Totally Unauthorized

Stained glass divider in the Hotel Raquel (Rachel), catering to Jewish guests

Karl Marx said “religion is the opiate of the masses”, and the Soviet Union was famously opposed to all religiousity.  So we tend to think that all communist countries would be the same, but that surely doesn’t seem to be the case here.

The Hotel Raquel, in the heart of Old Havana, caters to Jewish guests, offering “jewish food” (just how kosher that is I can’t say), menorahs in the decor and a heartbreaking painting on the wall of the people on the Saint Louis, the ship full of Jews fleeing 1940 Germany which couldn’t find a landing place anywhere in the new world and had to return to Europe.  I only cried a little seeing it and thinking of Mike Katz, whose parents met on that ship, and were among the lucky to be interned in England, so Mike was born in London.

The Jewish quarter in Havana once held over 40,000 Jews fleeing Germany–although the country denied the Saint Louis landing privileges, it took in many refugees.  There are only about 1500 Jews left in Cuba, and 3 working synagogues, which we will be visiting on this trip.

Today, we passed a Russian Orthodox temple, which was opened within the last 6 months.

We ate dinner in a restaurant in the Plaza de Cathedral.  As we came out, we saw services going on inside, and remembered that today is Ash Wednesday.  There were many, many people inside the cathedral for evening Mass, and I saw two priests separately walking (one talking on his cell phone) as we walked the district this afternoon.

Our guide says that about 47% of the population is Catholic, and that acceptance of religion has increased dramatically since the Pope visited in 1997.

Further odd facts:  we asked the guide today where Fidel lives.  He said nobody knows.  He is reputed to have at least 60 homes spread across the island, and moves among them constantly.  While he is no longer in public life, the guide claimed Fidel is in the Guiness Book as having survived the most assassination attempts–over 600.  That may, of course, be at least partly paranoia.  But it’s pretty clear that there are people who don’t like him–and they usually point the finger straight at Langley, Virginia, home of the CIA.  Maybe it’s true, maybe not.  But you won’t see Fidel just walking around.

Our hotel is full–the European style breakfast buffet this morning was a polyglot crowd, heavy on the German.  From both inside and out, this hotel appears to be at least 25 and maybe 40 years old–yet they swear it opened in 1997.  Maintainance  does not seem to be a priority in this country–tonight I offered to tip our bus driver 10 CUC (the convertible form of the Cuban peso, worth $1.20 apiece) if he would clean all the windows of our bus.  We have a long ride tomorrow, and I’d like to be able to see and photograph out the window.  If you though the photo of Ché was kind of blurry in my last post, shooting through the bus windows was the problem.

And the world continues to amaze me–even though I am using an exceedingly slow dial-up internet connection, I am still able to click on the camera in Fat Slice Pizza and see what is happening in my store real time.  Tomorrow I’ll try to get Skype to work and call home for 2¢/minute, instead of the $1.25/min it would cost otherwise.

Our plane was perhaps 1/3 full, and our group of 7 were the only gringos onboard.  When we landed after the short flight, the plane erupted in cheers and applause.  Everyone was glad to be home.

Jose Marti Airport is as rundown as any airport I have ever seen.  The entry process is slow and bureaucratic, not that we were surprised.  We got shown into the VIP waiting room while they corralled our luggage for us, and then we went out and met our guide.

Piling into a Chinese made bus, we made our way through Havana to the Hotel Melia Cohiba.  Melia is a Spanish hotel chain, and this place is up to good European standards.  The city, though, is rundown and non-maintained.  There are many billboards, which advertise nothing but instead repeat slogans of the revolution and imprecations against the embargo.  Traffic is light, with both the famouse 1950’s era cars still kept running, late model Japanese and Chinese cars, and many Russian made Ladas from the 1970’s and 80’s.

Tonight, we are off to dinner in a private home, a paladar.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Amazing sights, and we are still in the airport in Miami.
It seems like many of our fellow passengers on this flight are going home to visit relatives. They all have these huge bundles of things to bring back to the family. All those consumer goods we take for granted only get to Cuba when cousin Alejandro brings them.

To protect them, the enormous bales are all wrapped in multiple layers od plastic wrap by a big wrapping machine right by the airport door. At $9/bag, it’s a profitable little operation.

Check-in is time consuming, with an inspection of papers first followed by baggage check. Even your carry on bags are weighed (although not purses or my camera backpack) and the weight limits are strictly enforced, which makes sense with everything these people are carrying. It was two dollars a pound for everything over the 44 pound limit, so I had to pungle up another $37. The joys of travel.

We got through it, then cleared security. The whole process took just under an hour, putting the lie to the travel agents idiotic insistence that we be here four hours early.

Now we’re on the plane about to take off! Forty minutes from now, Cuba.

I’m not much of a Winnie the Pooh kind of guy; I don’t think I ever read any of the stories.  But something about going somewhere new always makes me think of Pooh, and I go around chanting “We’re going on an adventure” to the point of Gail’s distraction.

Today, we’re off an a particularly exciting adventure:  Cuba.  I’ve wanted to go there for ages, and definitely want to do so before the USA gets smart and stops this silly 50 year old vendetta that prevents Americans from visiting an island only 90 miles away from us. Can it be true, as some have suggested to me, that US gambling interests are the ones largely behind the continued embargo?

This trip came up totally by accident–cousin Judy had Christmas dinner with us,and saw a photo we have that was taken in Havana.  She mentioned that she was going on a tour, and we just horned in as fast as possible. Gail is pretty fond of joining other people’s vacations–that how we took an Alaskan cruise with Jack and Carol Scott a few years ago, and we’re talking about joining Tom and Barbara Jacobson in Africa in September.

There are only 7 of us, on a completely legal tour arranged by an Oregon travel agency specializing in adventure travel.  We are the proud possessors of a “humanitarian” visa, which means I got to go to Costco Sunday and pick up $250 worth of aid–over the counter medicines, mostly.

Gail, Steve, Lauren, Joan, Bob and Judi at our first dinner

We all flew into Miami today, and tomorrow we will make the short flight to Havana.  The travel agency insists that we need to be FOUR hour early for the flight, which is completely impossible for me to believe, so that won’t be happening.  These people always tell you that it is “imperative” and “mandatory” that you do things which are neither, just to manipulate you into making their life easy.  But it won’t surprise you that I’m not much of a rule follower.

So I’m excited as heck, can’t wait for what tomorrow brings.  Our hotel has internet access, so I’m expecting to make daily updates.