Viva la Revolucion - Cuba!

Although Cuba was never originally on our travel plans, we landed a cheap vacation package that was too good to turn down.
We were able to fly to Cuba from Canada, but it’s not possible from the US, and if you have a Cuban visa stamped in your passport, you’re not able to enter the US.
To combat this, the Cuban government has come up with a simple solution; your passport isn’t stamped, you’re just issued a slip of paper stamped with your date of entry which you hand back at the end of your trip. So it’s as if you never went there.

Our hotel peaked back when Boy George was belting out Karma Chameleon, but it had a luxurious pool, and was a good base for trips into the old quarter of Havana. Here’s the view from our room.

It was fascinating travelling in a communist country. There are just four TV stations and one newspaper. There is almost no internet, and even the internet we could access through the hotel was restricted to certain sites.

Cubans are very proud of their country and staunch advocates of Fidel. They are friendly and we never felt unsafe, though Cuba has its fair share of shysters, just like any country frequented by tourists. We were diddled just once, when a ‘friendly’ local took us to a bar and our round of drinks ended up costing a small Cuban fortune.

As well as regulated salaries, there appears to be a job for everyone, even aluminium can crushers, as these cheery gentlemen show.

Other 'jobs' that we observed included an ATM attendant who tells you when you’re next in line, pedestrian traffic directors who sit in fold out chairs in public squares directing people and ladies who sit outside toilets in restaurants handing out squares of tissue as you enter.

Havana is a completely bewitching city, with decaying old Spanish homes and regal ex-embassy buildings all hemmed in by a sweeping marina.

And all that iconic imagery – ’55 Chevy’s cruising alongside horsedrawn carriages, Che Guevara billboards, salsa bars with slow spinning ceiling fans and streets adorned with Viva la Revolucion graffiti.

It’s bizarre to think that Florida is only 180kms across the strait. Allegedly in 1989 the American Government spent $32 milion on an anti-Cuban TV station and giant transmission dishes that directed toward Cuban shores, but Cuban technicians have been able to repel its signals.

The narrow streets and squares of Havana are hectic and alive with people, music, cars and street vendors.

Books on Fidel, Che, Karl Marx and other theorists and revolutionaries are sold everywhere. Here is a shady square in the middle of Havana where dozens of booksellers peddled their wares.

Cheap rum makes for plentiful mojitos, which were a standard on every menu. I loved watching the ritual of the barman muddle together a handful of mint leaves with sugar in the bottom of a glass, followed by a liberal ‘free pour’ of white rum and lemon juice. It was like the Cuban version of Japan’s green tea ceremony.

Here's Shaun enjoying the fruits of their labour...

PHOTO OF SHAUN DRINKING MOJITO AND BARMAN MAKING MOJITO
We visited a rum factory, where the sugarcane is fermented and bottled.

There was a small stampede when the free rum samples were being given out to the tour group - I love the look of glee on Shaun's face.

Cigars are sold individually on every street corner. Shaun became very fond of his daily ritual of a cigar after dinner.

There is quite a neat homestay system in Cuba called ‘casa particulars’ that is regulated by the government. All homes that participate must register with the program and charge a set price to host people in their home. The report to the government the details of the guests, and we presume pay a cut of the fee.

Leaving the city we spent some time in the west part of the country, in a town called Vinales surrounded by hills, tobacco farms and banana plantations.

And a kitsch rock art attraction from the 1930’s…

The photos don’t quite convey the size of this rock wall and it’s adorning art, and I’m not sure if anything can explain this rather garish representation of the evolution of man… all the way from mollusc to dinosaur to man.

In Vinales we stayed with a lovely old Cuban couple, Olga and Carmelo.

Here is a picture of the honeymoon suite, which featured every shade of pink you could imagine.

Out for a walk one evening, we met a sweet lady who used effective sign language to entice us to a nearby tobacco farm. With Shaun’s cigar consumption increasing incrementally with the days we stayed in Cuba, the obvious thing to do was to buy some cigars direct. Here is Shaun post-purchase with the women who grew the tobacco and rolled the cigars.

Here is a Cuban tobacco farmer lighting up a cigar that he'd just rolled. Behind him are sheaths of tobacco leaves drying. Check out that knife he's holding, too...

Although I’ve raved about food through most of our journey, Cuba is not known for its cuisine. Its street food is primarily comprised of cheese and between/atop/inside white bread product. The other staple involves deep fried anything – potatoes, rice balls, plantain, cheese and churros.

This rather unusual dish was plantains (which are like savoury, floury bananas), stuffed with bacon, deep fried and topped with melted cheese.

This 'street pizza' cost us 25c a slice and was delicious, as you can see from the look on Shaun’s face as he inhales it.

Cubans also have a penchant for saccharine sweet, brightly frosted celebration cakes - usually the shade of blue of the wall in this photo. ‘Dulcerias’, like this one pictured, sell the cakes from holes in the wall everywhere.

Ernest Hemingway spent many years in Cuba, and it was the place that inspired Old Man and the Sea. His apartment in Havana has been kept exactly as it was when he lived there.
The walls are mounted with stuffed animals, prizes from his hunts.

Hemingway's clothes remain hanging in his closet, though they don't look all that well-suited to the climate.

His car...

Hemingway had a habit of recording his weight on the bathroom wall in pencil every day - maybe he was concerned about the effect of all that white bread and cheese!

A day trip out to one of the islands, called Cayo Levisa, took us to a beach with the whitest, most powdery sand I’ve seen and beautiful clear water.

Here is Shaun under our cabana on the beach reading Fidel Castro’s famous speech ‘History will absolve me’.

The land of the maple leaf...

We arrived in the land of the maple leaf Canada Day – fireworks, cotton candy and beers by the lake in small town Peterborough, celebrating with the locals, and our two dear friends Chris & Alysha, who put us up in their little flat.

The long sunny days that followed were filled with day trips to beautiful lakes, rivers and mountains courtesy of Chris & Alysha's awesome van, named Blurj, and lots swimming.

If you know anything at all about Shaun, you know that bombs and 'horsies' are obligatory activities when around any body of water.

Shaun and Chris sang a few songs at a local open mic night in a bar which lays claim to having hosted a few drunken performances by Hank Williams back in the day.

Alysha and Chris took Shaun to visit Omeemee – a little town where Neil Young lived when he was a boy.
I wasn’t there, so I hand over to Shaun to recount:

"The trip was a pilgrimage of sorts, and I had Neil singing in my head while we drove along – past old barns, on green hills…

‘the red river still runs through my home town, churning and splashing all the way, carving its way through the west prairie …., While a boy fishes the morning away’

‘there is a town in North East Ontario, blue … and comfort to spare, and in my mind I like to go there sometimes, all my changes happened there’

We went to a Neil Young museum which was fantastic.

Neil’s father had lived nearby all his life so it seemed like anything that Neil needed to get rid of had ended up in the museum – including the old family piano which I couldn’t stop looking at. It also had the guitar that Neil reckons he wrote natural beauty on.

There was also a picture of Neil and his brother in the museum from the previous year. I thought that Neil must have had the same stylist and Michael Hager – either that or Michael had lent Neil some clothes for the day."

Alysha’s Dad’s (Tom) farm in Norwood was a storybook setting amongst pine trees, rolling fields, maple groves, giant dandelions and old wooden fences.

Chris has been keeping his drum kit in the big old barn on the hill, and the rustic space and surrounds have all the makings of the next big country music festival (which I believe is in the making! Tom-fest).

Some skeet-shooting rounded off our Canadian activities nicely.

Shooting, you say? Well, I always presumed that if I was ever going to shoot a gun, it would be in the mighty US of A. But here we were in the late afternoon sun on Tom’s farm shooting off rounds at clay skeets.

That shotgun had a hell of a kick, and my shoulder ached for a few days, but it was a bit of a thrill.

And for the quintessential Canadian experience, how about a visit to a maple sugar shack? A tractor ride out to the wooden shack in the middle of the maple grove where Tom boils up home-made maple syrup.

We saw the taps that are literally screwed into the maple trunk, a bucket under each catching the drips of golden liquid which are then boiled down to the thick treacle, which we sampled by the spoonful.

As is customary in my posts to date, a mention of the food is a fairly sure thing. Canadian food is something to write home about, and we were treated to all sorts of new tastes by Chris and Alysha. For you foodies, I’ve put some of our more memorable eating experiences at the end of this post in a glossary of sorts.*

A bevvy of familiar Melburnians had all congregated in Toronto to attend Luke and Tracey’s wedding, and our hotel was full to the brim with northside regulars.

Shaun and Steve learnt quickly that Toronto’s ‘street meat’ is a game of Russian roulette. Here we see them ‘enjoying’ a hot dog of dubious carnivorous content at some ungodly hour.

A group of us went to a Leon Russell gig. Not being a fan of the encore, I especially liked his philosophy on ending the show.

“This is the part in the concert where we’d normally leave the stage and return for an encore. But when you get to my age, you’re too damn tired to get up and walk off the stage. So let’s just pretend that we’ve gone and just returned, huh?”

The aforementioned wedding arrived on July 9th, and was a really special day at Tracy's mum's place in Cookstown.

Shaun, Steve and Logan were best men, and they did a stellar job of keeping the groom calm and watering him with plenty of Canadian beer. They also did a pretty damn good job of looking cute in their grey waistcoats and Converse.

There was a minor debacle when the best men realized the Canadian barman hadn’t managed to get any beer on ice before the wedding guests arrived. Scenes reminiscent of a Barry McKenzie movie ensued and the situation rose to fever pitch when Australian guest Mark Rhoden was advised of the oversight. Tables were nearly thrown as Mark started to make his way over to the bar.

However the best men managed to get the situation in order. After much persistent diplomacy said barman started to understand the serious nature of his cultural blunder – and the beer remained plentiful, on ice, and ‘only for Australians’ for the entire night. You bloody little ripper!
Here's Mark and his lovely lady Anna...

...and a few more familiar faces...

Tracy was a most magnificent bride in a handmade dress of the most delicate vintage fabric, which suited the 1950’s mood. She and Luke were radiant.

Special mention to Christine, Eleana, Taj and Seika who looked divine and performed their bridesmaidly duties in a most stately fashion.

Luke and Shaun played a few songs at the wedding ensuring that the Idle Hoes were represented.

*Here is a glossary of some of the Canadian delicacies (I use this in the loosest of terms for some of these foods) that we sampled:
Clamato juice – tomato juice with clam extract. Sounds wrong, tastes right.

Ceasar – Like a Bloody Mary, but made using clamato juice, and garnished with a rim of celery salt.

Poutine – Classic Canadian hangover cure / drunken snack. Chips and gravy, but with the addition of twisty bits of cheese curd, which melt into the gravy. Sounds wrong, is wrong.

Peamail bacon – a thick cut of Canadian bacon that is juicier than regular. Particularly delicious with a side of house-smoked beans (and drizzled with maple syrup if you’re feeling completely indulgent).

Blueberries - Summer is the season for blueberries and they were the size of small grapes.

Wings – Although not a Canadian delicacy per se, these wings deserve special mention because they were consumed en masse at a 35 cent wing night. 35 cents!!

Tim-bits – Tim Hortons is a Canadian donut and coffee chain that can be found in every town, village and suburb. Tim-bits are like the donut hole, arriving in a cute little take-away box as a 10-, 20- or 40-pack. 40 donut holes for $6.29. Never has so much sugar and fat come in such a cute pack.