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Now, when my voice is slowly coming back, I can write something. Señor Pedro made fun of my illness. He said that I have a wheezing croak like a frog, if I understood him right. I’m not very good at Spanish so I have some difficulties with understanding and more I ask them to slow down while speaking, after asking them ¿Como? for three times they can’t form their question or answer differently.
My felling of Cuba vary pretty much. When I talk to other tourist we are sharing more or less same opinions. If you ask me at this moment what I’d prefer Mexico or Cuba, my answer is definitely Mexico, unless you want to see or feel the system which is to us, ex Yugoslavians, not so strange. But I can say that this system is even toughish. It’s interesting comparison between different kinds of socialistic regime. For example Laos and Vietnam have also socialistic regime, but due to economics they are acting totally capitalistically. Free market is the thing that’s missing in Cuba.
People are the one who make country interesting or not. I’m not so sure that Cubans are so cheerful by nature like people from Laos from example. You’ll rarely find happy faces but when you will these are probably wealthy people. Older people are complaining about economics because they know how it used to be before the revolution when the stores were full of goods. Younger people are despairing because they don’t see any prospect. They aren’t afraid to talk loud about dissatisfaction or disagreement with Castro’s ideology neither with politics of younger brother.
It’s interesting how people care about each other. For example when casa particular gets tourist in their home sooner or later they will find you taxi driver who is their friend or part of family. They know people in factories so you can getcigars, rum or chocolate from black market. It’s OK I understand they’re going through tough time, but what bothers me in the whole story is that they will try to fleece you. When you think that everything is agreed they’ll still surprise you with the price or they are intriguing. I’ll share one moral with you, for free. When you enter casa particular, restaurant, shop or taxi ask for the price even if it is about small amount. It can happen that they will tell you one price at order but they will charge you more at the end. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll pay. Otherwise you can still complain and be persistent and you’ll get original price. You can bargain for better prices of cocktails too. As I’m talking about drinking, if you speak well Spanish like our new Costa Rican friends you can get very cheap drinks even in the bar. All of them were full of tricks but at the end we all ended up drunk, guests and waiters. That was actually our first night out on our trip. I had a great time in company of 7 guys from Costa Rica. I always like to stroll with guys. Who cares about shopping and where you can get better offers (I hate shopping and when I grow big I’ll have a stylist), which perfume is popular, or which make-up is high quality and that Angelina and Brad have problems in the marriage. We start in first bar, getting to know each other, exchanging cultural differences. It was a good start especially when guys noticed that they are selling something similar to Costa Rican Coco liquor. Oh, that’s so sweet. It’s closing time so I take glass with me and I’m not the only one. We change the place, have another drink and we are off to main square. Streets are swarming with people. Unintentionally we split to 3 groups. Football enthusiasts, love seekers and observers. Football enthusiasts smell each other, Argentineans and Costa Ricans who are enraptured with Argentineans. Love seekers are besieged with hustlers offering women. Costa Ricans don’t have any serious intention. They are negotiating (while we have our personal reporter) and discussing where they should meet girls. I couldn’t catch anything about the price. Negotiations were lasting and lasting and we decided to go home. We were just about to leave when one of Costa rican guys took courage and left to check out the chick. It was not just about checking it was also about tasting (meaning kissing). Chick said with deep Barry White’s voice: “OK”. We were laughing like a drain all the way back home.
Cuba is full of surprises especially if we are talking about efficiency and effectiveness. Everywhere you go working places (like restaurants, bus stations, hotels) are full of employees. They are more turning around each other while you’re calmly and patiently waiting to be served. It’s better for your nerves if you’re not in a hurry. Don’t be surprised if you should be served at counter but exactly at that moment countermen decides that’s time to try a new tie. We heard another story about Italian who is married to Cuban woman and he’s quite frequently visiting Cuba. One day he called airline agency to make a reservation when a man on the other side peacefully says that he doesn’t have a pan. ¿Que?! When he had a first chance he brought him a pen and arranged reservation.
Here’s a quote of a local man. “You can survive in Cuba only if you are drunk or crazy.”
PS: Here are greetings from señor Pedro to Barack Obama.
PSS: I smell like a toilet duck. There were no branded perfumes in the store. I took the best what the man offered me. I had chosen middle price class (for 4,5€ or one-fifth of Cuban salary), because I’m on a low budget.
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