Cuba: Part II - Cigars, Revolucion, And Drunk Asshats in Globetrotter

If you’re joining this party late, feel free to catch up, and get your hand stamped one entry back.

So, when we last left our touristy group of American tourists, they had just finished eating lunch at a restaurant that was located on the bottom floor of someone’s house, and was populated by at least three cats, one of which spent the entire meal on HotRod’s lap, purring contentedly as he attempted to eat his ropa vieja one-handed, and tried to keep the cat hair out of his cerveza.

PART II:

Napster is all about some Cuban cigars, and since his 40th birthday had come and gone earlier in August, Red arranged for the tour to include a stop at a cigar factory.

By this point we’d left Old Havana behind, and were in a more residential section of the city, and the differences were obvious. In Old Havana, the buildings were all clean, and the streets were spotless. The residential area was a lot grimier, and there were a ton more people out and about.

There were a lot of buildings that LOOKED like they should be condemned, or empty, but then you’d see laundry hanging on the balcony, or someone cooking something at the window, and you’d realize that people were living there.

The cigar factory was called H. Upmann Habana – Empresa de Tabaco Torcido, and it was kind of interesting. The factory itself is off-limits to tourists, so we didn’t get to see them like, actually rolling the cigars or anything. The closest we got was the entrance to the factory.

The arm and leg you see in the photo there belonged to a security guard who was stationed at the entrance.

Right next door was a small shop area where you could purchase not only cigars, but rum. The shop had a walk-in, glass-walled humidor, several shelves of a variety of Cuban rums, a small tasting bar, where you could taste a rum before you bought it, and a long, heavily varnished wooden counter where a man and woman were checking people out using paper, pencils, and a calculator.

Most of the shops didn’t seem to have electronic registers—everything was done via calculator. They showed us the total in pesos, and we handed it over. All the guys bought cigars, and all the ladies bought rum. I got us a bottle of Havana Club, mainly because I thought it’d be cool to have a bottle of Cuban rum that was bought in Cuba. Then I asked Jorge what rum he recommended, and, after taking a quick glance around, he told us ladies that his favorite was something called Aldabo, which turned out to be this sort of creamy rum. He sheepishly admitted in a stage whisper that it was considered to be a “girly” drink, but he loved it, so of course, we all ended up with a bottle. Or, in the case of Queenie and Bambi, a couple bottles.

After cigars and rum, we headed to the Museo de la Revolucion. Along the way, we passed El Floridita, which is the place where the bartender invented the daiquiri for Hemmingway. We considered stopping in, but there was a line out the door, and no one was much inclined to stand in a sidewalk line in the heat, so we kept going.

The Museo de la Revolucion was located in the building that used to be the Presidential palace.

The front part of the museum was being renovated to its original grandeur. Apparently, back when Castro overthrew Batista, the building had taken some damage, including a bunch of bullet holes that we could see in the walls of the main courtyard, and other assorted vandalisims.

The front ballroom:

I couldn’t get a good picture of it, because you weren’t allowed to go into the room, but the ceiling of the ballroom had a huge fresco painted on it depicting the fires of hell at one end, and the golden light of heaven on the other. It also didn’t help that there was a massive chandelier hanging in the center of the room.

The top two floors were a combination of public centers (there was a dance recital going on in one of the larger rooms), gift shops, and museum exhibits. The exhibits were brand new in the first couple of rooms, and then, as you kept going, they became more like storyboards, showing the rest of the planned exhibits.

The exhibits all dealt with how Che Guevara and Fidel Castro overthrew Batista’s regime, and the policies that were enacted after Castro took power. It was…enlightening. When I was in school, we were taught that Fidel Castro was an evil, despicable man, who brutalized his own people with an iron fist. We were also taught about how the United States heroically tried again and again to free the Cuban people of his monstrous reign, but were continually defeated.

HOLD ON, I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER ALL THE PROPOGANDA.

Reading those exhibits…holy shit. The things the U.S. did in an attempt to dispose Castro were just…I mean, holy shit. We tried to poison their farmlands. We attempted to dispatch long-range radio frequencies to invade their radio programming with repeated messages of “Democracy Good, Communism Bad!” We confiscated medical supplies, and sent God-only-knows how many assassins over there with lists of people to gun down, like participants in the world’s most morbid Scavenger Hunt.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Castro was some pure-of-heart do-gooder. The man was a tyrant, and he did things that were no bueno. But he also did things like initiating a policy to give lands back to the workers. Prior to his policy (which I can’t remember the name of, sorry) something like 70% of the land in Cuba belonged to American businesses. He instituted a national literacy campaign, and overhauled the massively corrupt banking system.

In short, he was what most of us are: individual entities, trying to do things to make the world work in the way we think it should. I think the thing that really got me, was the absolute fuckpile of hypocrisy. The cornerstone of the American resistance to Cuban regime relied entirely on painting Castro as some power-mad communist dictator, who believed that democracy should be shat on every morning, and set fire to at lunch, and yet Castro’s predecessor, Fulgencio Batista, was also a communist dictator, who had been put in power by an American-aided, and choreographed coup. Where Batista and Castro differed was not on political views. It was on the exploitation of their country. Batista crushed every civilian right he could, invited the American Mob families into the country to set up business, and couldn’t give away Cuban land and money to American business interests fast enough. And we put him in power! GAH.

Okay, enough of the history lesson. Bottom line is, whomever you are, don’t believe for a second that your government hasn’t done some shady shit at some point or another. And I don’t mean the normal, run-of-the-mill shady shit that gets reported on, and protested against, and argued back and forth on Facebook with a series of personal attacks that have fuck-all to do with the actual issue. I mean shady shit that you’ll never hear about, because it’s all been classified somewhere in some government dossier, and if it ever does come to light, it’ll probably be decades after you’re dead.

Also, your country doesn’t give two shits about democracy OR freedom. It cares about whatever will get it what it wants in terms of power, wealth, and stability, and fuck everything else right in the ear.

To answer the question that a lot of people have asked me, no, none of the Cubans we came into contact with seemed to have any problems at all with Americans. This could be due to the fact that we interacted with civilians, and civilians are typically the ones who aren’t so well off that they can afford to be picky about where the money comes from, but honestly, I think they were just like us. Curious, and inquisitive, and enjoying the chance to interact with other people. The opportunities for Cubans to travel is practically non-existent. According to Jorge, for him to visit, say, England, he’d have to apply to the British embassy for a travel permit, which, most likely, would be denied, because he has no land, or businesses, or money that the Cuban government could hold as a sort of “travel bail,” which would be forfeit if he didn’t return to Cuba. A large number of people still attempt to leave Cuba every year, and of course no other country wants additional, illegal immigrants, so… Basically, the only way he would be able to visit another country, is if he had someone to sponsor his visit, meaning someone who would take responsibility for ensuring that he returned home after his travel visa ran out. Swear ta’ gawd, it was all I could do to not offer to sponsor him on the spot. I think the rest of the group was thinking the same thing.

The museum really was a beautiful building though.

As we were leaving, we went through this side room, and found this amusing display: Rincon de los Cretinos (Cretins Corner)

The fact that they had George Bush Jr. wearing a swastika made me snort laughter, and I still haven’t been able to decide if that’s okay or not. Oh well. Add it to my list of internal struggles.

Jorge then took us back to the ship, and there was much shaking of hands, and passing over of tips, and repetitions of how much we appreciated everything he’d shown us. Bambi and Queenie also surprised him with a bottle of the Aldabo that they picked up after he told us it was his favorite, and Red and I gave him a bottle of the Habana Club, which was fairly pricey, and I honestly thought the poor kid was gonna cry. He just kept squeezing our hands and saying, ”Gracias. Gracias.”

It was about 2:30 in the afternoon when we got back to the ship, and the plan was to have dinner in Havana that night. The heat had done a number on most of us, most everyone headed back onto the ship to shower and catch a nap. Queenie, Bambi, and HotRod decided they wanted to walk around some more (ugh) and try and buy some souvenirs. We had seen some really cool paintings earlier in the day that HotRod wanted to look at. They were painted Havana scenes, but the neat thing was that they were painted on Cuban newspapers. I don’t know if that was done to increase the ethnicity of the painting, or if it was just a helluva lot cheaper to paint on newsprint than to shell out money for expensive paper, but either way, they were awesome, and I wish I’d gotten a picture of them.

Around 5:00, we all disembarked yet again, and made our way to Plaza Vieja to grab a pre-dinner drink at a brewery that Jorge had pointed out to us earlier on the tour. The outdoor patio was full, so they ended up seating us inside. Holy hell was it miserable. Even with all the doors and windows wide open, it was just too damn hot inside. At that point a large party of people got up and left the patio, and we immediately moved outside and grabbed their table.

We sat there for about an hour, just people watching, and enjoying the scenery. At a small corner bar along the street there was a group playing some really spectacular Cuban jazz, accompanied by several couples who were dancing for all they were worth. Damn, but they made it look easy. Everyone else was drinking beer, but I ordered a daiquiri, and, holy tastebud calypso Batman, but that was the best alcoholic drink I think I’ve ever had, EVER. It wasn’t an iced slush, which is what you get in the U.S. when you order a daiquiri, but a clear lemony liquid that was the exact perfect proportion of sweet and tangy. Pretty sure everyone thought it had gotten me blitzed just because I had a stupid, shit-eating grin on my face the entire time I was drinking it.

VIVA LA DAIQUIRI!

While we were sitting on the patio we were accosted by at least three different hawkers trying to sell us stuff. One was this little old lady who was hilarious. She pulled one of those wooden puzzle boxes out of her bag, and as soon as HotRod saw it, he exclaimed, ”Oh! I know how to do those!” and that was it. She had him in her sights. He gave up on the box after a couple of minutes, but she was having none of it. Our waiter kept chasing her off, but after five minutes or so, she’d come sidling around the corner with a sly smile, waving the box in front of HotRod’s face and trying to get him to buy it.

There were two guys by our table that I wasn’t paying much attention to, but it turns out they were actually drawing each of us. The likenesses weren’t bad, but we all had big noses for some reason, which we all thought was hilarious. One of them introduced himself as Antonio, and he spoke perfect English. Queenie and Bambi struck up a conversation with him, and within about fifteen minutes, Bambi informed us that Antonio had offered to take us to a good restaurant in the area.

We all kind of looked at each other for a second, and it was one of those surreal ”hivemind’ moments when you briefly have a single, shared, group thought, and I’m pretty sure all of us were entertaining the idea of being led down some dark alley and getting mugged at knifepoint by two Cuban shysters, one of whom was wearing a New York Knicks jersey.

Everything turned out fine though. The first restaurant we came to was full up, and didn’t have space for our group, but the second restaurant (La Moneda Cubana) welcomed us in after Antonio rattle off a string of Spanish to the doorman. Guys, this restaurant was…I don’t even know the right word. Bizarre? Funky? Kick-ass? Insane? Pick one, ‘cause they all fit.

As soon as you walked in the door, you had to go up a very steep, very narrow flight of about two dozen stairs. Halfway up was a little landing on the right that had two restrooms. At the top, was another landing where the stairs turned right. You could either go up another short, narrow flight of stairs, or you could take a couple steps to the right, and be in a fairly small, but highly swanky bar area that had room for about three people, four if you didn’t mind the type of bodily contact that could get you arrested for sexual harassment in some countries. We were led up the short flight of stairs to another landing, and at this junction you had another two choices. You could—yet again!—turn right, and go up—yet again!—another short, steep flight of stairs, or you could go to the left, through an archway that anyone taller than five feet would have to duck to get through. Immediately through the archway was a—you guessed it!—short, steep flight of stairs that went down into a room with no windows, that was about as big as a master bedroom.

We were led to the right, up the final flight of short, steep stairs, and out onto the rooftop of the building. When you looked back down the stairwell you could see the bar, and the rest of the stairs, almost all the way down to the front door. The whole place was like a real-life Escher painting, minus the extra dimension.

We were seated on the roof, ladies at one table, the fellas a few tables away. It was awesome. You could look out over Old Havana, and across the harbor to the fort. There was a slide show being projected onto the roof of the building right next to us that was showing pictures of Havana from the early 1900’s. There was a guitarist playing Spanish music at just the right decibel to sound pleasant, without being overbearing. On a complete and total whim, I asked him if he knew ”Gracias a la Vida,” and his face lit up, and he swung right into it, and afterwards I gave him 10 pesos.

The dinner itself was unremarkable, if decently tasty, and we were there for close to two hours. Our tour guides, Antonio and Co. had actually come up with us, and at one point, Bambi, drunk on several glasses of wine, told them that we’d pay for their dinner. Uh…okaaaay. Not that I had a huge problem with that, but she had drunk A LOT of wine, plus the beers she’d had at the brewery beforehand, and she was edging into Stupidly Drunk territory. Which was evidenced about twenty minutes later, when she started dancing in her seat to some imaginary music in her head, and loudly declaring that she wanted to have the ”full Cuban experience!” which, as far as we could tell, involved finding a bar, having several more drinks, and dancing to Cuban music with a handsome Cuban man. I thought about making a joke about how I had seen nothing like that mentioned on any of the travel sites when searching for the “Cuban Experience,” but I let it go, because no one else seemed that amused by it. I mean, her husband was sitting two tables over, and she kept going on and on about finding a hot Cuban to go clubbing with. It didn’t help that she was also flirting outrageously with both our waiters, and they were playing her right along, because tips, yo. About that time, Antonio came over to thank us for the dinner, and to pass Bambi his phone number, written on a napkin, with a heart on it. Cause apparently we’re in elementary school.

By the time we all decided to go, we were well into Awkward Country, which, unlike Flavor Country, didn’t sound like a place you’d want to visit. Outside the restaurant we had a quick discussion about what we wanted to do next. It was almost 10:00, so we decided that we’d swing by La Bodeguita del Medio (Hemmingway’s old bar, in the graffiti alley) for a drink. Unfortunately, they were closed when we got there. At that point it was unanimously decided that we’d all go back to the ship for a drink, EXCEPT FOR Bambi, who basically threw a temper tantrum in the middle of the street, because she ”WANTED THE CUBAN EXPERIENCE, GODDAMMIT,” and we were totally Cuban-blocking her. This tirade went on for most of the two blocks back to the ship, and at that point everyone was pretty much ignoring her, except for Queenie, who was walking with her to make sure she didn’t go stumbling down some side street to pass out in a doorway somewhere.

We got back on the ship, and Bambi immediately went off somewhere by herself, and the rest of us hung out on the aft deck, and let Ron-Ron, the Filipino bartender who had swiftly become our best friend, make everyone specialty drinks.

The next morning Dyfais and I went back into Old Havana to walk around a bit, and buy some souvenirs before the boat left at noon. It was so incredibly awesome to walk through those streets again, and think about everything we’d seen and learned, and it made me sad to think that I might never have a chance to go back there.

We tried to spend the last of our pesos in the souvenir shops, but everything was so cheap, I would have had to have an extra suitcase just to tote it all back. So I bought a wooden horse carving to add to my collection of carved horses from around the world, and a hat for Dyfais, and some other knick-knacks, and then we were on the boat, and slowly pulling out of the harbor.

Adiós mis amigos! Te recordaré con alegría!

The last part of the cruise consisted of an afternoon on Norwegian Cruise Line’s private island called Stirrup Cay. This was a utterly unremarkable experience. First of all, the “island” was basically a big chunk of rock sticking out of the ocean. There was one strip of what I’ll refer to as “normal” beach—meaning that it was sandy—that was about, oh, maybe 80 feet long. The three other “beaches” that were available were all more like rock shelves that went directly into the water. They were slippery as fuck, and completely unsafe to walk on, although a lot of people tried.

There were bathrooms, and souvenir stands, some bars, and a cafeteria/lunch area, but behind all of this were occasional glimpses of stacked freight containers, and other assorted industrial-type machines and other detritus. I could just picture the executive board of Norwegian Cruise Lines all sitting around a table, trying to come up with some way to entice people onto their Caribbean cruises, and some brightass coming up with the idea to take a fuel dump port used for industrial storage, put up some bars, line up a few hundred beach chairs on the shore, and rent some paddle boards, and whammo! You got a private island retreat! ONLY available to guests of Norwegian Cruise Lines don’tcha know! IT’S LIKE PRINTING YOUR OWN MONEY LARS! WE ALL DINE ON MIKROBØLGEOVN POTET PUFFS TONIGHT!!

I got bored after a few hours, and went back to the ship to catch a nap before dinner.

The next day we were back in Ft. Lauderdale. We disembarked, caught a Lyft to the airport, and in a few hours we were back home.

I really, really enjoyed this trip. For once it wasn’t all about hanging out in a pool, and drinking your body weight in cheap alcohol at some resort. There were places to go, and stuff to see, and all of it was just fucking amazing. I seriously hope that we do more trips like this in the future, because I think I enjoyed myself more than I have in ages. If you have the means to go, then I can’t recommend Cuba enough.

And here are a few more pictures, just because the last part of this entry was all WORDZ.

So, should you make the trip to Cuba, here are your key take-aways from my experience:

• Take some wet wipes, or a small package of tissues wherever you go
• Drivers don’t particularly pay attention to pedestrians, and vice-versa, so be careful when walking around (or driving.)
• Cubans are very friendly, but they will haggle the horse right out from under you
• Leave all the drunk idiots behind when you go out for dinner
• Take a taxi ride in one of the old cars. We didn’t get to do that, but there were a ton of people who did, and it looked insanely fun.
• Learn about these people. Knowing their story will teach you an incredible amount about your own.
• HAVE AT LEAST ONE DAIQUIRI

”Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
”A Hat Full Of Sky”
~Terry Pratchett

Last updated March 22, 2023