Despite everyone telling me that Cuba is expensive, depressing and a bit rubbish I decided to go anyway. Turns out everyone was (a bit) right... or at least about Havana.
For me it was a dull, dirty, dispiriting city - full of scam artists and where at best you´re tolerated and at worst you´re despised. Usually you´re just treated like the shit on someone´s shoe. Not completely surprising in a country that´s totally reliant on the tourist trade and where waiters earn more in tips than doctors earn from the state (the average state wage is something like $13 a month), but the result is that everyone has taken to (basically) begging tourists for money.
It´s depressing really, all the more so because you can´t help but feel guilt, pity, anger about the toxic combination of US intransigence/ barbarity and Cuban incompetence. But it´s also dehumanising (for everyone). A few of the highlights have been:
- A worker at the Capitolio (an amazing building in Havana, basically a replica of the US capital building) who talked at me for 10 minutes in Spanish and then asked me for a dollar (I paid, dummie).
- The paladar owner (a paladar is a restaurant in someone´s house) who charged me $27 (two months wages?!) for a pretty ordinary meal. I´d not asked to see the prices first - it was my first night, I´ve since learnt - so had to pay up.
- An attendant at an (empty) boxing gym who said I could look round for free, then said I could take photos for $1, then tried to charge me $1 for every photo. I gave her $1.50 and left.
- Getting my pocket picked on a busy local bus. Oops. Only lost $30, but it´s the thought that counts.
It´s ´not that I mind being ripped off but I do resent scammers getting my money...
Anyway, I managed to put up with it for a few days and then headed for Trinidad, which is a lovely little colonial city about halfway down the island. Absolutely loads of hustlers here too but (unfortunately, really) at least I know how to deal with them now. Next stop is Santiago and then on to Baracoa, which is meant to be the Cuban Shangri-La. Some hope...
Still having fun, just about, but in a slightly bad mood,
Comrade Tony
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Havana, aaah! “A woman is an occasional pleasure but a cigar is always a smoke” - Groucho. Does that make it seem better?
Never mind Havana, would you recommend living in Worthing? A friend of mine was thinking of moving there with wife and baby.
He's prepared to get a tatoo of the Long Man if that's what it takes.
Mary sends her love, and wants you to get her a big, fat cigar. You can post it. She's waiting...
take care
s
Post a Comment