This post is about an adventure to Miami, Cuba, and Puerto Rico (San Juan and Vieques) that Scott and I went on starting March 27, 2024 and ending April 12, 2024.
Preparations
for Cuba were interesting as Cuba can't do business with the US so
our US credit cards don't work in Cuba. We were told to bring $1000 in $100 bills to
be exchanged for Cuban Pesos. I never travel with that much cash, so I
had to dig out my old under-my-clothes money belt, with the Velcro still
stuck.
I left New York Wednesday (3-27-24) and arrived in Miami, staying in the trendy Brickell area at the Aloft-Miami Brickell hotel, near the Brickell Center.
Scott and my first stop when we did get going was at the Apple Computer Store. I'm glad we're in Miami and not Havana, I doubt there's an Apple Store in Havana.
Below are a few photos from Thursday.
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| Above: Biscayne Bay |
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| Above: A hotel covered with graffiti on all 4 sides that is to be torn down, this once was a commercial complex. |
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| Above: Diane at the Miami Icon sculpture at the Intercontinental Miami |
Thursday was a friendly but not
exciting day, except for the Happy Hour and dinner. At Happy Hour I
discovered Mezcal (made from a type of agave) margaritas, oh my! At dinner we had Cajun boil with
crawfish at the Cajun Boil Seafood Restaurant. The crawfish were almost
too cute to eat.
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| Above: Scott enjoying his Cajun boil with crawfish at the Cajun Boil Seafood Restaurant. |
Friday (3-29-23)
A confession… Scott and I didn't do Miami justice. There are two things I wish we'd done that we didn't have the energy to do. The Art Deco Historic District in Miami Beach and the Wynwood area with outdoor art. But we did a few things on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday we went to the Design District and had a wonderful conversation with a gallery person and looked at the art with her knowing we weren't buyers. She directed us to the center of the area in which there is recreation of the 1965 Buckminster Fuller's Fly's Eye geodesic dome. This dome is a little over 22 feet in diameter and was recreated from the original design but is made of sturdier material and newer technology. I'm a Bucky fan.
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| Above: Buckminster Fuller's Fly's Eye geodesic dome. |
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| Above: From inside the recreation of the 1965 Buckminster Fuller's Fly's Eye geodesic dome |
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| Above: "The Well of Ancient Mysteries." a |
Then we went back to the hotel for happy hour and my new fave mezcal drink and went out to a Peruvian sidewalk restaurant where I had pollo saltado (stir-fried chicken). In the novel I’m writing, I write about lomo saltado (stir-fried beef) and I've never had saltado so it was tasty and I feel authentic. Then we crashed, Scott and I were both fatigued from figuring out the metro mover and the prep for the trip.
With great resolve we thought we would do more on Saturday, but we had all sorts of forms to fill out for Cuba. And we learned that we needed a wad of $1's and $5's, so we had to find a place to cash the $10's and $20's. It was afternoon before we accomplished all of that. The forms were in Spanish, GRRR!
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| Above: The Mona Lisa painting (not the real painting of course) :o) |
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| Above: Da Vinci's parachute from the 1500’s. The parachute reminded me of my sky diving days from many, many years ago. |
Sunday (3-31-24)
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| Above: Delta flight path. |
There was chaos at the airport on Easter Sunday. We had to get special Visas for Cuba at the airport which was a bit chaotic but done.
The arrival was easy-pleasey for me. A woman in a uniform took Scott's passport and walked away. Scott couldn't do anything but stand there. Finally, she came back and handed it to someone else who ultimately gave it back to Scott.
We are staying at the Hotel Nacional of Cuba, the only hotel the US government would allow us to stay.
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| Above: Hotel Nacional of Cuba at night. |
Then we went to dinner in a local parador (restaurant/bar) called La Guarida, a renovation from an old mansion. The food was wonderful and the presentation was lovely.
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| Above: La Guarida restaurant/bar at night. |
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| Above: Locals jamming on the street outside of La Guarida. |
On the way home we could see their Capitol building, it's a few feet taller than the one in Washington D.C.
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| Above: National Capital of Cuba at night |
Monday (4-1-24)
Scott and I were up and out pretty early Monday morning. Not too hot this early, high in the 80's later.
First stop was in an art gallery that was also a converted mansion. Fascinating art and a lot of mid-century furniture. The lecturer, renowned Cuban architect Miguel Coyula (colloquially known as “Cuba’s Explainer in Chief”), was brilliant and had a sense of humor. We got history, urban planning (or the lack thereof), and architecture all in one lecture.
Another lunch in a beautifully restored mansion and off to the other side of the harbor (Port Havana) to the Afro-Cuban neighborhood. We had a meeting with a group of folks that explained the Yoruba religion. It came from Africa with them. The Spaniards tried to convert the slaves with this religion and they pretended to pray to the Saints but they were praying to their own Saints. They chose Catholic saints that stood for something similar to theirs so they could pray with sincerity. As I understand it, that is what is called Santería which is all over the US and maybe other places. They described their initiation process and talked about why people want to be priests of Yoruba.
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| Above: Four musicians. |
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| Above: Dancer, Scott sitting down. |
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| Above: Dancer. |
Scott and I set forth Tuesday to drive through 3 sections of Havana, the Vedado (where our hotel is), Central Havana, and Old Havana. Our ride, with a driver, was in a pink Oldsmobile.
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| Above: The pink 1954 Oldsmobile we rode in. Behind the Oldsmobile is a 1956 Fairlane Ford. |
Once in Old Havana we arrived at the home of two wonderful artists, Osmeivy Ortega and Lisandra Ramirez Bernal. When we were in Cuba in 2013, we met Osmeivy but on this 2024 trip he was in Miami at an art show. We were allowed to roam through their art-filled home and marvel at both of their art work. I didn't take photos, it seemed too personal. Osmeivy's work is large woodblock prints that he transfers the ink to the paper with a spoon. He carves the enormous woodblocks by hand of course. Lisandra Ramirez Bernal’s art was a menagerie of colleges and animal sculptures, plus 1950s objets d’art, homeware and furniture.
In Old Havana we continued our journey and went to the dance school of Lizt Alfonso, she runs one of Cuba’s premiere dance companies. We saw a part of a performance that they will be giving in Cuba on the 12th. Amazing. We were seated in chairs on the dance floor, so close we could see them sweat, but too close to take photos.
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| Above: One old building in need of repair. |
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| Above: The corrugated tin roof that let both shafts of sunlight and rain in. |
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| Above: Note the old film canisters from the 50’s. |
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| Above: A balcony where Juliet called to Romeo, |
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| Above: Some costumes. |
After that tour we took a taxi back to the hotel in an old taxi, it rattled a lot but it got us back.
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| Above: The old 1950s Dodge taxi. |
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| Above: The club where the jazz singer was performing. |
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| Above: Jazz singer on the left. |
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| Above: I think my hair-ala-humidity in this photo with the jazz singer made me stand out. |
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| Above: Cigar rollers. |
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| Above: The cigar types that
are rolled at this factory. |
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| Above: Diane with her first cigar ever, and another smoker. |
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| Above: Scott, smoking it like a Cuban. |
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| Above: Diane and her "stick" (aka cigar). |
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| Above: Musicians. |
Thursday, Scott and I had a fabulous tour of the National Museum of Fine Arts Cuba located in Old Havana. Interesting to me in that much of the art that wasn't portraits was pretty much protest/politics/revolution and not beautiful. I know, I know, art doesn't have to be beautiful anymore, but I like it that way.
One photo I liked (below) is of a 1961 painting by Servando Miguel Justo Cabrera Moreno titled “Milicias campesinas (Peasant militias in English)", and depicts the uprising during the Cuban Revolution.
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| Above: “Milicias campesinas (Peasant militias in English)" |
The museum's docent talked about how Cuban artists went to Europe and were influenced by European painters in a short time. PIcasso, Bracque, not as much El Greco and Van Gogh as you would expect, a lot of Gaugan, and throw in some Diego Rivera..the Lenin connection
I did fall in love with another one of the pieces (see below), a 1970 pop art painting by Raúl Martínez titled "Isla 70 (Island 70 in English)" about Cuba's “Ten Million Sugar Harvest." This was when Fidel Castro wanted to export 10 million tons of sugarcane from a 1970 harvest. Everyone in Cuba and I mean everyone had to work on that goal. They only got to 8.5 million and the economy was ruined because no one was working on anything else. Their economy seems to have been ruined several times.
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| Above: "Isla 70 (Island 70 in English)" |
I found the above "Isla 70” painting engaging as it has portraits of the major players, revolutionary heroes, workers, artists including Martínez himself. It has many symbolism as well, in the background are sugarcane and phallic symbols, both signifying the bravado and potential lack of success.
After the art museum we went back to the Vedado neighborhood of Havana and visited a very entrepreneurial progressive architect. His office is in the first and tallest concrete building in Latin America, the FOCSA building, named after the contracting company Fomento de Obras y Construcciones, Sociedad Anónima, and was built without cranes. It reminded me sort of like the Lever House on Park Ave in NYC. The architect was very interesting, but he can't practice as an architect because Fidel outlawed it, that is the practice of architecture is not on the list of permitted private enterprises—officially, all architects work for government agencies. So this architect started a construction company and his designs are free, the company builds them. Fascinating, and I will write on the whole Cuban entrepreneurship later.
After visiting the architect Scott and I went to lunch on the top of the building, it was the only rainy day we’ve had on this trip and I didn’t take any photos.
Then back to our hotel for a nap and then to the home/gallery of collector and art dealer Milagros Borges. Gorgeous home, we went there on our visit in 2013 as well, all the art was different this trip of course. I was happy to see one of Osmeivy Ortega's prints there and also Lisandro Ramerez Bernal's.
After that we went to dinner at a club called Ecléctico I think. There was a jazz trio. And after dinner our group got into a fabulous political discussion about American politics, all on the same side by the way. Then back to our hotel to crash.
We didn't have to get up super early Friday, we drove around a bit and went to meet another entrepreneur, Zuny. Her storefront is a container and her storage is another one behind it located in the Vedado section of Havana. The Vedado section of Havana is more affluent than the Centro and Old Town sections. Not door to door ruins, although there were some pretty decrepit buildings and businesses not like downtown so to speak. Zuny is amazing.
For instance, she started her business with very little money, 50,000 pesos. The exchange rate is 250 pesos to the dollar, was a little better then. She talked suppliers into selling her small quantities and made them into smaller sizes that she could sell and compete with stores and other enterprises. She then started selling bulk to other small businesses who couldn't sweet talk the suppliers into selling them small quantities.
The story about her that I love the most, was she had the chance to buy a car engine, that was all. It took 2 years but she finally found a chassis and then slowly rebuilt the entire car. There is not a shiny surface on the entire car so I said I was going to send her some turtle wax. This is what she uses to make her deliveries. Amazing. Below is a photo of her car, which looks like maybe a 1949 Chevy?
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| Above: Zuny's car. |
Then off to our guide Alejandro's parent's house in Playa Baracoa, a small village on the western part of Havana. We ate on their rooftop a totally homemade Cuban lunch, fruits, octopus, rice and beans of course, salad sort of, swordfish, and flan for dessert.
After the above lunch we stopped in Fusterlandia. Cuban artist José Fuster turned the neighborhood of Jaimanitas into his canvas, started mosaicing his house, then his neighbors. We went there in 2013 as well. Below are a couple of photos from Fusterlandia.
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| Above: Fusterlandia |
That's me in the next photo. Note my penguin cap from another journey, our 2020 Antarcticia Cruise. And yes that is Scott's finger in the lower right of the photo.
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| Above: Diane in Fusterlandia. |
On the way back to our hotel we stopped at the Fábrica de Arte Cubano (Cuban Art Factory in English), an art gallery and club that opened in 2014. The literature says “Genres of art include architecture, visual arts, cinema, dance, graphic design, industrial design, photography, fashion, music, and theater. Visitors are able to dance, dine, and appreciate the galleries – all with a mojito in hand.” Below is a photo of some wall art that caught my eye.
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| Above: Wall art at the Cuban Art Factory. |
We left Miami Sunday (7th) for Puerto Rico, we stayed at Hotel El Convento in San Juan, we basically crashed once we arrived. The hotel had once been a Carmelite convent and was a nice place to stay in the midst of Old San Juan. They had coffee service at 7:00 am which was a bonus and then wine at 5:00 pm, another bonus.
Below is a map of our proposed tour, what we expected to cover, showing Plaza Colon, Fort San Cristobal, Calle de Fortaleza. San Juan Gate and. City Wall Fortress ( Not the El Morro fortress), Plaza de Armas, Cathedral of San Juan Batista, Museum of the Americas.
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| Above: Proposed tour of San Juan, Puerto Rico. |
The hotel is well located and in the middle of everything including nightlife. Day 1 we took the Trip Advisor list and mapped out a route which we promptly blew as we ended up in the middle of our plan at the Parque de Palomas (Palomas Park), ie Pigeon Park. Well, it was pigeons and people were feeding them and letting them perch all over them. Being from NYC, I’m not a pigeon fan and was avoiding them. The view of San Juan Bay was beautiful. We went to the shopping street it was unavoidable, the Plaza de Armas and the Colon Square (named to honor Christopher Columbus). Below are a couple of photos.
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| Above: Statue of Columbus in Colon Square. |
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| Above: Beautiful Colonial type House. |
At the Colon Square a visitor center guide gave us directions to a local restaurant which was not quaint but good.
Then a walk home and house wine followed by Gin and Tonic, then Scott had had it so we stayed in.
Monday we had some new ideas of places to see and discovered all the museums were closed. We forged ahead with a few other ideas but… it was in the high 90’s with high humidity. So after locating the Casa Blanca, the main residence for Puerto Rico's first governor, Juan Ponce de León, we tried to find something else that was on the list and the map but no dice. Below are a few photos.
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| Above: The city wall and a fortress (La Fortaleza, the first fortification built in San Juan harbor). |
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| Above: Back entrance to Casa Blanca, Ponce’s pad. |
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| Above: Front entrance to Casa Blanca, Ponce’s pad. |
Too hot to search for more, so back to the hotel for the air conditioning and a lovely happy hour on the rooftop. We went to the tourist office and they helped us make our plan to go to the El Yunque National Forest and then later to the Ceiba ferry to Vieques. Vieques is a beautiful island located a few miles off Puerto Rico's eastern coast, but still part of Puerto Rico
Tuesday we rented a car and drove to the El Yunque National Forest, a rainforest, and it rained. An interesting thing I learned is that El Yunque is the only tropical rainforest in the US National Forest system. We had a nice time at the education center and looked at the foliage. Scott’s cousin met us when the ferry landed from Ceiba. Below are some photos from the forest.
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| Above: Mosaic forest. |
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| Above: Meaning of the name El Yunque. |
Below are 4 views of El Yunque National Forest.
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| Above: El Yunque National Forest. |
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| Above: El Yunque National Forest. |
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| Above: El Yunque National Forest. |
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| Above: El Yunque National Forest. |
(Wednesday, 4-10-24): The island of Vieques, Puerto Rico
Below is the view from our room at the hotel. A windy day and not too hot.
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| Above: View from our hotel room. |
Scott's cousin, Mark, picked us up and we went to breakfast on the other side of the island. Views were similar looking at the southern side as the northern side, but with smaller waves, plus there were horses.
Note the horse in the photo below of this view on the southern side of the island.
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| Above: View on the southern side of the island. |
There are horses everywhere, not in pastures. Mark says they are branded and let loose to roam. When someone wants to use their horse they go find them. Only about 15% of the horses don't belong to someone. There are watering troughs around that fill with rainwater and are sometimes filled by people. Horses everywhere, I think Richard the III would have had trouble.
We drove around the island and went to some lovely spots. We went to a charming gallery (Oro Gallery & Events) with not so much art but did have this lovely outlook.
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| Above: Outlook at Oro Gallery & Events. |
Then to the black sand beach, Playa Negra. For a girl from Florida like myself it wasn't as black as I hoped, and my photo below makes it look better than it actually did.
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| Above: Playa Negra. |
And then to the Ceiba tree. Awesome!
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| Above: Ceiba tree. |
In the evening we went to the Mosquito Bioluminescent Bay. All my photos were totally dark, so no photos to share. Our guide said you would need at least an iPhone 15 to take good photos if using an iPhone. It was fabulous to see the fish stream by with streaks of light following them, a 3-inch fish could leave a 6-inch trail of light.
We have another day here in Vieques, so more palm trees and water photos later. We are going to the Nature Preserve. Should be beautiful. I like nature better than cities it seems.
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| Above: Chiva Beach. |
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| Above: Caracas Beach. |
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| Above: Our plane in flight, photo from Jet Photos online database. |
The captain had his arm out his window until we took off. It’s pretty casual in Vieques. I asked him when we landed if he was planned to keep It outside until it rained. He laughed and said no. The plane flew was so close to the water we could have fished.😄🤔
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| Above: After landing in San Juan. |
As I understand it....
Earlier in their history, like Batista times and maybe before, the Cuban people were mostly farmers and lived ok. I believe they received a monthly stipend of a few pesos, not enough to live on. So they relied on their farms and later moved to the cities where jobs were scarce. They had no education or health care. They developed a culture of selling surplus or whatever they could get their hands on to supplement their income. It was a hard life.
So.. when the Revolution came with education, health care, food subsidies, and stipends, they were receptive and their lives changed for the better for a while. Then as the government turned more dictatorial and socialistic, and the Soviet Union fell, life got harder again. And the need to find things to supplement their income is more urgent. Thus, the culture "la lucha," or “the struggle,” which is a term still used today. They are still working for $40 - $50 equivalent a month and have to find other resources, the food supplements are now gone and la lucha means they take what they can from their employers to resell. Meaning that employers have the challenge of creating a generous company that compensates the employees enough that they can be trusted not to steal from them. Or the employer has to budget for the losses.
More info, not necessarily in order. I mentioned earlier that the architect we met, Yoandy, could not design for his own firm. He had to work for the government for said low compensation. The reason for that goes back to pre- Revolution when Fidel was in Law School at the University of Havana. It seems that 2 groups were planning a revolution, the lawyers and the architects. Since ultimately after a few attempts, the lawyers aka Fidel, et al, won and he passed the law repressing the architects. That is why Yoandy does business the way I described in an earlier Gmail. He is fascinating.
Yoandy told the story of his professor inviting him to take a Truman Fellowship to New York and CT. He was reluctant because Americans were the enemy. When he arrived and started talking to someone, he said he was from Cuba and expected to be criticized and disgraced. The person said to him. "Where's Cuba?" Yoandy couldn't believe Cuba wasn‘t the center of their universe. He laughs when he tells the story.
Yoandy found out USA folks are just folks too and he loves us now. His company is mostly women in partnership and with the big jobs, like lawyers and accountants. And he requires that all the employees go to the gym, he pays for their memberships as he believes in healthy minds, healthy bodies, and a healthy business culture. Yoandy works at making his staff feel recognized and appreciated and able to cross into other areas like sales with commission. When he interviews people for his firm, he interviews for a profile not a specific job title. Amazing eh?
More about entrepreneurs. 2 years ago, the government allowed people to form their own businesses. Earlier they could do small enterprises but only hire 3 members of their own family. In 2021, about 11,000 individuals received permits to open their businesses and most applied for many licenses to expand and diversify. He was one. Zuny, the woman I wrote about in an earlier Gmail, was another.
Oskar was a professor, at Havana University, and decided to become an entrepreneur ( no brainer working for $40-$50 a month) and overcame many obstacles to make his business. He discovered no one was dehydrating food. He didn't know how, but he watched YouTube and learned. Then he made a drying sheet out of a metal tray, drilling holes by hand every day and dried fruit in his mother’s oven. I've forgotten the original fruit he tried, I think lemons. They stuck to the pan making it hard to clean. He then tried a layer of what he called mosquito deterrent, we could call it screen. He gave some of his dried lemons to a bartender friend as in Cuba they put lemons in rum. The friend called him to get more as they worked so well and he found one lemon was good for many drinks as it hydrated the longer it was in the rum. (PS, lot’s of bars buy his lemons.)
Oskar then went to a guy who made pizza ovens and showed him a photo. The guy said he couldn't do that because it would never get hot enough, only 60 degrees. Oskar said “Perfect that's what I need.” He showed us the oven, he has since purchased professional dehydrating ovens. He tried lots of other fruits like mangos. They ripen so fast they rot on the ground; supply is plentiful. He's making a huge business of them, pineapples, and a huge assortment of other fruits and herbs.
I loved this story. A friend said I have all these lemon rinds they are going to waste, please use them. Oskar wasn’t interested until the guy dumped a bunch on his doorstep. He dried them, turned them into powder, and asked his mother's friends to see what they could do with the powder. They loved it and he had a new product line. He got some other surplus fruit from a friend and did the same thing. Now he uses the pineapple skins from what he's dried for pineapple powder. I can go on and on. He had everything analyzed to pass the FDA requirements and is selling retail and wholesale internationally as well as locally. He's working on a solar dehydrator to employ farmers to work for him. His products for the bigger market place have to be very precise in size and color. What the farmers dehydrate won’t have the same quality control needed to sell wholesale or ship overseas but he can sell their products locally, which gives them income.
The money is also interesting. Oskar borrowed money with the payback being from profits. Inflation of the peso made it impossible to cover the interest and principal. He called his friend from college who was in NYC getting another degree. He said “I hear they have student loans at a low rate.”
(A side note: A huge amount of the support for the families in Cuba comes from the USA from their families and friends called repatriation. There are brokers who charge 30% to move the money from the US to Cuba.)
So, Oskar and his friend made the deal, his friend gives Oskar the loan money, Oskar gives the re-payment money to the friend's family in Cuba, and the friend pays the loan. Together they save the 30% the friend would have had to pay to get the funds to his family. This guy is a genius.
Artists and Musicians are also business people. They don't have as much trouble getting visas to travel to the US as regular people as the Cuban government isn't worried that they will stay. Also, fishing isn’t allowed because boats can be used to escape to Florida. We heard about people trying over and over until they make it. One on a raft. Osmeivy is in Miami at an art show now. Oskar isn’t a risk anymore as he has been to the US Dept. of State and several Universities talking about what he’s done. As has Yoandy. None of them want to leave Cuba.
The cigar factory. This is a good job, rolling cigars. There is only one area on the Western end of Cuba where the best tobacco grows and that is what makes Cuban cigars the best in the world. Even the seeds from the Cuban tobacco in other locales don’t produce the same quality because of the soil and climate. I asked about the soil. They rotate crops just like George Washington, they do soy and corn I think.
We had a great experience learning about this before we had the smoke that you saw in an earlier Gmail. There are 5 different kinds of tobacco leaves in each cigar. They are harvested, dried, and fermented. Some have been in that process for years, most for months. The outside leaf is the least important, the inside leaves are the ones that give the taste. After the middle leaves have been rolled they are put in a press and later the outside leaf is applied.
The cigar companies have classes to teach people how to roll and not everyone is hired as it seems it takes some talent and patience. The very best rollers do the longest cigars as that takes more of the above. Each person rolls at least 120 a day. Then it goes to quality control. Size, density, etc. are considered and about 30% are rejected. That can be deducted from someone’s pay if it is a lot and often. After that the labels are put on and the cigars are sorted by color and length. All of this is done by hand.
This is the other side of the story, everyone can take home 5 cigars a day from the reject. They sell them for their la lucha. Did any of you see the Broadway play, “The Lecteur”? Well, they have a reader who in the morning reads the paper over a loudspeaker to all the 300 rollers and in the afternoon the reader reads a classic or contemporary novel. I think one would need that to keep from getting totally bored.
Well, you might wonder about smoking them. I was skeptical until they said over and over don’t inhale. They actually said that cigars aren’t bad for you like cigarettes because you aren’t inhaling and getting addicted to nicotine, etc. Our guide, Luis, did admit that the social aspect of smoking cigars could be addictive. He is another amazing guy, also committed to staying in Cuba.
Luis taught himself five languages while being a roller and ultimately taught English at night. He said he spoke Spanish, English, French, Bulgarian, and bullshit (the 5th language). He wasn’t a very good roller and was asked to give tours by the cigar company, because he could use the first 4 languages mixed with the 5th. He started his own business after that.
OKAY, to smoke…. Drum roll… first you cut off the end that is closed and has a tiny little line to go by. That’s the end that goes in your mouth. Then you light the other end at a 45-degree angle until it burns up to about. ½ to ¾ of an inch of the wrapper, then you put it, not the burned end in your mouth. With your lips around the cigar, you pull your cheeks in like a fish, several times then open your mouth, and the smoke falls out. You don’t blow it out either. If you cough or hack you’ve done it wrong.
Sounds easy, not so much. I got it right a couple of times and hacked a few. I enjoyed it and the little combo that played while we were practicing. We also drank rum on the rocks. Better tasting than I expected and we didn’t have any dehydrated lemons. I liked the Old Havana Rum better than the stronger, more expensive one.
I think those are my best stories.. I didn’t see as many police as I expected. Our guide said, if someone was acting out criticizing the government, they could be in trouble. I asked about elections. It seems the Party has local people in every building and on every block and they determine who runs for office, so the party never changes, nor do the elected officials.
Yes, from the photos you did see the buildings crumbling, 3 per day. This was explained. After the Revolution when so many people left their homes (we could call them apartments) to come to the USA and Europe, the government took over their homes and gave them to the remaining people. They didn’t have to pay for them, or pay taxes. But there was no one in charge of the building. Everyone took care of their own space but mostly refused to contribute to the upkeep of the overall building, hence the decay.
The other interesting conversation is about the Cubans that left Cuba, now mostly in Miami, are Republicans. They are so anti-Fidel, socialism, etc., and have such a powerful lobby that not much can be done, especially about the embargo. They oppose lifting it because it would support the government which they oppose. It would help the Cuban people a lot as it would let them trade with the US and import things they need from the US.
BTW, it is legal to be gay now and even marry. Abortions are legal but difficult to get. The government doesn’t want them to be easy because the birth rate is low, less than 2 children per couple. And another note, our guide said that less than 15% of the Cuban people would be able to afford the places we were taken for dinner. They were developed for the tourists. Sad, isn’t it?
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