November 23: Port-au-Prince - - - > Miami, FL
I knew for sure that I was becoming at least partially Haitian when I caught myself staring, slack-jawed, at the endless lines of white people shuffling past me in the Miami airport. The last snippets of Creole faded away throughout the customs process. The stores were overwhelming too – I get the impression that the Miami airport contains more cash value in goods than whole swaths of Port-au-Prince.
Miami, FL - - - > Montego Bay, Jamaica
The last three flights of the evening arrive in Montego Bay airport at the same time, meaning that the beleaguered staff of four occupy a fraction of the agent booths, and are forced to process an instant crowd. Not that they could be hurried in any way. They took their time. When I finally made it out to the taxis, the first person I saw was a cheerful 40-something guy holding a sign that said “Esquerto” – my bogus Nicaraguan travel nickname from 2006’s adventure with Shane and Kamala.
The cabbie’s name was Trevor. He became our man in Jamaica. I found Shane and Carly at our hotel - a place called Toby’s Resort - around 10:00 pm. We had a lot of catching up to do, and we did it over Red Stripes and barbecued chicken in a second-story, open air restaurant located right on the “hip strip” that runs parallel to the Montego Bay waterfront. The waitress was wonderful and she gave us all kinds of Jamaican slang. And there was a little Rastafarian guy named Troy there too. I asked him all kinds of questions about the religion. I can’t do it justice here, of course, but here are a couple interesting things about Rastafarianism: (apologies if this is not new information)
- Rastafarians have churches.
- The churches always have a table to one side that holds the “chillum pipe.”
- The true Rasta man never consumes alcohol or tobacco.
- They worship the 20th century Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie as a black messiah. Ethiopia is their holy land.
- Their cosmology is shaped by biblical terms, and they represent oppression and suffering with the name Babylon in their music and literature.
We were out pretty late and didn’t get up until 10 the next day. Our man Trevor was there waiting for us and we drove to Negril, a miles-long strip of perfect white beach. It’s almost completely developed with enormous all-inclusive resorts – the mothership of which, is Sandals. We didn’t go in or near any of these places, and chose instead to stick to the public beach with its endless restaurants and shops and beautiful sand. We drove back after sunset.
November 25: Montego Bay, Jamaica - - - > Havana, Cuba
Leaving Jamaica, Shane and Carly and I were all careful to watch the officials and make sure that they didn’t stamp our passports as leaving the country. This, of course, because U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba can be fined $250,000 and thrown in the clink for 10 years. Despite this, I read that some 100,000 Americans visit Cuba each year. Plenty of those are legally authorized trips, but most aren’t. Jamaica is a big entry point for this kind of illegal tourism, along with Toronto and Mexico City. So we knew that when the officials saw our U.S. passports and tickets to Cuba, they’d let it slide. They did. But, in the months after September 11th, when the Bush administration absurdly launched a crackdown on travel to Cuba, some Jamaican officials began stamping American passports again. It’s long since stopped, though.
In preparation for the Cuba trip, I consulted with a friend of mine here in Port-au-Prince. She’s Cuban, and she runs a video rental near where I live. She renounced her Cuban residency by coming to live in Haiti for more than nine months. Since then, she cannot return for more than a few weeks at a time. She can never live in Cuba again. She has a friend who has an amicable ex-husband in Havana. My friend told me that he would drive us around Havana for $25 a day – a pretty good deal. She said he would come to the airport to pick us up, and that he would be dressed all in black and carrying a single red rose, for Carly.
And true to his word, Manolito was there in black. As soon as we were introduced, he said in his very limited English that if asked, we were to say that we knew his ex-wife, which wasn’t true. We made it out to his car with our luggage, and then realized that we needed to check on something at the Air Jamaica counter, back in the airport. On our way back, we were approached by a young cop. He separated Manolito from us and spoke for what seemed like a very long time. Then we were escorted to a trailer set up as a makeshift office in front of the airport. I couldn’t quite call it an interrogation, but there were a lot of questions, mostly in Spanish, and they took our passports. There were a few cops there, and they were all pretty young and unintimidating. They didn’t give the impression that they knew or cared much about what they were doing. Eventually, they brought Manolito back to us. And then after that was an even longer wait, answering the same questions, sharing a half cup of coffee between us three Americans, Manolito, and the Cuban keystone cops.
Finally, we were allowed to go with our passports on the condition that we hired another cab to follow Manolito’s car, which would carry our luggage. Another $25 down the tube. We drove through the outskirts of Havana, then towards the Miramar district where we were to stay at an apartment with a nice retired woman named Dora. This was another arrangement made by my friend in Haiti. Manolito helped us carry our luggage up to the fourth floor of this modest apartment building in what is considered the “posh” part of Havana, where most ambassadors and embassy staff live. When we landed, Manolito broke it down for us about the ins and outs of Cuba. He explained that we could hire him for the whole day, and he could take us anywhere except the old city (the best part) and anywhere outside of Havana. So in the end we didn’t need help from Manolito. We opted to take taxis, which occasionally included beautiful fifty-year-old Chevys and what not. There are some 60,000 classic automobiles on the roads in Cuba. Most of them have Russian parts under the hood to help them along. Some are flawless like new, some of them are more like warriors of the Revolucion.
According to my video store friend, everyone in Cuba has some way of making a little cash on the side. The government rations will keep you alive and not without luxuries like cigars and rum, but in reality people will want more than that, and there are a lot of ways to find it. One man lured Shane into a bar to buy some cigars. He had a big plastic gasoline container with a false bottom. He lifted it to reveal a box full of contraband. Cuban citizens buy these cigars for a pittance, but are forbidden to resell them. The government does what it can to funnel tourists into its state-owned stores where the cigars sell for many times what the Cubans pay. There’s a kind of ever-present moral dilemma. On the one hand, it’s nice to get a good deal, and it’s nice to help out a guy just trying to get a birthday present for his kid or something like that, but it’s not the same as in other countries. The Cuban government is of course repressive and far from perfect, but I don’t feel good about denying money to a cash-strapped state that is struggling to provide food, education and health care to every single one of its citizens, and doing an admirable job.
The dilemma was the worst with the taxis. Unmetered taxi trips are a huge source of untaxed revenue in Cuba. Most cabbies wouldn’t negotiate much, they would just quote a price that would work out to be more or less what the meter would end up reading. But instead of that $5 going to further the revolucion, it would go into the guy’s pocket. Of course you could insist on using the meter, but we never really did.
We went to Old Havana. Block after block of dense history, with the brightly colored, yet crumbling buildings morphing from one era into another. I could have paid $2 to see the hotel room where Hemmingway wrote some of his best stuff, but I opted out.
There was music everywhere, and there was more laundry than I’ve ever seen in my life hanging out to dry between fire escape ladders. It’s one of those places that has such a look and feel to it, it makes you stop and soak it in. And of course, pictures don’t do it justice.
I don’t have much to say about the food in Cuba. We had some lovely meals, but overall it was unimpressive. The sandwiches sold on the street were nice and cheap and greasy and salty, but you can only do that so much. I do remember one restaurant we searched out after reading the Lonely Planet guide. It was a hole-in-the-wall that would have been more suited for Seattle, with it’s kitschy plastic decorations and shrine featuring a few Buddhas, a Jesus and a three-foot tall Native American. The beans and rice were delicious, and I got a giant chunk of ham that I could barely finish.
We crossed under the canal in a big screaming black Buick from the 1940s, on our way to the traditional firing of the cannon. Every evening at 9:00, a troop or garrison or whatever of people dressed as colonial troops gets itself into formation and marches to the 16th century fortress walls to fire a cannon to the oohs and aahs of tourists both foreign and Cuban.
We spent some quality time in the posh neighborhood where we were staying. We checked out a couple of the very un-communist-looking high-rise hotels on the water. Their pools were beautiful, the lobbies were like those of any other luxury hotel. Except, every single one had a wall with a series of photos from the revolution, including a couple good close-ups of Fidel and Che, chomping cigars. The words “A Moment in History…” were painted on the wall above the photos in English and Spanish.
As far as I know, Cubans are not allowed as guests into hotels like this. The world of tourists and the world of Cubans coexist, though they are carefully segregated. The two populations pay different prices. They use different money. Each has their own restaurants, hotels, and forms of transportation that the other is forbidden to use. You heard that right. Havana has scores of hotels and restaurants that will kick out any Cuban citizen who tries to enter. I guess this is to discourage underground markets by cutting the supply of places to spend your illegally earned cash. A Cuban citizen could never afford to eat at these restaurants which only accept the tourist currency, which has ten times the value, but about the same spending power as the money that Cuban nationals use, if that makes any sense at all.
But of course the two spheres do intersect in plenty of places. There are indeed hotels, restaurants, and of course cabs which serve both tourists and Cubans. By and large the Cubans we encountered were lovely people. Salty, for sure. Many of them are working on their English and eager to try it out. The woman we were staying with, Dora, was not herself Cuban. She used to work for a South American embassy in Havana. She was sweet and attentive and between her 60 year-old high school English courses and pathetic travel Spanish from me and Shane, we were able to communicate. Her favorite food to make for us was toasted rolls with scrambled eggs and diced hot dogs. Deeee-licious!
After a few days of Havana we headed to Varedero, a long, very thin peninsula with white sandy beaches on both sides. It is dotted with resorts and hotels of all shapes and sizes – thousands of rooms. Fifty flights a week arrive directly to the Varedero international airport from Toronto alone. It is surely the most un-Cuban place in Cuba. And yet, ironically, the all-inclusive resort is probably the closest we could get to the experience of a Cuban citizen. I’m being trite, but the cafeteria-style food, the little cups, the avoidance of circulating too much cash was, in the end, equal parts liberating and limiting. We spent two nights in an a lower-middle range all-inclusive. First time ever, I swear. Probably the last. Not that it was all that bad. There was certainly a variety of food, but nothing very special. The bureaucracy was stifling. It took something like six trips by foot across the sprawling compound to get beach towels, which involved deposits and receipts and multiple desks and unmotivated personnel. Getting reservations to the sit-down-and-order-like-a-real-restaurant restaurant was just too complicated for us.
The best part was when we took the pedalboat. They had a few of those side-by-side bicycle-pedal style boats, but these ones were fitted with seats in the back, so Shane and I powered out past the waves and down the coast while Carly snapped photos from the back. We all took turns pedaling and steering. We checked out the other resorts. When we got back to our own beach, two hours later, we got chastised by resort staff. We had violated the rules on taking the boats out for 30 minutes at a time only. Never mind the fact that there were other pedalboats lying there unused.
Ican’t complain at all really. It was two days on a perfect beach in the Caribbean. But once we decided to quit the resort and find a hotel in town, we sort of wished we had done that in the first place. There, we found a restaurant that was in an old house – every wall of which was covered with graffiti, signatures, mottos, proverbs, drawings and whatever else. I can’t even remember what I got, but it was good. Italian I think. I know I bagged on the food earlier, but I do have to say that I was impressed by the variety of cuisines, styles, and atmospheres of the different state-owned restaurants we visited. I have no idea how much the management of these is controlled by the government. On the one hand, there was about as much ethnic variety in food as you would find in a mid-sized American city. Chinese, Indian, Italian, Spanish, Mexican. On the other hand, I noticed that for a lot of the bars and restaurants in Havana that were supposed to be “hip” had a similar look, and their signage was all in the same funky font. I imagined some poor guy at the Ministry of Restaurants or something trying to come up with cool names and slogans for these places.
I didn’t expect to see products advertised in a communist country. But there were plenty of billboards displaying not only pro-government messages, but rum, cigars, and all kinds of other stuff. Not far from where we were staying was a restaurant with a giant inflatable can of Bucanero beer, Cuba’s own. The grocery store we checked out looked in many ways like something from the states. Except for that entire aisle devoted to mayonnaise. A lot of times they would put a couple hundred bottles of a single product on the shelf, right next to a hundred bottles of another single product. So it looked full, but it could have taken up only a fourth of the space.
Anyhow, back in Varedero – for our last night in bizarro Cuban resort-land, we decided to go see a cabaret. Don’t judge me! There’s a lot of different kinds of cabaret, and this was a very innocent, very Latin-American version of what goes on in Las Vegas and Paris and wherever else. In fact, I would have to say that Cuba is the country least polluted by sexual exploitation that I have ever visited. I’ll bet there’s more pornography in Salt Lake City than all of Cuba. It’s totally illegal.
Back to the cabaret - it was in a cave. With blacklights. The female dancers looked like peacocks and the vocalists blasted out song after song while people danced and spun around in perfect symmetry. It was called the Pirate’s Cave Cabaret, and had a seedy feel despite the ostensibly family-friendly show. I’m not sure how to account for the contradiction. It seems like most of the watering holes we saw in Cuba were somewhat seedy. Maybe this is because almost everyone engages in illegal buying or selling, so everyone’s got a little something to hide. Everyone’s a little on edge. Any time a Cuban gets stopped by a cop, they must be thinking of all the different ways they could get into big trouble at that moment.
We went back to Havana for a couple of days, and then headed back to Jamaica. There’s so much more to write about Cuba, I just have no idea where to start. There were police officers everywhere. It’s Cuba’s answer to unemployment. In the neighborhood where we stayed, every intersection on the main road had a little booth with a cop inside. There’s pictures of Hugo Chavez all over that say something like, “welcome to your homeland, brother.” And how could I not mention Che?! He is more beloved than Fidel, and he is absolutely everywhere. Books, postcards, photos, posters, keychains, wood carvings, underwear, hats, and of course, t-shirts.
Cuba was lovely. Seven days was not nearly enough. There are some challenges there for the illegal tourist, for sure. We had to travel with all of our money in cash, since ATMs and credit cards that are issued by American banks are not accepted – and if they were used by accident, Uncle Sam and his Patriot Act could be all up in our business. Internet was expensive and slow, and at times seemed to be shut off, island-wide. There’s so much we didn’t see. Trinidad, Santiago de Cuba, the Isle of Youth, the tobacco fields of the west, the mountains, the cooperative farms, the caves, the Bay of Pigs. Next time.
December 2: Havana, Cuba - - - > Montego Bay, Jamaica
Coming back to Jamaica was our last big hurdle in terms of keeping our tracks covered. All of us had entry stamps to Jamaica, but no exit stamps yet. As long as we didn’t get stamped again until leaving Jamaica, our passports would only have a record of us being in Jamaica the entire time. But my immigration official didn’t get the memo. She had the stamp up in the air about to bring it down on my passport until I screamed, “STOP!” She looked up at me like I was crazy. I explained I was in Cuba illegally and that my passport must not reflect this. She said that she had to stamp it. I made her ask the official next to her, who backed me up and said it was okay not to stamp it. Which is why I’m not writing to you from sunny Guantanamo Bay right now.
As cool as Cuba was, Jamaica was in many ways a relief. People spoke English. ATMs and visa cards worked. The food was fantastic. And best of all, Trevor was there. He met up with us at the airport food court before we took off for Ocho Rios, two hours away. Ocho Rios is a very special place in Jamaica, laying claim to both Bob Marley and civil rights activist Marcus Garvey. Trevor set us up in a perfect, classy old hotel right on the water. We had a room looking out on the catamarans, fishing boats and jet-skis that crossed from time to time. A short paddle out from our back yard was a long stretch of coral, just full of colorful fish, perfect for snorkeling. We spent the next five days there, managing to get in one good activity each day, but with plenty of time left over for cards, books, backgammon, iPod, and alternating between the pool and the calm, salty Caribbean.
One day we went somewhere called the Dunn’s River Falls. Since we had arrived, everyone was asking us if we’d seen the falls, so we went. We didn’t know what to expect. What we found was a series of waterfalls, and chains of white folks from the all-inclusives, laughing and slowly walking up the rocky steps of the cascades wearing little rubber shoes. We had to pay admission and then rent the shoes. Once we had worked our way up the exciting part of the river, we changed back into street clothes and tried to leave. But to do that, we were forced through a little village of tourist trap shops with, hands down, the most aggressive sales guys I have ever seen. One guy grabbed my wrist, shoved a wooden carving in my hand, closed my hand, and continued to hold it there while he pitched me about how this was his gift to me, I just had to take a look at the other stuff he had to sell. Once we got out of there we all breathed a sigh of relief. It made me long for the more lackadaisical service workers of Cuba.
The two countries seemed about as different as could be. And they aren’t in a hurry to understand each other, either. Everyone in Cuba asked us why we would want to spend any time in Jamaica. People in Jamaica asked us the same thing about Cuba. Jamaica is very unrepressed, convenient, expensive, and dangerous. Cuba is very safe, difficult, and bound by lots of rules. Jamaica has a lot more wealth and a lot more misery. There are three murders a day in the Capitol of Kingston. Cuba is very integrated, with lots of intermarriage between people of African and Spanish descent. Jamaica felt more monocultural. Superficially, it’s more like Haiti: almost totally black, and on average, poor, with a wealthy light-skinned and white elite as well as some smaller ethnic groups from Asia. The difference is that instead of white missionaries and development and relief workers and UN soldiers, like we have in Haiti, Jamaica just has a bunch of white tourists. And the streets are all paved and they have 24-hour electricity and fast food – that part’s pretty different from Haiti too. Drugs are everywhere. Walking down any street, really at any hour, you will be offered every kind of drug. We got used to ignoring it, even though a couple times we were accused of being racist for doing so. Needless to say, this doesn’t happen in Cuba.
One of the great ironies of Cuba-American relations is that the hardliners on both sides have very similar ideas of social policy. Both abhor pornography, liberal drug laws and homosexuality, and have a soft spot for baseball and classic American cars. Fidel used to publicly denounce homosexuality as a decadent outgrowth of the cancer that is capitalism.
Jamaica on the other hand has a thriving sex trade and drug laws are just another opportunity for police corruption. They do share the aversion to homosexuality, though. Gay people are killed from time to time in Jamaica. It’s deeply offensive to the conservative Christians and Rastafarians alike. Whereas among the younger generation of Cubans, homosexuality is becoming more accepted. At one point while Shane and Carly and I were in a taxi driving along the malecon, the cabbie pointed out a big crowd sitting on the seawall. He snickered and said that they were all gay, and as we looked closer we saw that there were a lot of same-sex couples. Cuba’s a-changin’.
December 8: Montego Bay, Jamaica - - - > Miami, FL
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Miami, FL - - - > Port-au-Prince
It’s been said that Haiti begins in the Miami airport. In addition to the janitors, who are almost all Haitians, there are the planeloads that pass through, always hauling giant bags full of stuff for friends and family back in the city, town or village. As I start to recognize those Creole words, those vivid expressions, a part of my brain that is like a dried sponge begins to absorb each drop, getting more supple every minute. My favorite Haitian musician, Belo, was seated three rows behind me in coach. He was just as cool and humble in person as his songs would suggest.
It felt so good to touch down in Haiti. I was picked up at the airport by Joseph, MCC’s chauffeur and one of my top ten favorite people of all time. He gave me all the news of friends, coworkers, the security situation and what not. He told me about the new class of police officers that just graduated from the academy. We passed a couple of them, wearing their strange new camouflage uniforms which look nothing like any other police uniform in Haiti. And on we rolled, catching up, running side errands, until we arrived at the big, locked gate to my house.
