We visited Plaza de la Revolucion. This is the place where Fidel Castro used to speak to the masses. He could look at his own larger-than-life image while he spoke to crowds on the big parking lot below. Now Fidel's brother Raul does the talking, from the same perch on the José Martí monument. Martí was not only a politician but also a poet, intellectual, exile and author. He led the charge to Cuban independence from Spain in the late 1800s. We headed to the Martí museum to escape the thunderstorm, and only afterward learned that we were supposed to pay to get in.
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| Fidel, looking a little like Jesus |
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| Brian and Che |
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| José Martí monument |
Next we went to the bus terminal to book tickets in advance on Viazul. There are actually two long distance bus companies in Cuba, but the other one is for Cubans only. That means Viazul is for tourists. We had planned to take it to our next destinations in Cuba. Instead, Cuba happened to us.
The line for tickets began at a small desk with one cashier, and it stretched across the room and curled around the corner. In the one hour and 45 minutes that I waited, I had time to make a few observations. The single cashier, a big woman with a mustache and a sparkly headband, grunted a little as she typed travel details into the computer. Meanwhile, two ladies sat at the information desk, talking on the phone or just looking bored. Off to the side, another Viazul employee sat at a desk with customer s for ages and ages, doing something complex, like booking VIP bus tickets maybe, or doing their taxes. After standing there about an hour, I learned that the first bus we wanted to take, the one to Viñales, was sold out. But I had waited long enough and Viazul would not defeat me. I could see the glitter on the cashier's headband in the distance, and we still needed tickets for the second leg of the trip. I hadn't eaten or drank anything all day but I would wait out the Germans, the Russians and Argentines and make it to the front of the line. When I got there, the cashier made a few grunts and fired up her 1993-era printer until I got what I came for.
While communism rules inside Viazul, free enterprise was at work outside the terminal. A throng of taxi drivers offered to take us anywhere we liked, including the two and a half hour drive to Viñales. We'd be back to see them in a couple of days.
We wrapped up the day with dinner at the restaurant where Uncle Tony's band was playing. It is a private restaurant, as opposed to a state-owned restaurant. The private restaurants, only legal within the last 10 years, are called paladars and are often built into peoples' homes. This one was on a dark, narrow street in Old Havana, with crumbled pavement and huge puddles from that morning's storm. Inside there were white tablecloths and candle light and gourmet food. And there was Tony's band to play for us.
We wrapped up Christmas Eve with 11pm mass at the cathedral. Christmas was officially abolished in Cuba for 30 years. Fidel, a Carribean Grinch, declared that it would be banned in 1969 because the day off interfered with the sugar cane harvest (you could also speculate on what Castro's attitude toward the Church had to do with it). It was reinstated in 1998. On Christmas Eve, Noche Buena, people had parties. Music played, kids were out in the streets, people walked home carefully holding big fancy cakes. At the cathedral, we expected some tourists and a few old ladies who could remember Christmas from before the Revolution. What we found was as a spectacle, a free-for-all, a circus. Throngs of locals, tourists, people in fancy dresses and people in tattered jeans, all coming and going and taking photos. They got up in the middle of mass, switched seats, had conversations, walked out. We were all sweating in the stifling air of the church as the choir sang "Walking in a Winter Wonderland." There were flashing, traveling Christmas lights on the trees beside the altar. The bishop said mass, and his entourage of priests and altar boys were oblivious, cooled by a fan on the altar and veiled by a cloud of incense smoke. Going up to communion felt like running for a life boat. There was shoving and weaving and stepping on toes. After about 90 minutes, the bishop processed out holding a statue of baby Jesus to place in the manger outside, under a few strings of flashing lights. Everyone cheered.
On Christmas Day, stores were open and people were out. It felt like a Sunday. The bread man took the day off. The rooster did not. Was Fidel or anyone in the Castro family celebrating? Who knows.
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