| Thursday, April 29th, 2004. 8:47pm Wow. It's been a month since the last time I wrote. Things have been way too hectic lately. The Friday Cecilia got here, I decided to go to the police station in the morning to report the guy to whom I lent my discman, because he won't give it back. I had talked to the police officers that work on my block and they told me where to go. I got to that station after a bit of walking because the bus I was on broke down, and after waiting an hour for a specific guy to show up, he told me I needed to go to a different station, very far away. He told me he'd send me in a car. Haha, I got to ride in the back of a police car in Cuba. I found it quite amusing. But when I got there, I had to wait, then they finally talked to me, and I gave them all the information possible, then they called someone and told them who to look for, then told me I had to wait till the caught him. I explained to the guy that I had to leave in a half hour to pick up a friend from the airport. He was not exactly compassionate. I sat in the waiting room until I DEFINITELY needed to leave. I got up and talked to one officer, who then got the one I had talked to before, who told me I couldn't leave. I started crying to myself. Then some guy asked why I was crying. In the MIDDLE OF A CUBAN POLICE STATION, I yelled "BECAUSE I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS COUNTRY, NOTHING WORKS, ive been here for four hours and im still waiting, and I have to be in Habana Vieja in less than an hour!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Later, when I told any Cuban friend about this story they'd freak out and tell me if they'd have done that they'd be in prison. It's true. Anyway, after waiting until I had 20 minutes to be in Habana Vieja to meet Adrian to take a camello to the airport, I finally told the officer at the door I HAD to go. He said "hey, im not stopping you." So I left. I walked about 6 blocks, but that far out in Playa they're ridiculously long blocks, to where the P4 stop is. As I walked by a group of maquina drivers who yelled "taxi?? taxi??" I automatically said no. then I realized, wait, I could use a maquina right now. So I went back up to them and asked if for four dollars they could take me to Parque de la Fraternidad. They were all over that and even argued over who would take me. I told the driver I was in a hurry, and by some miracle he got me there in about 15 minutes. I couldn't believe it. Adrian and I took another (cheaper) maquina to the airport, and actually got there early. So yeah, Cecilia got here safely. Her visit was a blast. We spent most of our time in Varadero, cuba's most famous tourist destination: a long peninsula with miles and miles of uninterrupted beaches and some of the most prestigious hotels. Needless to say I didn't stay in one. The one I reserved for Cecilia and me the first weekend was expensive for a hotel in cuba: 60 bucks a night. And it WAS a whole apartment for the record. But everything was in desperate need of paint. Anyway, we didn't spend much time in the hotel and we got used to it really quickly. Honestly Varadero's kind of a blur of awesome clubs and hung over mornings on the beach. We made friends with a few of the guys from the lifeguard school too. It was a fun time but I really missed Adrian. We went back later in the week for two more days and one night. That time cecilia's dad's credit card paid so we stayed in a really nice hotel. I really thought I wouldn't like Varadero but it turned out to be a nice break from everyday Cuba. Basically because it's nothing like Cuba. I showed Cecilia the Varadero parts of Cuba, but also the not so enjoyable parts such as the busses (the P1 AND the camello) and the restaurants that don't have anything, the people that overcharge you, the rude way you're forced to get peoples' attention (PSSSSST, OYE!!!), the people that say "taxi? taxi?" every two feet you walk, etc. I think she had a good time, though . . . im just glad I didn't let her get away without seeing "la cara real de cuba" the real face of cuba. It was really nice, too, to get to see her. It made me realize how impossible it is that I've lived without her for so long. The week after that I went to the east of Cuba, to Santiago de Cuba and Baracoa with this girl, Ina. I really hated Santiago, everyone hassles you there, even worse than in Havana. You can't even sit down at a restaurant without people coming up to the window asking you for things. Baracoa was really beautiful, though. The first day it rained and we fell asleep and just stayed in the whole day. The second day, though, we decided to go to El Yunque, even though it was raining. We walked 4km out of town, turned onto the road to the campismo at the foot of El Yunque, this famous mountain thing that Christopher Colombus wrote about. So we got a couple kilometers down the road and we ran into some other girls from our group who had turned around because a bridge in the road had flooded and the water was over waist high. We went just to see, and Ina decided we should cross. I really didn't want to, but I decided I might as well, two locals, one a man and one a teenage boy, helped us across, leading the way and carrying our shoes and stuff for us. I really appreciated that because they really didn't want anything they just helped us for the sake of helping us. After we got across the water, which was a length stretch of the road, we put our shoes back on and kept walking. We came across one young man who I warned about the water. He immediately turned around. He walked with us, trying to speak English, until we came across another boy that looked about 15. They started talking animatedly about where Ina and I were going, until the first guy came up to us, took Ina by the wrist, turning her around and in his broken English said: "tomorrow you go to campismo." They had decided that it was dangerous for us to keep going because it would rain more and we wouldn't be able to get back across the water which would have risen from the rain. But then they decided they didn't want to cross the water and the kid said he knew a way around. We trekked through a field, talked to some really old helpful people he knew, had to cross a creek that was still about waist high but it was quick, then climbed a forested mountain to the hut of other people he knew. It was literally a hut. Palm leaf roof, no walls, etc. and they were cooking with wood. In Havana they crack jokes about people cooking with wood but I've never actually thought it was real. We had to stay in the shack because just as promised it started raining harder than ever. There were tons of fruit trees around the house. They produce a fruit called mamey that ive never seen in the states. I'm not a big fan, but that day I was super hungry. The whole time we were there they were cutting up mameys with machetes and passing out slices. Two men appeared to live there: a very old man, and a forty year old man. The younger one was very talkative and at one point he said to the other one: "Can you believe there are some people in the world that have never seen a machete?" with a look of appalled disapproval on his face. I wanted to laugh so hard. Machetes for them are like a way of life. I tried to explain to him that some people just don't have a USE for a machete, but how was I going to explain a riding lawnmower or a weed whacker or pruning shears to him? Anyway, we still had a long trek ahead, up and down a few more heavily heavily heavily forested mountains, but we finally got out. We made friends with the kid though, so for the next few days he and another friend of his took us around to less touristy parts of Baracoa that are still very beautiful. They took us (on a less rainy day) toward El Yunque, past the campismo, to a spot in the river where we swam and sat on the rocks on the shore all day, eating bananas and coconuts they had climbed the trees to get. They have this like automatic way of opening up a coconut, first just a hole to drink the milk, then they chop it perfectly and chop of a piece of the husk to scoop out the fruit inside. I ate a lot of coconut in those few days Anyway, I was totally ready to go back to Havana because by the end of the week I desperately missed Adrian. We had a pretty uneventful trip back and when I got home Adrian wasn't even there. Imagine my dismay! I needed a nap and some laundry time anyway, and before I knew it he was home. Overall, my vacation was alright, but when it comes down to it, when you're in love vacations just aren't any fun without the person you love. |
| Life In Cuba: April 2004 |