Tension in a Taxi- short travel article for Wanderlust Magazine

 “Get on the floor” said the taxi driver “and take your bag off the seat”.  I hesitated but did as I was told because it was clear even to me that this Mexico City cabbie had got us hopelessly lost.  He’d taken a wrong turn and we were slowly sinking into an area of the city which was beginning to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. A sudden braking, the tangy smell of rusty metal in my nostrils, the car reeling as he spun it around told me he didn’t want to be here either.  The streets were dark, braziers blazed on corners like a scene from a film.  But Hollywood movie this wasn’t.  As we retreated back along the route we had just taken he told me I could get up.  In the heat of the evening, my sweat was surprisingly cold.

In Mexico City on a short stop-over, part business, part pleasure, the pleasure bit means the opportunity to see the Teotihuacán Pyramids only about 48 kilometres away. I imagine myself making the long climb to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun but this time short of breath and hearing the beat of my heart in my ears for a wholly different reason.  But right now, in a city home to over nineteen million people, we’re winding around in a darkening labyrinth of narrowing streets.  I try not to let the acid taste of panic edge its way up from the base of my stomach. The sharp prick of tears begins to form around my eyes.  “It’s all right” the taxi driver says looking at me in the mirror and I weakly smile and nod my head.

It is alright.  As I stand on the top of the pyramid a few days later, I remind myself that this is what travel is about - the contrasts, the unexpected twists and turns, the edginess and unpredictability that sometimes come with the territory.  But on my return trip to the airport, I make sure I get someone who knows where they are going.

A taste of Cuba - travel article for Travellers Tales

I’ve never kicked a crab before and in my defence, it was in the dark and it was an accident.  And there were so many of the critters.  It is late, dinner is over and I have just stood out on a grassy bank beside an open-sided terracotta-tiled bar looking at the Milky Way.  It is a vivid strip of speckled beauty pinned onto the velvet darkness of the night sky.  Everywhere you look you see stars.  This is Hotel Villa Guajimico, 42 kilometres from Cienfuegos up first into the hills and then back down to the coast. From my vantage point on a bank which sits high above a clef cut deep into a cove, the moon trails a golden path of light across the sea. I smell jasmine on the evening breeze, the bats sweep and soar about me and everywhere the cicadas are playing their love songs, mad for a mate. 

I am on a whistle-stop tour of Cuba in rainy season, but it doesn’t rain much.  And not even a tour of the whole of Cuba as I have only a week, but I intend to take a good bite at the central block of this crocodile-shaped-island which straddles the space between North America to the north and the rest of the Caribbean islands to the south.  I will taste the delights of Havana, take a quick nibble of French-influenced style at Cienfuegos, digest the effects of the huge sugar fortunes in perfectly preserved Trinidad, chew on Cuban history in Guevara-instilled Santa Clara and then head back to the capital once again.  I have been told that when you enter Havana for the second time on this tour, Cuba has somehow got inside your head and found its own little space in your heart.  I am looking forward to testing the theory out.  

It’s something to begin your day having dipped your toes into the choppy Atlantic Ocean on the north of the island in a city famed for its cigars, rum and enigmatic leader and by lunchtime be standing feeling the tender waves of the Caribbean lapping around your ankles while your toes sink into perfect golden-white sand.  Even more so because exactly where you are standing (probably) is where some ex-Cuban exile turned freedom-fighter stood in 1961, marooned after an American invasion attempt turned into what the international press of the time not very politely called a ‘fiasco’.    Castro got wind of the invasion, circumvented the attack and took most of the soldiers prisoner.  A year later, I understand, he successfully traded his ‘goods’ in rather capitalist fashion, for fifty-three million American dollars worth of food and medicine.  Needless to say, the Americans didn’t use this particular approach to try and bring down Castro again.  But for me, as I stand enjoying the tranquillity in 2012 I raise my hand to my brow to block out some of the glare of the sun and all I see is the heat shimmering off the water and the view bleached into shades of white and palest blue.  Playa Larga is not well-frequented by tourists and is the better for it.  Today it is quiet enough for the chef at the small pink-stuccoed café to be sitting out front with his mates, laughing at something so funny I am sure for a moment he will fall off his chair.

In Cienfuegos I eat home-made ice-cream as I stroll across the central plaza whose colonnaded buildings and neo-classical styling earned it a place as a Unesco World Heritage site in 2005.  In Trinidad I sit beneath a canopy of vines in the central courtyard of the Casa de la Trova and listen to a band every bit as good as the Buena Vista Social Club and about the same vintage.  In Santa Clara I stand for quite some time in front of the small, simply engraved sandstone plaque in the intimate surrounds of the mausoleum which houses the remains of Che Guevara, killed in Bolivia in 1967 and brought back to Cuba in 1997.  A single candle is kept burning.

Back in Havana, I do see the place with different eyes and a different heart.   I understand better the poverty, the resourcefulness, the determination to remain independent and not to be bullied by much bigger powers.  I admire its almost unique determination as a nation to remain undefeated by capitalism and the relentless march of consumerism.  But, in its strength I also see its weakness and I worry that, once Castro goes, this little haven of socialism and self-sufficiency will have its innocence stripped away and become like any other holiday island in the Caribbean. Visit now if you wish to go. 

See the photographs of Cuba on the gallery.

Cuba, Sunday Part 1 - missing my swimwear, getting a sense of Cuba and heading for Trinidad

I must have missed the bit where they told me to bring swimwear on the walk.  I am in a dilemma, having stomped around for two hours in the fairly boring surrounds of the countryside around Hotel Guajimico Villas, and because I am faced with the enticing prospect of a swim in the cool and shimmering waters of a secret cove.  But.  I. Have. No.  Swimwear.  Sadly, I have not even put on my best underwear.  Today it is not even Marks and Spencer girl, it is much, much worse. What to do?  The sweat is steadily streaming down my back, my clothes are sticking to me, I can feel the grit between my toes and I oh so want to swim.  I umm and ahh, yes I will, no I won’t.  Everybody else is down to their swimwear and navigating the steps and I decide I cannot possibly sit on the rocks here and watch them.  I would be summarily thrown out of the British Open Water Swimming Society.  So as nonchalantly as I can I strip down to my smalls, eschew the steps and as I take a running dive from the rocks I feel the water snatch away my knickers.  I catch them just in time.  Holding on to them I drift slowly to the surface and before I get there I open my eyes and catch the fractal spin of sunlight cast into all the colours of the rainbow and I taste the salt in my mouth. I surrender to the lap of the water and the warmth of sun on my face.   

Earlier, at breakfast, sitting with my luke-warm coffee, self-service from a military-green painted metal canteen that was so battered it must have seen active service, and munching on my dry crisp-bread, my mind dwelled for just a moment on the five-star Thailand Spa holiday I had considered as an option for this break.  Now, as I swam lazily across the cove towards the small beach at its end I was glad I was here, in this funny little country, that has such character and presence.  There was much I did not feel comfortable about in Cuba: at times it was dirty; disorganised; unkempt.  And despite the embargo there was no excuse for the litter and overflowing dustbins you saw about the place.  But at the same time there was a resilience I liked, a sense of unity, a sense of David and Goliath in its political stance and a desire to stand up for what it believed.  Somehow that made the basic amenities and idiosyncratic plumbing more acceptable. Even if I had to keep mending the toilets.

I talk to our trail guide after the swim as we amble our way back to the hotel and he tells me his grandparents remember the revolution.  But he himself can’t really relate to the embargo and the political isolation of Cuba and the practical difficulties that means for him and his family.   The revolution was in somebody else’s lifetime he says and he wants Cuba to move on and join the rest of the world.  It is an interesting and slightly sad conversation.  For me because I have seen and can predict the demons that capitalism and consumerism will bring when they come and have experienced how a lack of ethical constraint can lead to the worst of behaviours.  But for him the extreme socialism had only brought political and economic isolation and he feels he has no prospects and no future.  How long will it be though, before this little microcosm of socialism collides with the rest of the world.  What will happen in a country that has no income tax (though wages are very low by our standards), where there is no welfare system, where people even in the professions have two jobs to make ends meet.  Where else in the world would you get a taxi driver on a night shift who is also a professor at the university or a doctor at the hospital?  It’s almost too hard to comprehend.

On the bus to Trinidad, the perfectly preserved Spanish colonial settlement about an hour away from the hotel, I look out of the window at the soft hills, at the settlements of tiny houses with their kitchen gardens surrounded by home-made fencing and ruminate on Cuba’s history.  It’s a complicated tapestry of wealth, position and corruption in the post-colonial pre-revolution era and the barer threads of socialist zeal, theoretical equality and increasing political isolation in the post-revolution era. And, some would say there is still corruption, just a different type.

Cuba day 3, final part – Crab Kicking, Fit Guys and Troubled Dreams

I’ve never kicked a crab before and in my defence, it was in the dark and it was an accident.  And there were so many of the critters.

It is late, dinner is over and we have just stood out on the grassy bank beside the open-sided terracotta-tiled bar looking at the Milky Way.  It is a vivid strip of speckled beauty pinned onto the velvet darkness of the night sky.  Everywhere you look you see stars.   

Hotel Villa Guajimico is 42 kilometres from Cienfuegos up first into the hills and then back down to the coast. From our vantage point on a bank which sits high above a clef cut deep into a cove, the moon trails a golden path of light across the sea. I smell jasmine on the evening breeze and everywhere the cicadas are playing their love songs, mad for a mate. 

The little villas that make up this place are built on a steep hill which makes me puff as I take the steps to number 46.  The porter who is behind me is doing the same climb but with three bags. I hasten to add, they were not all mine.  The door opens onto single beds and a large mirror mottled with age.  Its second-hand-shop meets the 1980s which is not a good style.  The small wooden table is chipped and the air-conditioning unit held together with tape.  But when I turn it on it creaks into life and exhales a confident stream of coolness.  I have no small change to tip the guy who carried my bags and who is standing expectantly in the doorway.  I convey to him, in faltering Spanish my predicament and ask him his name, telling him I will come and find him at dinner when I’ve changed some notes.  He leaves closing the door behind him and by the time I have opened my suitcase and begun to hang my clothes he is back, with change for various sizes of note.  The tip is clearly important and I double my normal rate because anyone that takes those steps with a large bag in each hand and a heavy case on their shoulder deserves a bit of credit.  He seems to leave happy.   The room depresses me and I sit on the bed for a moment, thinking of home.  I am very tired.  Tiles are missing in the shower and I have to fix the toilet before it will flush (I’ve fixed more toilets on travels than I care to think about, I also fixed one at the Design Centre in Islington at the Christmas Fair in 2008.  The upside is it meant I got to the front of a very long queue) but the water is warm and after I’ve freshened up I feel a bit more cheery.  Picking up my torch and phone I go out to explore. 

The early evening glooming is slowly rolling in from the sea and I make my way with careful steps along the narrow corrugated concrete paths that wind around the little villas and in the twilight strain to see the words on the signs which point you in the direction of various amenities.  The pool is in one direction, the restaurant in another, the bar in a different direction again.  Not wanting to spend too long in my room I am early for dinner by an hour so follow the sign to the swimming pool.  The place is strange with its tiny little dollhouse-type-villas and winding paths and scurrying sounds of the land crabs which overrun the place. But I try not to let the atmosphere perturb me and once I am on the terrace by the pool watching the sun go down I feel a little calmer.  Just me and a black and white cat who comes to join me, and we are there, me standing, the cat sitting on the balustrade, both of us  watching the waning glow of the sun, seemingly lost in our own thoughts.  At the bar a few minutes later I order a cold white wine and the barman laughs.  “Piña Colada” he says. I shrug and nod.  And while the mixer grinds and churns I stand out under the trees where the bats wheel and soar around me in the darkness. 

At dinner I order Cuban wine for the first time and others join me. It’s called Soroa Vino Blance de Mesa and it’s just about fine.  The food is just about fine.  On the way back to my room I have my crab-kicking-incident, not intentional as I said earlier.  I stand for a moment outside the door and take a last look at the night sky.  I lie on the bed a long time before sleep takes me, glad at least that the air-con is working.                        

Cuba day 3, part 3 – An American Invasion, Is this Butlins? And Drifting Away.

The water felt good as the tiny waves broke against my ankles and my toes sunk into the soft white sand.  I put up my hand to shield my eyes from the sun, it was just past midday, and all I could see was the far shore of the crescent that made up this bay, shimmering in the distance.  I’d been in the sun for maybe five minutes, perhaps less, but already I felt the prickle of heat on my skin and the sensation of burning starting to sweep over my back.  Taking my hand down from my brow I rested it on my right shoulder and knew I would suffer later.   

Playa Largos is one of the two beaches that played host to the American 'Bay of Pigs' invasion in 1961.  What started off as a low-key covert action against the Castro regime mushroomed, thanks to the CIA, into a full-scale invasion backed by a 1400-strong force of CIA-trained Cuban exiles and financed with a total military budget of US$13m.  It was an unmitigated disaster, many of the invading force were left stranded on the beach and gave themselves up in a blink of an eye (allegedly) and then were returned to the US a year later in exchange for US$53 million worth of food and medicine.  Needless to say, the Americans didn’t try it again. What it did do was consolidate Castro’s preference for a Soviet economic partner and the rest, as they say, is history.  ‘Socialism or death’ became Castro’s defiant motif.  

Today, though, all is tranquil, the sea is as warm as bathwater and so clear I can see I am playing host to a school of tiny fish weaving in and out between my feet.  As I turn and look back to the beach I notice the chef from the little pink stuccoed café is sitting at one of his own tables, his head thrown back into a loud laugh and for a moment it looks like his hat will fall off.  It is low-season here and so he sits, with his friends and passes the time.  Beyond him is the low level building where the changing rooms are and a veranda, empty but for our party and a waitress who has tried to sell us some drinks and food.  It’s a small resort, scattered with small brightly coloured cottages all with the same rocking chairs and two-person table on the small patio at their front.  It reminds me of Butlins, England, circa 1970.  A Cuban holiday destination, not really popular with tourists and today, almost empty.  No bodies stretched out on the sand slowly spit-roasting, nobody out on the windsurfers.  Just a small party of Brits enjoying the beach and the sun.

The sand in getting to the sea made us hop and holler and we are pleased to make the water’s edge and plunge in.  The sun has bleached the view into shades of white and palest blue and sets the air over the water dancing.  Some seabirds squark loudly and we all turn around, trying to see what has spooked them. Spread in a line, we slowly walk out from the shore first ten meters and stop, then twenty an stop, then fifty and the sea is still only up to our thighs.  It feels strange to be so far from the shore and yet still not in deep enough water for swimming.  I remember that sharks can swim in only three feet of water and though its an illogical thought it sends a nervous shot of adrenaline up my spine and sparking around my brain.  But I want to swim and so I keep walking until my feet naturally lift from the sand and I strike out, with gentle strokes.  After a while I rotate until I am facing the sky and my arms and legs open out into the shape of a star.  I lay suspended, floating, with my eyes closed, and feel the rise and fall of the water and listen to the breaking of the waves not far away.  My closed eyelids are scarlet red in the harsh sunlight and I taste salt in the corners of my mouth.  I know I am drifting a little but I feel comfortable and safe in the embrace of the water around me. Then I open my eyes and slowly turn over.  The rest of the group seem quite far away so I kick my legs and head back to join them.  Back on the minibus we watch a Channel 4 video documentary film about the life of Fidel Castro.  I try to stay awake but feel myself drawn into sleep, my eyes dry and gritty.    

We stop for a short while at Cienfuegos, which sits in an enviable waterside setting just a little bit further around the natural bay.  The original French colonizers arrived in the early eighteen hundreds and set about making this a little bit of France and this can be seen in its neoclassical styling and colonnaded buildings which seem to sit confidently and serenely around its central plaza.  It was named a Unesco World Heritage site in 2005.  We have time for a stroll to admire the statue of José Martí, the Italian-influenced theatre on the north size of the plaza (sadly closed today) and the quality of the handmade ice-cream which we discover at a small ice-cream counter hidden behind a narrow door in an otherwise un-notable expanse of wall.  Inside, seated on plastic chairs pushed against peeling paint and lino floor, locals make satisfied noises as they dip into their treat.  They watch us with interested eyes, but nobody speaks.  The ice-cream is so good, so cold, so welcome in the heat of the day, we don’t talk either as we walk back to the bus. We just enjoy.

The drive to our hotel takes too long.  We are all tired now and the rolling hills and dramatic landscape gets hardly a comment.  As soon as we leave the town we start to climb and there are mountains cutting into the sky line in the distance.  The road winds and there is little other traffic. The view begins to open up and turning around I crane my neck and can just see Cienfuegos behind us, the sun beginning to slowly drop though the light on the sea is still dazzling.  I lean my head against the window despite the vibration but don’t really see the passing fields and small settlements of houses but I do notice a small child and a pig playing together in a garden.  Its six fifteen in the evening, my eyes are sore from swimming and my hair feel hard and tangled from the salt water. The light outside is starting to fade and the clouds behind the mountains in the middle –distance have the grey tint of rain.   I start to feel a little travel sick.