Cuba: 21 March – 15 April, 2011

…Part One: Food rations, quality healthcare for no cost, quality education for no cost, poverty, and old Chevy’s.

Cuba really is a country of contrasts. On one hand a population that largely earns less in one month than we do in one hour, but on the other hand receives top quality healthcare and education for absolutely no cost. As well as this, the cost of living is relatively low for locals: food is cheap, public transport is cheap, and entertainment (e.g., bars, museums, galleries) is cheap as well. If you’re a foreigner however, things are considerably more expensive.

Cuba’s health system is considered so good (and they’ve got about three times as many qualified doctors as the entire continent of Africa), that for years many people from Central and South America were taking their holiday’s in Cuba with the express purpose of going to the doctor or going to get an operation. This quickly started to have an impact on the ability for the average Cuban to get quality healthcare, so the government made it mandatory for all tourists to have their own private medical insurance before entering the country; which you have to show proof of at Immigration when entering the country before you’re allowed in. And in recent years, the Cuban government has started to export their health system. For example, Cuba has said to Venezuela, ‘we’ll give you doctors if you give us oil’, to Vietnam ‘we’ll give you doctors if you give us rice’, and to Canada ‘we’ll give you doctors if you give us machinery and equipment for agriculture’.

Education is another thing which is brilliant about this country. Everyone has the right to every level of education that there is, regardless of where you live, what your parents background is, or what school you went to. There is no 25% discount on your university fees if you pay upfront, and there is no interest added onto your university debt if you can’t afford it in the first place – it’s absolutely free. As a result, the majority of Cubans that we met are extremely well educated, and very well informed on the history, politics, and economies of many countries around the world.

Housing is also free. Individuals are not allowed to accumulate property privately, so there are no landlords to continuously increase rents on tenants, or use previous years’ financial records of small businesses to decide how much to charge for commercial leases.

And food is very cheap for Cubans. The only problem being that variety doesn’t really exist here. If you like pizza, ice cream, and ham and cheese sandwiches though, you’re in luck though – Cuba rules! We went to the Copellia in Havana (a big ice cream parlour), and got enough ice cream to fill us both us for about 40 Australian cents.

Grocery stores (the term ‘supermarket’ really cannot apply to Cuba) don’t have any variety at all, and it wasn’t uncommon to see shops with shelves occupying only half the floor space, and for these shelves to be half full.

The flip side to all of this, of course, is that most Cubans earn a pittance for a wage. Hence the reason that many doctors, lawyers, and university professors take second jobs as waiters in restaurants or behind a bar somewhere. Wages are so low that it would take someone working an average job about two or three months just to pay the departure tax at the airport if they were to go on holiday outside of the country – add on top of this the very expensive flights out of the country, accommodation wherever it is that they are going, etc, etc, and you find very quickly that average Cubans simply cannot afford to travel outside of Cuba.

Street scene in Havana

Enough of the lecture. Havana is an absolutely beautiful city, although almost every building is clearly in a state of disrepair. Constantly busy, and full of thousands of old American cars from the 50’s and 60’s, Havana feels like you’ve gone into some time warp. As much as I felt like I’d taken Doc’s Dolorean for a spin, I didn’t see some Cuban version of Marty McFly anywhere. It wasn’t uncommon to see a clapped out old 1950’s Chevy pull up, and a young guy wearing bright red jeans, Nike shoes, an Armani t-shirt, a big shell-type vest, and crazy sunglasses get out and saunter on down the street. And then around the corner you’d come across someone begging for money, and then someone else would come up to you and ask you for some soap, someone else asking your for some pens, and someone else asking you to buy them some milk. Oh, and then of course you’d get the guys (and girls) offering to sell you cigars for very cheap. “Hey, Amigo! You wanna buy some ceegars? My brother work in the factory and gets me them cheap. I do you a good deal. Almost free!”

Or there is the music men: “Hey, Amigo! You like salsa? It’s the Bueno Vista Social Club Fiesta today in Fidel’s old house behind the Capitolio. I can take you there. Free entry for today only!” However when you go around the corner, another guy is saying the same thing except that Fidel’s old house is down near the docks, and yet another guy tells you it’s in Che’s old house in another part of the city! And when we came back to Havana at the end of our Cuba trip (a month later), the Fiesta was still on, and it was still free entry for today only!

After Havana, we travelled to Vinales in the far Eastern part of the island. This area is all tobacco fields, coffee plantations, hiking trails, and caves. Very beautiful part of rural Cuba. We did a hike (about 7 or 8 kms), explored part of Latin America’s third largest cave system, and went on a horse ride through all the tobacco and coffee plantations. I was walking like John Wayne for about 3 days afterwards though.

Tobacco field in Vinales

Lastly, after Vinales, we made the trip from Vinales to a city called Cienfuegos. Several Cubans had told us that Cienfuegos was very ‘tranquil’. And it was said in a way that implied that it’s a great city where you can go and relax.

The either lied, or they like bottled water factories and shipping docks – because that’s all there is in Cienfuegos. It really has to be one of the most boring cities I have ever been to. Museums and galleries don’t exist here (did they have museums and galleries in the 1950’s?), but there are thousands of taxis with every driver asking you if you need a lift somewhere.

The Cienfuegos leg of our trip had to be up there with the longest three days of our lives.