¡Viva la Revolucion!

I´ve got revolution fever, it´s everywhere here. Even over 50 years since it actually happened there is still propaganda everywhere, adverts, billboards, booklets, t-shirts and whatever else you want to see propaganda on. There are even billboards with George Bush´s face being equated to that of Hitler! It´s not that surprising, Cubans are living in a bubble and their faith, belief and patriotism towards that bubble must be maintained at all costs even if that bubble has a few holes in it to allow foreign money to come in!

I spent about 3 days in Havana, staying in Old Havana, what a place, the buildings are absolutely amazing even though some of them are almost falling down because they haven´t been restored yet, although there is a lot of talk and activity (in Cuban time) to get the restoration work underway. You also get to see all the classic signs of Cuba, American cars from the 1950s and before, Russian cars from the 60s and 70s; someone needs to say something about the brilliance of these Cuban mechanics!

One of the most interesting places I visited in Havana was the Yoruba Cultural Centre. Now, it was a little strange for me to see how strong traditional Yoruba belief in Orishas (Ancestral Gods) is in Cuba, but it was one of the things I was looking forward to experiencing, being of Yoruba descent myself. It´s bigger than Christianity here (which went out of the window after the revolution anyway) and it´s no longer limited to the descendants of slaves.

The centre has a statue of every Orisha, plus an explanation of its beginnings and how it is recognised. Given that belief in these Gods in Nigeria is almost completely extinct and they are limited to simply being a representation of our history, it is a shock to see people actively practicing it here, wearing all white every day, having huge temples in their homes and giving food and money sacrifices on holy days. Definitely worth a visit if you come here, its a small centre, but it helps to make sense of what you see on the streets and when you pass people´s houses. Santiago is supposed to have a much larger population of people who believe in Orishas hence why I wanted to go there, but the 15hour bus journey and scheduling complications has put that plan to rest.....means I gotta come back!

So, now I´m in Trinidad which is about a 5 hour bus ride from Havana (comfortable bus with reclining seats and a couple of Steven Seagal films!). Tiny town with only one beach, but it is absolutely stunning here. Its almost completely colonial, you´ll struggle to find a modern building and most of the streets are cobbled and oozing with character. The highlight for me has been Casa de la Musica which is in the town centre, free music every night of the week, you can listen, dance or try and dance salsa and stay merry until the wee hours of the morning! Last night, I even ventured into a club inside a natural cave...one word...wow! If you come to Cuba you gotta try it out!

So, onto my now regular niggles. As I mentioned in my last blog, using cards in this country is a bit difficult, any card which may be slightly associated with any American interest, just won´t work. Do not make the mistake I did and think that ¨Transaction Denied¨means a problem with your bank and spend 50CUC calling the UK only to listen to a recorded message which is of no help whatsover.

The next niggle is Cuban money. For about 2 years they´ve been operating two currencies here, Moneda Nacional(MN), which Cubans earn and spend, and Cuban Convertible Pesos(CUC), which all foreigners must use (even if they live and work in Cuba). I say must because even if you get hold of MN some places just won´t accept it from you, as you can imagine I´ve already had a couple of debates with folks on this, trust me.

Now the thing is, you get like 25MN for 1CUC, but when you buy something, the price is the same, so for example; an ice cream has a price on it of $1 (everything has the dollar sign on it?!?!), Cubans pay 1MN, foreigners pay 1CUC. Can you see the problem?! Plus just to make it worse, the CUC is stronger than the US dollar, and if you don´t have cash to change and want to buy CUC using a card, they change it into US dollars first and then into CUC, whilst adding about 5-10% commision which means you loose the advantage of having the pound which should give you just under 2CUC per pound. Sound complicated? Well it is, and its making sure Cuba is working out a lil expensive for me but what can you do?!

Tomorrow I´m taking a horse ride up to a waterfall just outside Trinidad, something tells me there is gonna be another sore fanny blog coming up!