The messenger

Lose your girlfriend? Lose your home? Lose the job you were hoping to start? Lose sight of the how and the who and the where and the what? And the when just seems to stretch forever?

Kinda sucks.

The world I left when I went to Cuba was not the world I came back to find.

And then it’s hard to get out of bed again.

But days just keep marching, stubborn bastards that they are, and forward is the only way you get to go. But it’s not that bad. The universe will remind you that it keeps moving forward in harmony, discordant atonal blaring harmony. So it sends a messenger.

His name is Stanley. He’s...young. He’s...cute. He’s...nonstop.

His world is a big place that seems hostile, but isn’t as bad as it seems, and there’s an awful lot of playful good time in there. Sometimes shit happens that just plain stinks (pleasantly literal for him. What’s in puppy food, anyway?)

Sammy wasn't sure what to make of him

So maybe I can be his apprentice. I don’t know WTF is going on either. Maybe I need some vaccinations, and surely some training, but the world is a chew toy, and in the end, it’s all going to be okay.

See Stanley's lesson via fetch on
the wordpress version of this post

Thank you Stanley.

Havana nights

It wasn’t the belly full of savory ropa vieja or the day spent in the sunshine glow of Cuba’s capital city. It wasn’t the colonial facades of buildings, crumbling in Caribbean splendor, nor the classic cars cruising past with heartfelt rumbles. You might think it was the mojitos, but it wasn’t that either. It was almost the notes of jazz, samba, and son that wandered the streets alongside the slapping of sandals.

It was very nearly the air, sultry as only the tropics can be, that lick of breath that knows your body better than you’ve ever dared to look, the perfect medium for the unapologetic sexiness of this island.

It was none of those apart, it was all of them together. And...more. Whatever Cuba is. That’s what it was.

I couldn’t put my finger on Cuba, but Cuba laid its hand on me. It skipped the pleasantries and went straight to caressing my awareness, groping my perceptions and sliding right up along the length of my love of travel.

The first night, the ineffable Jeff Greenwald (who has traveled more than FedEx) was telling me that Cuba reminded him of just how good travel can be. I understood the sentiment exactly.

It was a privilege to meet the people I did in Peru (blogs forthcoming), and El Salvador quickly climbed to the top of my favorite countries. Belgium still tasted like home, and Iceland was so beautiful it was almost crass. But despite these incomprehensibly blessed winter travels, on the BART train to San Francisco International Airport I found myself...tired. Lacking the exuberancy that normally carries my backpack for me.

Exuberance is great...but it takes a lot of energy. In Havana I found something more...sustainable. It was a languorous love of living, a symptom of a culture not ruled by, addicted to, fear. It was waves and wind that will keep coming in whatever strength they please, and will be welcomed or endured as necessary. It was buildings falling down, but people standing up. It was slow meals with nowhere else to be, and songs that will last until they’re done, not a second less.

Those songs lived in my steps, carried my feet from Prado to paladar to plaza. I gave no instructions, to musicians nor muscles, and let both lead me wherever they willed, my job merely to appreciate, enjoy, love whatever they chose to show me on the streets of a Havana night.

And eventually, the verses finished their succession, and the chorus was done for the night. As the melody trailed off, my legs would carry me back home, muscles warm with satisfaction, almost smug with the steps taken and sights witnessed.

I’d pass the sleepy guard and ascend in the Soviet elevator, humming to myself a song I didn’t quite know, but had quickly learned to love.

Gods and goddesses

“He is the grandson of one of Cuba’s most famous ballet dancers, the whole family does ballet, but he is having problems today. I am expecting a tantrum from him at any minute.”

The eyes of everyone in our small group moved past the iron-spined teacher in teal to the young dancer behind her, who showed no reaction to words nor gazes. “Does he not speak English, or is he just that poised, in mind and body?” we wondered.

Whatever the case, when the music started it was clear: we were no longer looking at a teenager both spoiled and bearing a crushing pressure, we were looking at an Afro-Cuban god of war, and his partner was no longer a beautiful Cuban girl, she was the matching sylvan goddess of love.

He was talented, she was stunning, immaculate.

As I mentioned in my other ballet post, I don’t have much experience with ballet, but I’m pretty sure it’s not normally like this. The technical elements of movement and physical prowess were there, yes, but so was an overriding sensuality and ripe humanity that I don’t associate with the stiff-faced dancers of broad cultural lore.

The goddess entreated him forward with cupped hands, which then lifted and slid down the curves of her body, over chest ribs hips, while his movements seemed designed to pursue, catch, possess their goal.

But the power clearly belonged to her. She pulled him forward, then pushed him aside, or set him to wait. He was on his knees, stretched on the ground, then lifting her high overhead, and always the sheer balance and grace of control was hers.

In the end she stood over him, calmly victorious, and we all remembered to breathe.

The teacher, guide of both the dance and the personalities, came forward, eyebrows sharp, something terribly falcon-like in her merciless eyes. She stood in front of him, dominating him from her shorter stature, and held up first one finger, then two, explaining in minute detail what he needed to improve.

So they did it again. Another round of enticing, approaching, diverting and controlling. Another series of movements painfully precise, carefully controlled and deliberately designed. Her feet on point, a feat I am starting to comprehend, and their spines so supple I suspect cartilage (if not rubber) has replaced bone.

It was just as hard to breathe the second time.

We applauded. Heartily. The raptor teacher turned to us “Thank you for that applause, it will help him. He has a performance on Saturday, and thinks he cannot do it. But I will not let him run away.” He stood behind her, spoiled, talented, dedicated, under intense pressure, and in precisely the right place, on this unique island of art and passion.

Cuba doesn't let your eyes get bored

Pics OF tuktuks while IN a tuktuk!
Asia's gonna be so much fun!

When you first get to Southeast Asia, you can’t stop taking pictures of tuktuks. They’re just so...interesting! A week later, maybe two, and you barely notice the three-wheeled vermin. This is often the case when traveling: some local item grabs your attention at first, before blending completely into the background.

But, as is so often the case: it’s different in Cuba.

This is one of the first pictures I took, on the bus ride in from the airport, and the eye-catching was just getting started.

These are all from my first day.

Nearly three weeks went by, with art, music, and dance, not to mention culture, experience, and friendship.

I was saturated. I felt overstuffed with experiences and images; I’d need a spare lifetime to process the photos alone.

A neighbor gave me a ride to the bus station in his clunky Moskvitch, a Soviet block of metal homage to the right angle.

I rode to the Che Guevara Memorial in an antique Peugeot with hand-carved wooden arm rests, walked past Russian Ladas more ubiquitous than sandals, and ridden five hours in some dude’s claptrap Hyundai (which he claimed was a legal shared taxi, but when we’d pass a police checkpoint he’d roll the windows up and say “If they ask you, we are friends, and you have been staying at my house for a week. My name is Javier, what is yours?”)

And finally, I’d ridden in a couple of the classic “Yank Tank” American cars, first a Pontiac, then a Chevrolet from the 1950s. Both now chug along all day as shared taxis, which will take you anywhere along their route for 20 Cuban pesos, about $0.80, and were two of only four times I got to use the national Cuban currency, instead of the “Convertible Peso” used by the tourism industry.

And yet, after all those days, all that sweat, all those miles and exhaust pipes, here are some of the pictures from my last day.

I’m not normally a car guy. At all. I would happily drive a Honda Civic until my dying day (hopefully unrelated to the aforementioned Civic), but there is just something about those cars, in that place…

It’s just different in Cuba.

Cubans are magical

Did you know Cubans can fly? I knew about the salsa dancing and the talking fast, but the flying, that surprised me.

I didn't think much of the ballet during my first three decades of life. Didn't think about it at all, in fact. It was an archetype assigned to a gender not my own, a cliché for generic jewelry boxes and little sisters' Halloween costumes, nothing of interest to me.

Then I met a real-life ballerina. Instead of mincing around talking like Glinda from the Wizard of Oz, she showed me the practice and persistence required to get the foot to tap at just the right place at just the right time, and somehow a dance that had been prancing, became art.

So I walked into Prodanza, one of the schools in Cuba’s world-renowned ballet tradition, with cautious optimism that I might see something cool. That was when the teenagers started flying. The first was a boy built from rebar and hickory, sailing through warm air soaked with sweat and dedication. After he eventually consented to gravity, the other boy followed his flight path, leaving a twin con trail through the room’s stratosphere.

Four girls followed, their legs unhooked like snakes’ jaws, so that their knees tended to float around at ear level. They spun in impossible circles, arched in implausible directions, and their faces reflected a devotion and poise beyond their years.

And it was only warm-ups.

Cuba. Where do I start?

Where do I start to talk about Cuba?

A prequel in the Miami hotel, ostensibly close but a world away from Cuba, where a plethora of pillows was unable to conceal the fact that my bed was a subwoofer for the karaoke downstairs, where semi-drunk people sang semi-offkey versions of semi-current pop songs?

Or an introduction via the insanity of the modern world, where 40 minutes on a plane take you from that world, tipsy tourists trouncing Timberlake, to the liquid hips and notes of Cuban salsa? A flight so short they barely have time to hand you a soda, but transfers you from the problems and advantages of modern America to the significantly different problems and advantages of modern Cuba.

Do I begin at or our first stop, minutes from the airport, at the Plaza de la Revolucion? We filtered among the Germans and Russians across 72,000 square meters of merciless cement, which broiled our feet while our eyes drifted up like steam to the 100 ton steel outlines of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos on the facades of the Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Communications buildings. The two iconic guerrilleros looked over the tops of our wide-brimmed hats, burning-despite-caked-on-sunscreen faces, and clicking DSLRs at the Jose Marti Monument, where Fidel has customarily addressed a million Cubans at a time, ie half the population of Havana.

No, none of that has the almost tangible flair of Cuba.

Nor did Cuba start at the Hotel Nacional, a tower of opulence made of marble, gold, glass, and gangster money, which became state property after the revolution. We walked between honeymooners and the well-to-do, continued our advanced course in mojitos, and tried to pay attention to our guide despite the distraction of an ocean just THAT shade of blue. Gorgeous, but still not Cuba.

For me, Cuba really started on the Malecon. That’s where the entry stamp for my soul was placed.

Basking and lounging for five miles from the mouth of Havana Harbor to down past the Hotel Nacional, the Malecon is a wide concrete stage where waves dance during storms, but the rest of the time the performance is human, Cuban, intimate and welcoming.

During the day...I’m not exactly sure what people do on the Malecon during the day. It looked like some fishing and a lot of hanging out, as our bus passed on the way to meeting talented artists, hearing celestial choirs, or gawking at stunning ballet dancers. It looked relaxing, though with a sun like that, I can only assume they were catching fish already boiled by the time they left the water. But by night? That is when Cuba happens, in drifts of music, bounces of conversation, sloshes of kissing, and hurricanes of laughter.

Life is lived in the open here, not sequestered behind closed doors in front of flickering screens, and walking that esplanade is a slideshow of the human experience. Babies might be nursing or napping, while kids play ball in front of families passing rum and tales. Sisters joke with brothers, friends greet cousins, and wandering musicians will play a tune or ten for a peso or two.

No, I don't have a picture of sexuality. Sorry.

Cuba is an erotic land, where shame and the demonization of sexuality have not taken root as they have in Puritan-schizophrenic America. I can’t claim to understand this, but suspect it was assisted by the accidental embargo on Hollywood’s impossible physical standards, our iron maiden gender roles, and (so-called) “women’s” magazines and their misogynistic advertising sadism. Maybe it’s the absence of these mutilating scripts and pressures, or maybe it’s just the fertile sensuality of Cuba itself, but somehow the Cubans never learned that they’re supposed to be ashamed of sexuality, private about passion, and removed from the physical lusciousness of being alive.

So the Malecon also sways with a current of kisses, entwined limbs, and touching torsos. It’s not remotely pornographic, not nearly indecent, and profoundly more tasteful than our commercials. And in contrast to our youth-obsessed mania, you are as likely to see a fifty-year old caressing his long-time lady as you are the scalding desire of adolescents. It’s frickin beautiful.

Merely witnessing the sheer Life on the Malecon is nourishing to a soul grown withered and weary in the Fear, Distance, and Isolation of “Western” Culture, but the Cubans do much more than simply exist in real-life elegance. They invite you to share it.

Accustomed to passing strangers with an American air of “Don’t worry, I’m no threat to you, but you’d better not come after me”, I was surprised and delighted when strangers showed themselves to be friends I just hadn’t met yet, calling out to me to come over, talk, meet, laugh with the family. Share your story, share this rum, share our lives.

Solidarity. It’s more than a political buzzword.

I’d long wanted to go to Cuba, and knew enough to feel confident that I had come via the two best organizations possible for such a trip, Altruvistas and Ethical Traveler, but I confess, wandering through the limp tourist morass of the Plaza de la Revolucion, and checking into the weary elegance of the Hotel Nacional, I had wondered if a tour would allow me to actually meet some Cuba.

But that first night, exhausted and adjusting, walking for an hour or two between families of new friends (I had three sets of phone numbers, addresses, and invites to come visit by the time we got back to the hotel), I felt myself to be in Cuba.

And I liked it.

History only perceptible when it's intangible, fire ants, and a country with reason to be proud

Expectations are the fastest way to screw up an experience.   - Me

With that personal aphorism in mind, I flew down to an infamous foreign land with as blank a slate as I could manage. When asked what single thing I most wanted to see or learn about, I could only answer lamely “Um...I’d like to take some pictures.” I didn’t know what I wanted to see in particular; I wanted all of it.

Minimal specific expectations notwithstanding, I definitely didn’t expect to be watching a group of men in 16th century military uniforms strutting around by torchlight, then firing a cannon at precisely 9:00 PM to the accompaniment of a thousand flashing DSLRs on auto. The most “authentic” part of the experience was when the fire ants on my calves made their presence felt, the way only fire ants do, burning pincers stabbing multiple places simultaneously in a coordinated act of hormiguine vindictiveness.

But history in that place was not always so distant.

“Spanish ships started taking the gold and wealth of the New World back to Spain, but many of them were being attacked by pirates.” Pirates are always relatable. “So they started gathering together all the ships to cross in one big armada for protection, and they would gather here, in the bay.” A hand darkened by years in the tropical sun indicated the slow sweep of water to our right.

“Imagine, the population of the city was about five hundred, but you would have five thousand sailors waiting here. Imagine the noise, the chaos…” That wasn’t hard at all. It seemed like the city had never forgotten this childhood, had somehow retained the kinetic vibrancy of a mass of lusty sailors, basically pirates themselves.

In a good way.

Because, say what you will about this much-slandered place of loud voices and lusty living, I list it as among the safest places I’ve been in the dozen Latin American countries I’ve visited. The capital cities of this region are notoriously awful, where one should only get off the bus long enough to buy a tamale, but here I felt safe hefting my phatty new camera at all hours of the day, and the supposed tensions between our nations were fuel for conversation and communication, but never enmity or dislike.

People were on the street at all hours of the day, talking shouting laughing, and you could hear music in the hot air more often than not. Dancing was liable to break out at a moment’s notice. Rum and beer held their own against water and cola, but drunkenness was rare, nearly to the point of nonexistence. The streets were grimy in the way of places so consummately lived on, but garbage was startlingly rare, given the presence of so many humans.

The impressive character and accomplishments of this place extend to more than cosmetic and artistic factors. They were the only country certified as “sustainable” by the World Wildlife Fund in 2006 (or maybe 2010, surprisingly hard to track down clarification) based on ecological footprint and social development.

And how about racism, sexism, and homophobia? Experts and my observations agree on all of these:

-There is basically no ethnic or racial tension in this country;

-Women and men receive equal pay for equal work;

-Homophobia has been in sharp decline for the past six years since the new president took over, and sex reassignment procedures are covered by the nation’s universal healthcare.

Already impressive, these facts are even more astonishing in the context of a historically machista and racially divided culture. This place has come a long way.

I had tried to come without expectations, with moderate success, but the country was quick to supply me, assault and delight me, with enough observations and experiences to wash away any quantity of poorly conceived preconceptions. Even before the gods got involved...