I’ve decided to begin a new series, focusing on cool people I’ve met while travelling. It doesn’t matter where you go, how beautiful the beaches are, how cheap the beer is, or how golden the sunsets, if you’re in bad company, you’ll have a bad time. The people you meet out in the world are crucial to everything I love about travelling. It’s the people you meet that will change you, more than simply the places you visit.
So here goes. First up, we have Fernando Pacheco. Continue reading
You’ve got to keep your wits about you when travelling. Especially when you visit a poorer country, as a tourist you are a walking wallet. When the average local earns roughly a hundredth of your wage, you can’t really blame them for occasionally trying to relieve you of a few coins. I’ve thrown together a few of the various backpacker scams I’ve come across on my travels. I’d love to say I was too witty and wily and outfoxed the devious local populace but… come on. It’s me. I’m a half wit.
Well, I’ve found my happy place.
In May I visited Berlin. Flying into Tegel airport (which is shit), I bumbled my way into the city to meet my friend, Michelle, at Leinestraße. I’d not seen her in a year. She’s a little sassy French girl with delightfully tussled hair who parties harder than anyone I’ve met. Her appetite for dancing is never ending. She’s cool. Continue reading
“The friendliest country in the world!”, the flimsy in-flight magazine exclaimed, as pretty hula girls beamed at me from its well thumbed pages. I was skeptical as my plane banked towards the impossibly green islands of Fiji. Continue reading
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ESdn0MuJWQ&w=560&h=315]
Listen to the immortal lyrics of master songsmith Jason Derulo, from the 2009 hit single ‘Ridin’ Solo’, in which he vividly recounts the new-found benefits of the single lifestyle, and the dizzying pleasures that can accompany the sudden revelation of newfangled emotional liberation.
Actually no, that title’s shit. Need something edgier.
Cuba: A Look Back In Anger
No that’s wank.
Reflections
Jesus.
Erm.
Dan After Cuba
Oh forget it.
So. Assuming you have now read all 15 days of my diary (God bless your patience), you will now have an idea of why I find it so hard to sum the country up in a nice little manageable sentence. Two weeks after the first manic taxi ride took me plunging into the jaws of the mysterious communist island, Cuba belched me back out again, shivering and bewildered and wondering what the hell I’d just been through. Continue reading
Berlin’s door policy is the most unforgiving I’ve ever come across. Continue reading
We all woke up nursing a dreadful collective hangover. Got a taxi to the Capitolio building with Martin and Sanya. Got a disgusting ‘meat’ sandwich thing which I ate two bites of before binning. Threw some to a stray dog, which hungrily ate it and hobbled away retching.
Went to a park to get wifi (the parks, for some reason, have wifi) and swapped a hundred or so quid over into my bank. Got cash out and met up with Joe before heading to the beach. The beggars where we got the bus from are the worst I’ve experienced. They refuse to leave even after being told no ten times. One old woman was pleading with us, showing us dirt on her skin. Everything I have read has said tipping beggars harms the economy. Doctors earn 20cuc a month – a beggar can earn twice that easily.
Sanya, Martin, Joe and I got to the beach on a lame tour bus with tourists frantically snapping photos of every building, bush and bird we passed. Got some beers and were metres from the beach when it started to rain. Waited it out in a restaurant, where we cracked our own tins as a frowning waiter looked on.
Beach was gorgeous and quiet, and the sea was warm. Would have been idyllic had furious black clouds not been rapidly approaching from the horizon. Had a swim and a long conversation with Joe about pretty much everything. Started to piss it down again so hopped on the bus back.
At the hostel, we met everyone else, including an Australian guy called John, born in Hong Kong. He’s a doctor of astronomy studying galaxy formation, 28 years old, and is 8 months into a 2 year world trip. He’s done almost every country in South America so far, and is planning on going basically everywhere. He saved ten years for this trip.
Lesley, the German girl I met on my second night (whose name I absolutely cannot remember every time I speak to her), visited the hostel to meet Joe. We all got food from a local paladar – a licensed restaurant. Chicken, rice, avacado and potatoes. Took about an hour waiting for it. Some of the best advice I’ve had was from Kurt in Vinales – you need a lot of patience in Cuba. Nothing happens quickly. It was worth the wait. Delicious. One of the tastiest meals I’ve had in Cuba (although that’s not difficult).
Martin left for the airport. Said a very efficient German farewell.
We bought rum after and I headed to the malecon with Lesley, Sammy and Sanya. Drank rum on the wall. Talked to Lesley about her time in Cuba and it’s effect on her relationship with her boyfriend in Germany – she’s here for 7 months. Told me she has previously had open relationships and considers it completely normal and healthy. Sanya, Sammy and I couldn’t comprehend the idea of our partners sleeping with someone else and being fine with it. I’d be horrified. In theory though, I understand her views. Really interesting conversation in a gorgeous location.
Headed back at 9 to meet Joe and John. Had mojitos at the hostel, then, armed with more rum, we set out to the university amid rumours of a concert taking place there.
The street was packed full of people heading to the university steps, where a huge stage had been erected with a full light show that could be seen all over Havana. Police had made a perimeter a hundred or so metres around the centre and were frisking people as they went in – almost exclusively black people. We passed through without even an eyebrow raised.
We smoked and drank rum and danced, enjoying watching the locals hanging out of windows, cramming onto balconies and clustering on rooftops to see the show. The booze turned on Sammy and he went from Cliff Richard to Keith Richards in about 10 minutes. We had to hold him back to prevent him running onto the stage. Told him he would most definitely end up slung in a Cuban jail.
Went for more rum and met a friend of Lesley’s, a dreadlocked Cuban guy called Louis. The longer we stayed, the more locals latched onto us and soon it snowballed into half the street giving us cigarettes, telling us about their cousins in Europe, and asking for rum. Louis was really cool. He works in television editing and works with Avid and Premiere – the same programmes I used at uni. He’s currently working on a documentary about a Dominican man who has collected 5000 handprints from every country in the world.
The show finished and we stayed to chat in the street as the crowd trickled away. As we floated drunkenly back toward the casa, screeching tires gave us all a heart attack. Police cruisers flew past and skidded to a halt fifty metres ahead, and officers jumped out and started knocking some Cubans about. Two groups were busy braying each other but were soon scattered and the main culprits slapped in irons. I already assumed, but now had it confirmed, Cuban police do not fuck about.
We grabbed yet more rum and stumbled to the malecon. Had a pizza each on the way, and lost half the group. Lesley wondered off with Louis, Joe disappeared to find wifi, and John made best friends with a family in the takeaway.
Sanya and I were left babysitting the paralytic Canadian on the sea wall. Any potential conversation was soiled by his constant drunken interjections and subsequent apologies. He began repeating that he needed the bathroom. I told him to go down an alleyway, vaguely hoping he might get lost and not come back. Nice guy, just an annoying drunk.
He ventured off into a dark alley and came back exclaiming that he needed to wash his hands. He tried to reach down to the sea from the malecon, failed due to the sea wall being 10 feet high above the water, dropped his keys to the rocks below, and, before I could even say ‘moron’ he had hopped over the wall.
Miraculously he didn’t die immediately from landing badly on the sharp, slippery rocks. More and more bemused locals were gathering to watch the floundering halfwit scrabbling about among the rock pools in the dark like a pissed up Gollum on his stag do. We shone our torches down for him, and, god knows how, he found his keys.
He yelled up and three squinting Cubans put their beers down and heaved him back up onto the right side of the wall. He repaid them by flopping his arms around them and asking the same questions fourteen times.
Had a monosyllabic conversation with the Cuban guys, who were refreshingly chilled and gratefully turned Sammy down when he tried to shove a fistful of coins their way. Swapped a cigarette for rum, said goodnight, and Sanya and I carried Sammy home.
BED
“A bleeding tramp sat on the floor of the second carriage, kicking people who walked past.”
Very disturbing thing happened last night. Was woken up by a woman shouting in the street at maybe 4am. She was shouting in Spanish, the same thing over and over. I could hear her as she came up the street and as she got nearer, I could hear something in her cries that was chilling. Her voice sounded desperate and fearful, repeating the Spanish phrase over and over, louder and louder, echoing around the silent street. A couple of voices called back to her at one point. I wish I knew what she was saying. It sounded like cries for help – or possibly the wails of a mad woman. Either way, it was horrible and I lay awake in bed long after her screams had faded away into the distance.
At 5am, I was woken again by hammering on the front door, over and over, and then the doorbell ringing frantically. I heard my casa owner answer the door, but heard no conversation. It truly is an intimidating country when you are unable to speak the language. My number one piece of advice to any traveller wanting to visit would be to learn at least basic Spanish, and not to travel alone. Really underestimated the difficulties I would face here, alone and unable to communicate.
I got up for breakfast at 7, moron that I am, because my casa owner speaks no English at all and refuses to slow down her rapid Spanish, meaning I agreed to eat at the crack of dawn by accident in garbled Spanglish. Woke up still hammered again and was subjected to breakfast that was merely huge, rather than the usual gargantuan offering. Consistency is not a concept that exists in Cuba.
After a joyous 30 minute fiesta of a toilet session, which is becoming part of my daily routine as my stomach slowly packs in, I shoved my things in my backpack and left quickly, with the casa owner waxing lyrical about something that I hope wasn’t important because I stared blankly and left.
Went to the bank, asked for 30 cuc, she tried to withdraw 300, took some explaining but got there eventually. Some old guy flogged me a cigar for a cuc which I sat and smoked in the town square as various stray dogs asked for food and stray Cubans asked for my sunglasses.
The town square. Filled with shuffling priests by day and gyrating prostitutes by night.
Found a taxi to Havana for 15cuc – very cheap, like a 2 hour journey for a tenner. Joining me in the knackered old classic car was a German girl called Hannah who has been here for a month. She is visiting Cuba in memory of her late father, who listened to salsa music all his life, sharing his passion with her. He never got to visit the country. Really touching. Silver lining – he never got electrocuted and impaled in the shower, either.
We had a great conversation about Cuba, music, politics, films and sociology – it’s her degree. She was impressed by my media production degree – I was reluctant to shatter her illusion of it having any practical use. She asked me my three favourite films. Not necessarily favourites, but I recommended Scott Pilgrim, Airplane and American Beauty. Hopefully she’ll enjoy at least one of those!
At one point our driver pulled over in the middle of the motorway. The gentleman pictured wandered over across the six lane motorway and sold him a string of garlic. They argued about the price for a while. To this day I am yet draw a satisfactory conclusion as to what the hell anyone would need that much garlic for.
Back at Casa De Ania now, Martin and Sanya are exploring the city somewhere. Will no doubt see them later and then it will be party time.
Part 2
Went out and grabbed something to eat from a street stall and had a beer walking through the city. Didn’t hang about as the heat was fierce.
Met a Canadian guy called Sammy at the casa who had just arrived after fleeing the unfathomable dullness of his all inclusive week at Varadero.
A street. Marvel at it.
Two familiar bronzed German faces arrived back at the casa. Was great to see them again. Martin has a sunburned lip that has become infected. Looks a mess. He’s mortified. Hilarious.
Writing this two days later. Past two days have been a rum soaked blur. Met more people as Ania’s – a 38 year old Chilean woman called Fransisca who visits Cuba all the time, and an English artist called Joe who’s 22 and has been funded to go to Cuba to draw the country – pretty epic.
Fransisca told us about some local place by the seafront and we all piled in a taxi there, four of us crammed in the back on top of each other. Was a cool salsa bar overlooking the ocean with a large dancefloor. As soon as we arrived we grabbed some beers and were dragged onto the dancefloor by Fransisca, where a group salsa lesson was being led by a yelling Cuban man. Failed miserably to keep up with the locals and soon sacked it off and slumped on a wall nursing my beer, watching the Cubans flinging each other about.
Got pretty smashed pretty quickly and somehow lost everyone in a bar about the size of a tennis court. Assumed they’d gone home for some reason and got a taxi back by myself. Driver tried to rip me off by pretending he had no change. Refused to hand over the fiver he was asking for and he soon miraculously found a couple of Cucs in his pocket.
This photo isn’t relevant to anything. It’s the national ballet theatre or something. It’s a nice photo though. Shame not to include it somewhere. Pretty lights.
Drunkenly woke a homeless man while stumbling past and handed him five Cucs. He was still bleary from his sleep and held the money up to a light to see if it was real. Seemed grateful and confused.
Everyone else got back around 12 and angrily told me they had spent 30 minutes trying to find me. Whoops.
BED
“Cuban police do not fuck about.”