Cuba - Day 7 - Challenge Accepted.

Our last day in Trinidad and our last full day in Cuba, so not surprisingly, we decided to pack in a huge day.  Our pick up was scheduled for 8:30am (middle of the night by Cuba standards), but our Casa hosts had the standard monster breakfast ready and waiting for us on our rooftop table.  Today’s adventure was a trip to Topes de Collantes, a nature reserve park, for a day of hiking and swimming in a waterfall.  Very educational, obviously.  We had a private guide, let’s call him Antonio.  And he was wearing a “Chicago” baseball hat when he came to pick us up!  Complete coincidence.

Antonio is probably in his late 20’s or early 30’s and is fluent in English, possibly the most fluent we have come across since we’ve been here, so it was very easy to talk to him and boy did he like to talk, so we learned a lot.  Antonio’s take on Cuba was a little bit different from others as we was employed by the government as a park tour guide and had been for years.  He is clearly a sharp guy and very well informed in politics, which was interesting since it was obvious that his first love is the outdoors.  He grew up in “the mountains” of Cuba and was resistant to moving to the big town (Trinidad).  His family still lived in the mountains but he did make the move to town. Keep in mind that mountains in Cuba are not Colorado sized, but maybe more Wisconsin or Michigan sized, and they are only about 10 minutes from Trinidad. 

The taxi dropped us off at the “trailhead”.  Using that term loosely since essentially we were dropped off in what seemed like an apartment building parking lot that had a dirt path leading into a foresty area.  The apartment buildings, by our standards were in shambles – by now we were used to seeing the crumbling buildings with laundry drying everywhere, so not shocking in any way.  And of course, sadly, there was the garbage.  To a certain extent, I understand the garbage in more populated and dense areas, but to see the piles of garbage everywhere in what is supposed to be a nature reserve was kind of a bummer. 

We made our way down the path, followed by chickens, through some “mountain houses” and coffee crops.  There are a lot of people who still live in the mountains and they live in small houses tucked in the trees just off the path and they farm coffee and other plants.  When Antonio was first explaining this, I’m envisioning houses on the side of a mountain with perfectly groomed crops planted and tended.  But every time Antonio pointed into the woods to show us “crops”, Damon and I were like “um, where” – he would point to a bunch of plants and said, “there – see how they are planted in rows”.  All we could see was the typical forest trees with a bunch of bushes and plants growing randomly everywhere. 

We were able to recognize coffee been bushes after a while, but never, not once, did I ever recognize anything that appeared to be a row or crop.  And this was fairly dense forest with trees all over.  We did pass by a house that had a enormous ox in front - just lounging around.  The ox only had one horn.  Apparently a tree fell in a storm and broke the other horn clean off.  First, can you imagine the loss to the owner if the tree had killed the ox, which is used to help plow the coffee fields?  Second, how this ox was able to maneuver around the "fields" is beyond me because, as stated, I couldn't figure out the difference between a coffee field and a forest.

We learned about the plants that grow around in the area – as I said earlier, Antonio is definitely a nature guy.  Which plants require shade vs sun and why certain plants grown or don’t grow.  But I can’t remember any of it.  Oh well.  Antonio pointed out some cool colorful birds

and at one point he was very excited to show us a giant rat poop that came from something he referred to as a giant tree rat.  Now I live in Chicago and have seen my share of Chicago sewer rats, and I have seen their poop.  And judging by the size of the tree rat poop, I can assure you that was one rodent I had absolutely no desire to see – especially jumping around in the trees above me.  And Antonio made sure to make us look closely at how shiny the rat poop was so we could see how fresh it was.  Awesome.

We walked a few miles and he talked and talked and talked.  He was not as negative about the government, more rationale about the situation, but he certainly understood the limitations of their lives – just more accepting of it, I suppose.  He told us about his sister who had gone to the University for a degree in language and wanted to be an English conversational translator.  She spoke several languages but instead of putting her in a translator position, the government assigned her to a hospital where her job was to translate medical jargon.  She was not able to actually practice speaking, just written translation of medical files.  She told Antonio how lucky he was to be in the tourist industry because he was able to speak and practice English on a daily basis.  Antonio did not have any formal English training, but he does have the opportunity to practice constantly and it has made him very conversant in English.

Antonio is married with two young children.  He told us about some German friends he had made during a tour.  They remained close and the Germans sent Antonio’s son some Legos as an 8^th birthday gift.  These Legos became the most popular toy in the neighborhood and all of the local kids would come over and play Legos every day.  Antonio said that their house is so small, that when the kids were all playing,  they couldn’t even get through their living room and had to move furniture just so they could play.  The Legos were so popular that the threat of being asked to leave the house if a kid behaved badly was enough to deter an 8 year old boy from mis-behaving.  The Germans wanted to send more toys but Antonio said, and get this, that he didn’t want to spoil his son.  The set of Legos was plenty.  Here is a family that has almost nothing, and one set of Legos is more than enough for them.  Still feel guilty about not buying your kid an iPhone 7???  In addition to Legos, apparently the movie “Cars” & Lightening McQueen are hugely popular with the boys.  Both Marcus’s 6-year old and Antonio’s 8 year old were huge fans.  The Germans also bought the son Lightening McQueen sheets, pillows and blankets – and Antonio considered that moderately spoiled.

We had a lengthy conversation about credit in Cuba.  If I understood this correctly, there is credit, but only with the government, and it is incredibly restrictive.  Antonio explained how this worked using a new refrigerator as an example.  The government decided that everyone had to buy a new more energy efficient refrigerator.  But in order to get one, they had to turn in an old, inefficient refrigerator.  They received no credit for the old one and had to pay full price for a new one.  I don’t know how much they cost, but these are not GE Profile, stainless steel, they are about ¾ size, plain white refrigerators, but I’m guessing $600-$1000.  Antonio need a refrigerator but did not have an old one, so first, he had to go out and find an old crappy refrigerator to buy, so he could turn it in and get nothing for it, and then pay full price for the new one – on credit.  He said it took him 9 years to pay off the refrigerator.  And then his mom needed one, so he is currently paying off that one as well.  Now here is the rub – if you have any credit, you cannot get more credit.  So while he is paying off his mom’s refrigerator, he cannot get credit for anything else.  AND, if you have any outstanding credit, you cannot get a passport because the government thinks you will leave and bail on your debt.  So if you recall from a few days ago when I wrote about the expense of passports and the difficulty in leaving the country, here is yet another obstacle they have to overcome.  A mandatory refrigerator upgrade.  I asked Antonio if he wanted to leave Cuba and visit any other countries, specifically his friends in Germany, and he basically said, maybe one day, but it will be at least 5 years before I can even think about getting a passport.

At one point, we learned that Antonio had bought a Sunbeam air conditioner.  I don’t recall how he got it, but at some point, I’m guessing he may have filled out a warranty card – in any case, he ended up providing his email address to Sunbeam.  He was telling us how strange it was that he kept getting emails from the company since he lived in Cuba – he had absolutely no concept of SPAM and had to open his phone and show us, in awe, all of the emails he was getting from Sunbeam.  Remember back in the late ‘90’s when we were still getting used to email and SPAM???

Last story.  Antonio, as I mentioned was a pretty sharp guy and understands but seems to grudgingly accept the limitations imposed by the Cuban government.  But he seemed especially affected when we were talking about education and job opportunities and he told us how he had asked a little girl what she wanted to be when she grew up and her answer was that she wanted to marry a tourist.  That was her goal in life that had been ingrained in her by friends and family.

Back to our hike.  We hiked for an hour or so and eventually got to a beautiful waterfall. 

As we had been promised a swim, Damon and I both brought bathing suits.  There were about 10 other people around when we got there.  I had debated wearing my suit but didn’t really want to hike in it and Damon had assured me – there will be somewhere to change.  HA HA HA.  There were steep paths, rocks, and brambles.  And people.  Again – when in Cuba.  Damon held up a mini-towel and I just put my suit on hoping the giant rock I was huddled next to give me just a touch of privacy. This picture is facing the rock - I was basically in the bushes on the left trying not to fall down the rock.

It was a nice warm day and we were happy to jump in – I let Damon go first.  I believe his reaction was, “well, it will take some getting used to”.  I jumped in and, I kid you not, my heart literally stopped.  This was the coldest freaking water I’ve ever jumped into.  I started to panic since my lungs were constricting and as I was already in above my head, literally, I panic doggie paddled to the side of the pool until I felt rocks under my feet and sort of walk/swam/hobbled my way over to the waterfall clinging to the outside edge of the pool.

Obvious question – dumbass – why did you have to go all the way to the waterfall???  Well, the short version is that I was challenged in a bet that I would take a picture of me smoking a cigar under a waterfall in Cuba.  And I accepted that challenge.  And we had carried the cigar all the way to the waterfall.  And I don’t take challenges lightly.  So I made Damon go freeze his butt off treading water in the middle of the freezing pool to take the picture while I stood under the waterfall with my cigar. 

I did suck it up and swim across the pool to get out.  Not the refreshing dip in a mountain waterfall I had been anticipating, but if it provides good fodder for a story, I’m all in.

After our hike, we stopped for lunch at a little restaurant and enjoyed more company and conversation with Antonio… and our taxi driver.  And then we made a stop at a local café (Paladar) where we could try local mountain coffee and see how it is ground up and made.  Another delicious coffee stop.  By this point, we were probably an hour behind schedule – apparently they didn’t think we would spend so much time in the water… and Marcus was calling because our ride to get us back to Havana was waiting.  A wonderful day in the forest with Antonio, but the day was only half over.

The taxi ride back to Havana was slightly calmer, although since I didn’t sleep, I did pick up on a few more things.  The car was not as luxurious as our way out – no air conditioning, no seat belts, no headrests.  Oh well, you should never get used to the finer things here. 

Now for the drive - there were goats – everywhere.  At least on the 2-lane portion of the highway.  The goats just roamed free on and around the road.  I noticed that oncoming drivers were always flashing their lights at us and figured out that it is like the Cuban driver defense system – drivers flash warnings whenever there is anything potentially hazardous in the road ahead – goats, police, slow moving vehicles.  Needless to say, there was a lot of flashing going on.  I also paid more attention to the big highway on the way back.  There were still very few cars on the road, which made me wonder why we were riding in what was essentially the inner emergency lane – until I realized up ahead there were massive craters in the road.  No warning – just huge gaps where the pavement (or lack thereof) would have wrecked these cars, already driving on basically no suspension.  And there were no lane markings.  Sometimes you might see a very faint line, but for the most part, people just sort of stayed out of each other’s way.  I didn’t notice any street lamps, which made me wonder how this road would be to drive in the dark.  I asked our driver if he lived in Havana and he said he had to go back to Cienfuegos (a town about an hour shy of Trinidad), so basically, he was driving almost the entire way in the dark.  Hope he made is safely…

We were dropped at our final Casa – this one I booked on-line and opted to try something new – it was in Havana Vieja, the really cute part of town and was on the main Plaza Vieja square – the one with the statute of the naked lady riding the chicken.  Given that we had no idea that we would even like this area, it was cool to see that we would spend our last night in our favorite spot.  This Casa was a shared space (bathroom), which I think creeped Damon out a little bit, but we took a chance.  Our host was waiting for us outside – how he knew when we would be there is beyond me as it was about 7pm.  He led us through this amazing massive house – I think it was a former palace, Damon thought it was just a cool apartment building.  The ceilings had to be 20’ everywhere and there were marble staircases and murals on the walls. 

We went through one door after another until we got onto what seemed to be an internal house with a living room and huge kitchen plus a bunch of locked doors – bedrooms and bathrooms on two floors.  We had reserved a bedroom and it did share a bathroom with 2 other rooms/4 other guests.  We never did see them, so it really wasn’t much of an issue.  The living room had a balcony that wrapped around the corner of the building and we had a perfect view of the square.  The chicken is smack in the middle of the picture.

We showered and headed out in search of dinner.  We found a Paladar and each had a huge lobster tail and several plates of fried plantains, and mojitos - less than $40.  Another of my obsessions is clearly how inexpensive some things are…

We decided to walk in search of dessert and laughed about how quickly we got used to the craziness of the streets.  Dogs and cats everywhere and some good territory fights.  We've seen dogs chasing dogs, cats screeching at cats, and tonight we witnessed two dogs chasing and barking at a cat all over until they scared it into a building.

One thing I think I forgot to mention which is so funny about this area is wifi.  There is very little access to the internet (in our experience) and quite frankly, we’ve enjoyed never being bothered with phones, and watching people interact with each other rather than have their faces buried.  However, as you wander the streets of Havana Vieja, occasionally you will see large groups of people sitting on the sidewalk or curb, or standing in the street with their faces down, which means… wifi.  To get internet in Cuba (have I talked about this???) you need a wifi spot and an access card, which you have to pay for - about 2-5 CUC/hour.  That is about the only time I felt like we were back home again where people were just so engrossed in their phones, oblivious to everything around them.  We didn’t bother.

We spent our last evening wandering the streets listening to live music, eating dessert, drinking coffee, and recounting our amazing week.  Then we headed back to our Casa for our (sob) last night. 

As I put these posts up, I'm realizing that generally our pictures are kind of awful.  I think we were so busy looking around that half the time we forgot to take out the camera.  Hopefully the descriptions and the few decent pictures are enough :)