Cubans

So, we've established that the cuisine should not be the main draw for going to Cuba. And ultra-lefties looking for a socialist utopia may have their fantasies shattered by the mind-numbing disfunctionality and rampant materialism. So, why go? Well, for those of us who are just a bit too young to have vacationed in the Soviet Union, Cuba is about as close as you can get these days. There's definitely no other place like it. And besides the political voyeurism, Cubans are just fun people. I can't think of another place where you can spend two weeks and have so many memorable conversations with random people on the street or be invited into so many people's homes.




For example, while driving across the island and picking up hitchhikers, we met:
- University students who speak quite good English and French and are studying to work with foreigners as translators, tour guides, etc. They said they chose this career because they are interested in meeting people from different places and learning about other parts of the world. Then they said they don't mind the fact that they're not allowed to leave their country to travel abroad.
- A doctor who had spent years working in Mozambique and Trinidad & Tobago as part of Cuba's program to send doctors to friendly developing countries.
- An old man who snored while he was awake and professed his love for mulattas, saying he'd never been with a white woman his whole life.
- A middle-aged guy who loved the United States with all his heart, although he had never been there and only knew what he had seen in movies, and spoke only in clichés ("I love Disneyland. It's the happiest place on Earth." or "I love America. It's the land of the free and the home of the Brave.")


[The Cuban Evander Holyfield.]

We rented rooms in the homes of a family of hyper-intellectual theater critics, a high-ranking government official, a man whose family had been among the elite but had everything confiscated after the revolution.


[This guy and his friends were training the dog for an upcoming fight.]

There were people who would love to leave the country as soon as possible and those who defend the government and socialism until the end.


["I am what I am. And what of it?"]

We were driven around for $5 by a former star player and current coach on Havana's biggest baseball team. It would be like if taxi driver in New York was a former star on the Yankees.