this in several parts, each part describing each day of my visit.

Well, many people asked me "What the hell are you going to do in Cuba?, go any other place!, don't leave your money to Fidel!"... I think this argument is a little bit silly. I can assure that most of the people that told me this - if not all of them - buy many products made in China per year, helping the Chinese economy... I remember to all of you, that China declares itself as a communist country. However, my reason to go to Cuba is not that I have sympathy to communist regimes, but I have what I call "historic curiosity". I want to see and understand historic processes, which don't seem that are going to be there forever, with my own eyes. Unfortunately, it is impossible to visit Moscow of the eighties... and did not want to miss the opportunity of seeing Cuba (while Fidel was still El Presidente).

Everything started from the plane when I arrived to Habana close to midnight. I could hardly see light over the island. Closer to Habana I could see more light, but still much less than any capital city of another Latin American country. The airport was almost empty at midnight. Many flags hang on the main hall of the airport, and surprisingly USA and Israel among them.

The main hall of Habana's International Airport

The immigration process was kind of weird I must say. The immigration officer asked me to show her my ticket out of Cuba... maybe she suspected that my intentions were to stay in Cuba as a foreign illegal worker forever. In any case, I gently asked her not to seal my passport, to which she answered me quite angry:

-"We do not stamp passports sir, why do you ask?"
-"Well, they told me that I have to ask in immigration not to stamp it", I said
-"Ahhh... so they told you...", she replied with a "I understand you are influenced by the empire" tone.

In any case, she let me in and I arrived to the customs area. All the passengers, without exceptions, went through an X-rays machine and a manual body check with metal detectors. Our hand bags went through the same process. It was a typical airport routine, but with one difference: in other airports the check is before boarding the plane, and not when arriving to the country.

After that we went to pick up our luggage. Each bag also was meticulously inspected by custom officers before reaching the luggage carousel. Frequently, customs officers put aside one bag without letting it reaching the passengers. I never understood what happened with those bags.

Many of the Cubans that were in my very same flight brought from Panama electrical appliances, hinting two things: (1) that they have money to buy them, and (2) it was a very common thing, as the customs officers appeared to be indifferent to that.

After giving my customs declarations to the officers standing at the exit, one taxi driver offered me to take me to my destination for USD $20. On the way we talked about the city, and he talked about how much he admires president Chavez. He also praised Chavez's speech at the Generaly Assemly of the UN only a couple of days before that (the one in which he said that the General Assembly hall smells like sulphur because the Devil - Bush - was there yesterday).

The road to the city appeared to be relatively short. It was full of factories and old industries, which seemed to be completely deserted. There were very few cars in the streets, all of them very old. I saw also a few people in the streets (it was already about 1am) talking and walking, which is not a common phenomenon in Latin cities, or at least not in Caracas.

We reached my destination, street E 104 between Calzada and 5ta, and we waited long time until we woke Roberto up, thanks to our loud calls and me ringing the bell several times. Roberto rents a room in his house for tourists, and this is a legally established business in Cuba. My friend Enrique suggested me to stay there, and the payment was much cheaper than a hotel - USD $25 per night. The conditions, I must say, were very good. Much better than I imagined. Well, even thought I called Roberto some days before, he was expecting me to come earlier, therefore he was not awake. He opened the door and give me the keys to my room.

Exahusted from the trip, I went to sleep...