Cuba Libre
The subtle art of being an introvert and fleeing the country to celebrate your birthday.
I can’t decide if this article should be about the clever life insights I have amassed and share as I celebrate turning fifty, or simply how great it was to escape the pink flamigos planted in the snow bank in front of my home and spend the day in a 1958 Plymouth touring Havana. Since the thinly veiled sarcasm of perceived knowledge may likely have been lost in the translation, I will instead go with speaking on Cuba and it’s wonderful people. This was actually my second trip to Cuba and Havana itself, the first being some seven years ago. I could not imagine a better way or place to celebrate a milestone in my life, that of surviving my youth and now finally surrendering and joining another generation, because yes among my collection of siblings I was the first made to cross the threshold. The eternal optimist in me at least likes to say instead of being on the wrong side of forty I am now officially on the right side of fifty. C’est la vie.
For my American compatriots, I can’t even begin to tell you how saddened I am that your government can’t bring yourself to bury the hatchet and move towards reconciliation so that you too could enjoy Cuba, but more so the Cuban people themselves. This land of eleven million people despite nearly sixty years of communist rule, are as full of life, music, food, and trust me retain a very healthy understanding of capitalism and the benefits of an entrepreneur spirit. I mean this is a land where one in five people now have a university education of often speak three or more languages, and I dare say have deleveloped a life that far exceeds many of the Caribbean countries in the region. Havana itself is a city of two point two million people and some five hundred years of european and latin history, the entire wealth of the Inca and Aztec nations flowed through this magical city, and in it’s day Havana was likely the most important port in the western hemisphere. I would never wish to dismiss the darker sides of the revolution that took place in the fifties, but would more importantly point out that it was in fact a civil war, and like any civil war, the American included, contained it’s share of atrocities and injustices. But that was nearly nearly sixty years ago and would suggest that as the last generation of those that were even alive during such a period, it is time to embrace reconciliation and normalize relations with this vibrant and youthful nation. Set aside what was, and embrace what is.
We stayed in Varadero, some two hundred kilometres from Havana itself and arranged for a driver and guide on my actual Birthday to carry the four of us (six in total) the return trip in a 1958 massive but beautifully restored Plymouth. And they are everywhere, the old cars of Cuba are a marvel in themselves as they aren’t just lined up in a show or parade but ingrained into daily life as they glide down the streets and rumble down the highway. Ford’s, Chevy’s, Pontiac’s, even a surprising number of ancient Russian Lada’s still careen down the highways and fill the narrow streets of Havana.
Though many of them have now been converted to run on diesel motors by necessity, it is still an impressive sight and instills an almost paradise lost trapped in a time warp. While once a necessity of transportation, it is now a point of pride and even a means of earning a living operating one of these treasures from another era. The photographer in me was near delirious leaning out the window trying to capture even just the street scenes unfolding before me as we moved throughout the city from new quarter to old. Even in the seven years between visits there are signs everywhere of the buildings and their amazing architecture being slowly restored to their former glory. Street by street and building by building, the old quarter Old Havana is being transformed into a world class destination worthy of it’s place on UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites.
We lunched in a quaint garden restaurant within sight of the many forts and fortifications that overlook the harbour enterance where cannons still sit and bear witness that this was once the most important port in the hemisphere. We strolled the cobbled and crowed streets and alleys’s of Old Havana and savoured a fresh Mojito made on a rooftop bar in the Ambos Mundos Hotel, one of Hemingway’s old haunts, overlooking the tiled rooftops and fractured skyline. This was a city alive, and at yet another turning point in it’s rich history, struggling to define it’s self in a 21st century. Communism, and then socialism, were merely part of the process in coming of age and shedding the cloak of colonialism, and perhaps necessary in addressing the needs of many with little, but as Cuba moves forward and returns the rights and freedoms of a democratic society, the world should be there to welcome them.
Havana’s mystic is only surpassed by it’s people, which on the exterior at least seemed to have found an multiculural harmony among the various ethnic groups that somehow escapes other societies. Black, white, latino, and the many blends in between, seem somehow at peace together and missing that great divide you often sense between different classes be it economic or ethnic. That like Canada, Cuba seems to have found that rare cultural diversity where the melting pot just seems to work. Havana seems to be more a celebration of music and dance, as every little restaurant seems to offer some form of live talent be it a quartet of musicians, or elegant dancers throwing down stunning and vibrant performances.
Before the day was out, we made the pilgrimage back across and through the province and city of Matanzas to Varadero, where following a dinner of superb food and shared with great friends, being saranaded by a trio of beautiful cuban girls, I completed my fiftith birthday with a midnight swim in the moonlight surf of the Caribbean. All in all, not a bad way to hide out and enjoy your birthday when you have no desire to find a room full of people yelling surprise as you walk in and pretend to be surprised. As we mark our milestones, each of us should consider that what we hold dear between our arms can slip away, that time unlike any other commodity can not be acquired or saved, and as such should be spent thoughtfully.
As a final kick at the preverbial bucket to mark a milestone, on our final day I choose to sky jump from a rusty surplus Russian helicoper ten thousand feet above the Caribbean Sea. As I knelt in the open door staring down at the narrow spit of land that makes up Varadero from 10,000 feet above the sea, I could hear the countdown, uno, dos, tres, and just as my mind was saying jump, my little Cuban paratrooper, who was strapped tightly to my back, just pushed away as if stepping off a sidewalk and carried us into the void. Nothing quite prepares you for the acceleration of free fall, or the physical sensation of reaching terminal velocity and plummeting to the earth at 60 meters a second, the equivalent of dropping past an eighteen story building every second, and then repeating that forty more times before finally pulling the cord and learning firsthand why those straps are cinched up so tightly. Definitely one for the bucket list, and I can see why adrenalin junkies keep coming back, I am pretty sure free fall is the equivilent of mainlining adrenalin! There isn’t a roller coaster in the world that compares!
From plus 30 degrees Celsius to -30 degrees Celsius in the change of a day returning home was a rude welcome back to the harsh Canadian winters, but I shall ever have the warm thoughts of having spent my time wisely. Cuba was a beautiful place to mark my own inner milestone and start the next chapter of my life, I only hope that Cuba itself can be allowed to start it’s new chapter soon…….that perhaps an outgoing second term President who wasn’t afraid to reach out and shake hands with a Castro, can spend some of his last political capital to claim a place in history embracing the Cuban people rather than granting pardon’s to white collar criminals. As Regan once told Gorbachev to tear down that wall, a wall Putin seems now intent on rebuilding, the United States needs now more than ever to demostrate it’s compassion to work with all forms of governments so long as they are even moving in the right direction. Reconciliation is a process and perhaps it already started with that Presidential handshake, but after sixty years of isolation it’s time to begin a new chapter. Cuba Libre!
