Guatemala: Round 1

Honduras was supposed to be my next destination after Cuba but Guatemala would turn out to be the 2nd of many alterations in my itinerary. According to my original plan, Guatemala was supposed to be on the "NO list". It is supposed to be a dangerous country, especially Guatemala City. 45 people get killed in Guatemala City every week and I wasn't planning on being one of them. After many recommendations I bought a ticket to Guatemala anyway. Antigua, 2 hours away from the Guatemala city, was recommended by all the travelers I met. This was a decision I shared With David, a decision that would turn out to be the most rewarding of all. I obviously am absolutely crap at judging and choosing traveling destinations. The country that I wanted to leave out of the 13 odd that I was going to visit turns out to be my favorite for adventure, experience and culture.

I arrived in Guatemala city late Friday night with Cuba still on my mind. With no intentions of staying there I looked for a way to get to Antigua. It cost $10 to get to Antigua in 2 hours: a bargain. Upon arrival I dumped my ever so conveniently small backpack in El Gato Negro Hostel and headed out (the backpack that I mentioned in the beginning, the kind that you take on a jog to the park, but never on a 4 month trip through south America). It was past midnight and dark so I did my best to find night life wearing a Rolling Stones T shirt that I stole (and now own) from Palfreeman. As it turns out, no bars and clubs can stay open after 1am in Antigua. I had one Hour. I Managed to find a live music place to chill out. At the least I got a picture with Palfreeman T shirt on stage banging the drums looking like a rocker.

The next day I headed out to check out the town. Antigua was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You could see colonial Spanish architecture in all the buildings. A church on every street albeit uninhabited by worshipers. Guatemalans are very religious people.

Although there is one McDonald's, one Burger King's and one Subway in Antigua, you wouldn't find any big signs advertising them. The signs you will find advertising them are not huge yellow 'M' that we are used to. They are hard to notice, (Unless you are about 10 feet away from them) 2 square feet in diameter and a quarter of an inch thick at the most and made out of bronze bronze.

The Cuban beach incident and Goodbye Cuba

Back in Havana I had met this Argentinian guy Martin. A friendly person with limited English. Martin, James and I planned once more to go to the beach. In this Cuban heat beach trip was a great idea on any given day. Martin suggested that we go to a non tourist Cuban beach in a Cuban bus instead of the normal air conditioned tourist bus. Having paid 2 pennies bus fair, holding on tightly to our belongings in a tightly packed sweaty bus, standing the whole way, we arrived at the beach 2 hours later. Apart from us the only other foreigners on this beach were a Finish couple snoozing under the sun. Water was quite shallow for at least a 50 meters into the sea but very clear and clean so you could see right to the bottom. It was calm and cooling. Possibly one of the best beaches I had ever been to. No tourist resorts, hotels or bars in sight.

After some time, while standing in the water, I saw a suspicious looking Cuban guy hanging around on the beach in distance. Few minutes later I saw him going through the Finish couple's bag while they lay asleep and unaware. Martin started walking toward him and he stopped. He explained that he was a police officer and that he was just making sure that us tourists are fine. He went on his way. Later James and I were lying on the beach while Martin went for a walk. The Finish guy had got up and walked into the sea for a swim. Few minutes later I opened my eyes to the yelling of James "Oi! Oi!" I looked over and saw the same Cuban guy smothering the Finish girl's head in the sand while trying to snatch her bag. She wasn't letting go. Both James and I sprinted over there. He saw us coming, gave up and ran off away from the beach empty handed. What he didn't know that by this time Martin the Argentinian had made his way around in a circle to block his path. Martin landed his clenched fist in the robber's face. He must have seen stars at that moment but managed to make a run for it anyway.

This wasn't a tourist beach and so there were no police around to protect tourists, giving this guy an opportunity. Had he been caught robbing a tourist, this guy would have got the same jail sentence as murder, 20 year which is 20 times more than what he would get for robbing a Cuban.

After this event James, Martin and I went in search for some food. We found Cuban place. The menu had only 2 things: spaghetti and pizza for 12 pence each and then beer for 36 pence each. Hard to believe, We'd had a day out for almost a pound each. While eating, sitting across from us was Cuban girl. Martin started a conversation and bought her a drink. She was teacher and fluent in English, German, French and Italian as well as Spanish. Martin invited her over but she daren't come explaining that police could arrest her. Same old story! James and I left Martin and her to chat and got on the bus back to Havana.


The next night was my last night. Ania and Halet who ran the casa where I had been staying made a roast dinner that night for every one. We played dominoes till the early hours. I bought a bottle of rum for Halet and Ania as a gift. Ania said that when I return to Cuba she would arrange for a "familiar visa" for me which means I wouldn't have to be registered as a tourist and can avoid paying for accommodation and stay as a guest at her house.



On the ride to the airport I had time to reflect on the events of past month, the good and the bad. The bad stories always surface quicker and spread like wildfire unlike the good positive ones. My opinion: every one should visit Cuba and see it as it is now before it all changes. Although I was quite sad to leave, I was also excited about my next adventure in Guatemala.

Trinidad de Cuba

Although David and I were suppose to be traveling together, my traveling plans were altered due to unforeseen circumstances and Murphy's Law taking full effect. After my 1st 3 weeks in Cuba David arrived on schedule for his 6 days. Although I enjoyed traveling on my own, I missed the kind of mischief David and I would usually get up to. James, whom David had met in Mexico, had also joined him to Cuba. After the standard first couple of days where they got to exploring the streets of Havana and having been introduced to Casa de la Musica, we decided to take a trip to Trinidad.

Not to be confused with Trinidad the country, Trinidad is an old village 5 hours' bus ride south east of Havana. On first impressions, as we walked up the stony street up to the old church on the hill, it looked like an old Mexican town from a western film. Steps on the side of the church lead up to an old building which was now Club Casa de la Musica. Out side at the bottom of the stairs was stage for live salsa music. At night time people gathered on the steps to watch live bands play, we were among them.

Next day James wanted to relax so David and I headed to the Beach. The beach we ended up on was rocky and we didn't like the look of it. I saw two Argentinian girls, twins, and asked them where a sandy beach might be. They said they were headed that way. They had rented bikes and I asked if we could give them a ride there on their bikes. That beach was 3km away and I was completely out of shape. I was breathless after 1km but not willing to reveal my exhaustion I stopped pretending to want to take pictures of landscape. I jokingly told her that it was her turn to peddle. It was a relaxing ride for the next 2 km.

That night we went to Casa de la Musica again. James decided to call it an early night. David and I had heard about this big old cave on the hill that had been converted to a club so we headed that way. On the way to the cave on a dark street we saw light coming out of a small room, well actually a very small house. The door was wide open and inside we could see a Cuban family playing Dominoes. I walked up the steps to the door and asked if I could trouble them for a light. After that I asked them if we could play dominoes with them. Dave and I both sat down and for the next hour we joked and laughed with them playing dominoes and taking silly photos. It was my best experience of a simple Cuban life so far.

Dave and I wanted to go back to the beach next day and do a barbecue. We went on a hunt for some steak but that turned out to be a difficult task. We found a Cuban guy at the market who was willing to abandon his stall and help us in our search to find meat. He told us that he is not allowed to buy beef, no Cuban is! If caught, its punishable by 10 years in jail. Only people catering to the tourists are allowed to buy it. They don't import beef and whatever is produced in Cuba goes to restaurants serving tourists and a little is rationed to Cubans once a month. We eventually managed to find some and in protest to the Cuban law, we started a fire under a tree on the beach while it was raining. We ate and ate well. We even fed the stray dogs.

Dave left on schedule to go back to Mexico and to make his way down to Belize and Honduras while I arranged for a ticket to fly to Guatemala.

Casa De La Musica nights

My salsa lessons were going quiet well now that I was turning up more presentable. The casa owner informed me one evening that Daniel had just rang, he will be over in 5 minutes, you better get ready because you are going dancing. I invited 2 of the other guys along and went outside not knowing that Daniel had other plans for us. He was waiting out there with 2 girls... oops.

Casa De La Musica on Galliano street was a hot spot for Cubans and tourists to enjoy live band music. I practised some salsa as I saw the slim blond girl and Daniel enjoy each other´s company. This girl would later become the reason for Daniel to remain in Cuba apply for film studies for a 3 year course in the University of Havana. I talked to the other for a long time. Both the girls were Civil engineers. She told me that she earns $20 a month. I gasped and dropped my jaw. Do you know how much I earn?.. I went on to say the figure. I realised my mistake a few seconds later. These girls didnt go to university for 5 years, get a degree and civil engineering jobs only for an under achiever like me to come along and comment recklessly without much thought.

In hindsight I might be making too much of nothing. In their socialist structure Cubans are provided free housing, food, health, transport, education and jobs. If you take all that into account then $20 a month is irrelevent. Without incentives of huge cash sums, big houses and expensive cars, these girls still managed to find the motivation to get engineering degrees and jobs. This could only stem from good education and acceptance of their socialist structure. Cuba has the highest literacy rate in the entire world: fact! Walking around the streets of Cuba you may not find any malnurished children, beggers or homeless people. You may find them smiling, laughing and having fun more often than not. They are not plagued with the need to accumulate wealth and own more than their neighbours. Ignorance is bliss. I fear all that is about to change though. The government can try all it wants to limit the exposure of cubans to tourists. Slowly but surely the change is creeping up on them. Fidel has one foot in the grave. The embargo may soon be lifted. Hordes of foreign "investors" will pour into the country once the doors are opened and the land will be sold off peice by peice. There will once again be widely used terms to describe people of Cuba as rich or poor. Sure they will gain free speech and true liberty but in disguise there will also be manipulative foreign media ready to do the corporate bidding. Cuba is about to go from one extreme to the other. "El Che" must be turning in his grave right now.

Casa De La Musica had turned out to be my favourite night out. Few days later I headed to the Casa where Daniel was staying. It was owned by an old lady who´s daughter took daniel and I out to Casa De La Musica the other night. She greeted me at the door and before I could step inside she said "Asad my daughter likes you, why dont you take her out to dinner?" It wasn´t the first time a parent had attempted to pair me up with their daughter. Although she had a beautiful smile and an amazing personality not to mention very well educated, she was slightly over the weight limit my shallow mind was willing to forgive. An ugly thought crept up in my head "Maybe with The Stick and a Donut Approach[1] and enough time...." I quickly shook that thought off, laughed with the lady and changed the subject to ask the whereabouts of Daniel. I went inside and found Daniel. Without hesitation he jumped at the opportunity to go to the House of Music.




[1]The Stick and a Donut Approach is a shameless yet ingenious design of mine to motivate chubby girls to lose weight. Ingredients: 1 stick with a donut attached at the end with a string. Attach to girl´s head and let her loose on a treadmill to chase the donut. Remove stick when desired weight reached. (do not feed her the donut).
Probable flaw: The assumption that all chubby girls like donuts. They do! Google it!

The night at the Police station

Veradero was a tourist only beach with resort after resort blocking the sea from normal cubans.
Rich snot nosed tourists gathered here from all over the world wanting just 1 or 2 weeks of fun and games in the sun. For them, they wouldn´t have known the difference if it was Miami. I hated this but couldn´t complain beacuse I remembered the story this loud Aussie traveller told me. He ended up by him self in Trinidad cuba. He sat down at a table near the bar where another old english guy was sitting close by reading a book. The Aussie guy raised his voice and said "too many tourists have ruined this place." The old English guy raised his head away from the book and said "You are half the problem!" he went back to reading his book.

Daniel, the spanish guy and 2 other travellers from another hostel in havana had joined me on this trip. We got bored of the resort in 5 hours. The other 2 decided to stick with the resort while Daniel and I stepped out at night to find a nice Cuban place. We stopped at the first place that looked tyical of Cuba. Outside bar with live Cuban music and people pouring onto the street dancing salsa blocking traffing into the one way street.

We found a spot close to the small stage standing almost on the street. I could only pick up a few words of the songs but was mesmerised but the music staring at the band members playing different instruments. After a few minutes I realised Daniel wasn´t standing next to me anymore but chatting to an attractive Cuban girl further away. Her friend was standing next to her staring at the band. I waited for Daniel to return but he was completely engrossed in the conversation. The other girl smiled at me. It was an invitation. I looked away back at the band. After a few minutes I thought that Daniel might actually need my help in the form of a distraction for the other girl. So I decided to walk over.

We sat down at a table close to the bar. The girls were paying for their own food and drinks which was reassuring as it could not lead to any wrong sort of transaction. I tried to have a conversation in my broken spanish but Daniel was doing much better since he could speak spanish. 20 minutes later I noticed the police car parked near the bar on the street behind us. I looked at the girls they both looked uncomfortable exchanging glances. Daniel hadn´t noticed this. I knew Cubans weren´t allowed to mix with tourists and saw what was comig next. The girls excused themselves to go to the toilett. 5 minutes later Daniel wondered where they were? I pointed at the police car. The toilet was a dead end. These girls weren´t going anywhere. They returned after another 5 minutes and were escorted to the police car. Daniel followed and I followed him. He tried to talk to the police officers but to no avail. As the car drove away with the girls in the back, I saw the sadness in one of the girls´ face looking straight at me waving her hand in a way that clearly meant "Please help me"! By the time Daniel had finished talking to the security guard and found out where they were being taken, my guilt and sadness were starting to wear off.

Daniel had pulled over a taxi. "Are you coming?" he said. "Er... erm.. yeah OK" I was a reluctant knight in shining armour, "Caballero" as the cabi called us after hearing the story. With Daniel´s perfect spanish he was able to enquire about the whereabouts of the girls from the only officer present in that police station 2 in the morning. he explained that these girls were just talking to us and having a drink. Another officer appeared out of a dark hallway fixing his trousers, buckling his belt and looking sleepy. For a brief moment I wondered if that girl was in that room. The other officer disappeared to the back of the hallway after telling us to wait. He returned 15 minutes later with two sheets of paper which turned out to be criminal records. The photos were blurry and I can´t honestly say it was them but what choice did we have but to say thank you and leave. What astonished me was that at no point the police officers asked us for names or identification. They will treat their own citizens like animals but will not touch tourists.

These girls earned $10 month from there day job but they were both really attractive. A rich old tourist staying in the resort across the street paying $200 a night for a room could shower them with more money in one night than they would earn in 2 years. I felt sad in the taxi back remebering the sad look in that girl´s face and wondering about her fate. Daniel remained quiet on the way back and was probably thinking the same thing.

Sweaty Salsa

The old lady that turned up at the hostel offering salsa lessons for $10 an hour, ran that school with a young guy who was a professional dancer. She must also have been one in her day. She was nice and I agreed to turn up for my first lesson next morning.

I roamed the streets that night with other travellers cuban style. Most young people end up at the Malecon which is a long harbour in Havana. They drink cheap rum out of cartons similar to juice cartons. Talking with young Cubans you find out the reality of Cuban life. They live on national wage of $10 a month. $20 if they are engineers and doctors. I kept hearing this same phrase word for word from many cubans. "Every cuban family has a way to get money". It turns out most cuban families have at least 1 or 2 members that escape abroad and work and send money home. Many cuban families have members that work in the tourist industry and that means dollars. This explains how many of them are wearing addidas trainers and shiny t-shirts: yes! gold and silver colour painted t-shirts. All cuban guys wear them. I have to get one.

After a late night and sleeping late the next morning I was running late for my salsa lesson. I brushed my teeth and skipped the shower. The old lady wouldn´t mind. It was 30c and I was already sweating on the walk over to the school. Daniel, a spanish traveller from another hostel had also joined me to learn salsa. She greated me at the door. "Buenos dias! Como estas Asad!"
"Muy bien. Y tu?
"Muy bien. Ven."
I walked into this hall following her. It was an old spanish colonial house owned by an old spanish lady. From the corner of my eye I noticed a female figure outside leaning over the balcony looking at the traffic down below in the street. From what I could see she had the physique of a dancer. An attractive dancer.
"Jessica." The old lady called out.
The girl at the balcony turned away from the street and walked slowly into the hallway, gradually building up a smile to greet me. Like all men I was quickly trying to compare her in my head to all the other beautiful women I had met in my life and place her somwhere on the top 10 list. I had a number in mind.
"Jessica will be your dance partner today Asad and Daniel I will dance with you."
shit! shit! should´ve taken a shower.
Danielle and I both exchanged looks knowing exactly what the other was thinking.
Jessica walked towards me as I wiped the sweat of my bald head with my left hand and reached out with my right to shake hers forgetting completely the standard greeting between a man and a woman in Cuba. She didn´t forget. She grabbed my hand, pulled herself towards me to close the gap and kissed me on the cheek.
The old lady turned the music on as Jessica turned away to prepare. I descreetly raised my arm to smell the damage I was about to do and wiped the sweat off my head once more. Jessica had obviously noticed and turned both the pedastal fans to full power pointing them at me. For the next hour I stumbled across the dance floor stepping on her feet as often as I could, wiping the sweat off my head all the time.
As I was sweating away like somy body had turned a fire hydrant loose on my head, jessica said to me, "you have to hold my back hard and lead me like a sheep"
Easy for you to say love!
It wasn´t graceful!
I cut my 3 hour lesson short to 1 hour making all sorts of excuses. I returned the next day showered and bathed in 15ml of Georgio Armani.

Both Jessica and the young guy who ran the school were professional dancers and danced at the world famous Tropicana Club Havana. During one of the breaks the guy went into a political debate. He said most young people support the revolution and remain defiant against American imperialism. But its the control of the Castro govenment over its people that they can not stand. He said he can not run a school because the government would want control over it and that he wouldn´t be free to try out new things thus hindering progress and innovation. My salsa lessons were unofficial. If the police asked, I was to say we are just friends having a party.

Communism in Cuba is close to the end.

Havana: Sun and Salsa

12 days in Havana, Cuba so far. Arrived late night on a Thursday night. The first surprise I got was the use of 2 different currencies in Cuba. The CUC: Cuban Convertible Peso seems to have been created just for tourism to replace the dollar but now many cubans use it since most of them come in contact with tourists in Havana. The Cuban national pesos are used by cubans mostly. I thought it might be worth changing 100 CUCs for national money. I recieved a big bundle of 2,400 pesos. That was a silly mistake... only managed to use about a 100 so far.

Most tourists would get approached by dozens of cuban wanting to sell something. I dont have that problem. I look like most other cubans... infact found a look alike of myself and took a picture with him. There is a downside though. On the second noght I was walking in old Havana with Frank (whome I met at the hostel and is travelling in Cuba for 5 months). Now Frank is as white as they come and blonde. A police officer mistook me for a Cuban and asked for documents. Frank said I dont have any but the police officer wasn't interested in checking his documents and pointed instead to me. After checking my drivers license it was fine. It turns out he thought I was a cuban trying to rip off Frank... Great!

On the up side if I keep my mouth shut, I can pass myself off as a Cuban when buying food and drinks which means sometimes I can get away with paying Cuban rates. Now that is 10 times cheaper.