Friday 22 November 2013
Well,
Cuba continues to enchant and befuddle. Having
driven around quite a lot of the city in taxis going here and there, we realise
that the wealth of this city (ie the wealth pre-revolution) is not just in
isolated patches. This was one mf
wealthy city with mansion after mansion after mansion. Three stories. Four stories. Most of them just rotting away. It’s sent my preconceptions about la
revolution into a spin. I had assumed
that this must have been a poor place with pockets of wealthy people exploiting
the poor; but the physical evidence doesn’t support this at all. Maybe the people in the country were poor; I
don’t know, I need to research – but this city was wealthy.
Then we thought there
must still be some wealth here however because we’ve seen a few Audis (not
many) - but then someone explained that 80% of cars in Cuba are owned by the government and how good your car is depends on how good your job/connections are.
We went to a the necropolis today. Not as good as Buenos Aires but still pretty good.
Then got a taxi back to the centre of town; look around for a taxi, a guy calls out “taxi?” we say “yes” he says “where to” we tell him, we ask “quanta costa? How much?” he says “ocho pesos,” so deal done. Then we go to the ‘taxi’; it’s the oldest, dirtiest, ugliest little car and clearly not a taxi. But this isn’t the first dirty car we’ve been in so we figure ok. Then we get in – the front seats are held in with rope. The back doors have no handles to get out – anyone who knows about Ted Bundy (the serial killer) will know that’s what he did; took off the handles so his victims couldn’t get out. Then a second later his ‘brother’ gets into the car with us. Then they turn in the wrong direction. Both Trevor and I are thinking “oh, no!” Then a second later they turn again and go in the right the direction “phew!” The car was a Lada, some rotten old Soviet car. The driver certainly noticed the nice, new cars on the road and pointed out to his brother the Audi and the new Toyota. Then they stopped for gasolina and it was right next to the Hotel Nacianal where all the famous people stayed, back in the day, so we got out. They dropped us off and turned out to be quite sweet and friendly. Paranoid.
We went to a the necropolis today. Not as good as Buenos Aires but still pretty good.
Then got a taxi back to the centre of town; look around for a taxi, a guy calls out “taxi?” we say “yes” he says “where to” we tell him, we ask “quanta costa? How much?” he says “ocho pesos,” so deal done. Then we go to the ‘taxi’; it’s the oldest, dirtiest, ugliest little car and clearly not a taxi. But this isn’t the first dirty car we’ve been in so we figure ok. Then we get in – the front seats are held in with rope. The back doors have no handles to get out – anyone who knows about Ted Bundy (the serial killer) will know that’s what he did; took off the handles so his victims couldn’t get out. Then a second later his ‘brother’ gets into the car with us. Then they turn in the wrong direction. Both Trevor and I are thinking “oh, no!” Then a second later they turn again and go in the right the direction “phew!” The car was a Lada, some rotten old Soviet car. The driver certainly noticed the nice, new cars on the road and pointed out to his brother the Audi and the new Toyota. Then they stopped for gasolina and it was right next to the Hotel Nacianal where all the famous people stayed, back in the day, so we got out. They dropped us off and turned out to be quite sweet and friendly. Paranoid.
The
Hotel Nacional was quite the hotel in it’s day but has the ‘Communist
incompetent’ feel about it now (ie not a bustling, first class hotel you could
get anywhere in the world). Then we took
a walk by their waterfront. They had a
‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ exhibition, so in we went. It was the actual place where they had their command
centre for the defence of Havana with lots of tunnels and trenches and gun
placements. Fascinating.
