Last Days of the Revolution, Part 5 – Cuba Nov. 2006
The first week has been a mixed bag for me. The lack of good sleep is becoming a serious issue. Many places seem utterly devoid of things to see or do and I’m getting tired of drinking Bucanero Fuerte for entertainment. Moreover, I often when travelling set a brutal pace. I operate on little sleep, questionable food, brutal transportion regimens…and I love it. Duncan maybe not so much.
We continued our exploration of Cuba’s Oriente in Bayamo. The local hotel school, Telegraphó, is a steal at $20/night. Draped in multiple shades of marble, with vaulted ceilings and a small patio, it is everything you’d want in a tropical hotel. Well, almost. The beds are once again rough and food in the restaurant is a tragedy. But the small lobby bar is stylish and relaxing, as is the town overall.
The main square is attractive and well-treed, though without any standout architectural gems like many other of Cuba’s main squares. The main shopping street is a pedestrian-only affair that has been re-done this year with a series of sculptures in an impressive and diverse display of public art.
Being new, it’s not to be found in any guidebook. The next day I watched as a tour bus disgorged a selection of folks who basically just stood in the main square looking at their Lonely Planets thinking “I’ve got an hour in Bayamo, what the hell am I supposed to do?”.
The previous night, after getting completely lost looking for a specific paladar for dinner, we stumbled across a series of peso barbeque stalls by the commuter rail station. Not only did I enjoy a barbequed pork chop but I also exchanged some CUCs for pesos. This really opened up Cuba for me, even more than before. It was only the day before at the Coppelia that I’d acquired my first pesos. These were enough to buy a doughnut from some lady on the street, and a bottle of pru. (Pru is a refreshing soft drink with a raisin & molasses taste, not unlike kvass).
Now I was going full-on Cuban. I drank some rather terrible Hatuey beer in peso bars, but ultimately retreated to the safety of Bucanero, happy with some beer and dinner peso-style.
Bayamo has a massive party every Saturday night, in a nondescript plaza far from the touristy main square. Duncan had, as usual, made friends with some touts. “I like meeting people. These guys speak English and want to talk.” Anyway, there were thousands of people there – all Cubans. So it wasn’t all bad. A band was playing. I had a peso sausage that contained shockingly little meat. At some point – things were becoming blurry by this stage mind you – someone passed around a large tin carafe containing “local beer”. This was the infamous and heretofore bloody hard to find “claro”. That’s not a brand but just a ubiquitous draught brew sold to Cubans for a few peso a litre.
It’s terrible. I mean, it made the poor Hatuey look like Bucanero in comparison. It was thin, maybe 3.5% if that, and clearly made with little barley and possibly no hops at all. It took me three sips just to figure out if I was drinking beer of backwash.
The next stop in the evening was an espectaculo, a show. These are a staple of Cuban nightlife. Again, there were no other foreigners present. We only caught a couple of acts- singers and dancers in elaborate costumes and professional performances.
After the show comes the disco. At this point, the party really busts loose. We stuck around, attempted to dance (on a floor with a couple hundred Cubans, I’m not even sure ‘attempted’ is an acceptable term). The rest of the evening was, as they say, interesting. It’s a long story and I’m short on details but I’ll do my best.
Well, first there was some gangster wanna-be trying to crash the party. We’d bought a bunch of beers and rum for our guides and of course, my Cubana. You missed the part where I acquired a Cubana? Yeah, so did I. Like I said, details are a little lacking.
So Tony Montana or whatever his name was had some friends. For some reason, we had ordered food. And it was closing time. Hmmm…alcohol, a little bit of jealousy, some arseholes and closing time…yeah, Blind Freddy can see what was going to happen next.
We were trying our best to bail but our hosts, having apparently never seen a bad situation develop before, insisted on sticking around for the food. It arrived in the nick of time for some of us, but not all. One of our hosts was on the receiving end of what would later be remembered as The Smack Heard Round Bayamo. Yeah, it was a big shot and immediately following that we all peeled out of there. Apparently I was at the wheel, which would have to be considered “not a good thing.” But Duncan was trying to round up everybody before things got out of hand and none of the Cubans knew how to drive. Car ownership is beyond the category of pipe dream for them. You sort of take it for granted that someone can drive, but seriously, they can’t.
Well, the cops were already converging on the scene and very quickly put the kibosh on my driving away, which was fine by pretty much everybody. Since the brawl had been averted at this point, this was a pretty solid outcome.
There was of course more drunken silliness that followed, involving a scam artist chicken vendor, before we retired for the night. Ah, going big on a Saturday night…it’s been a while.
Tags: Cuba, Travel, Travel
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