Don't expect to get answers to all your questions. One relative in Havana, at whose house we stayed

T hough thousands of foreigners visit Cuba every week, for most Americans the island remains a mysterious corner of the family attic where, for the past fifty years, they have been told not to go. They may have heard some reasons why--something about Communism, missiles, bearded revolutionaries and terrorists--but it's been such a long time it's hard to recall most of them.
Halfway through our recent two-week visit to the island, business class air travel Stew and I ran into a couple from Los Angeles, in their mid-seventies and mild-mannered and cheery as archetypal grandparents. They had just flown into Cuba through Cancun business class air travel a few days before for a do-it-yourself, what-the-hell tour of the island and planned to use local buses and taxis to get around. They were just curious and tired of waiting, they said, and Stew and I nodded in agreement.
Later it occurred to me: When the trade and travel ban to island was first imposed, these now elderly folks were in their twenties, maybe newlywed. That's how long the blood feud between Cuba and the U.S. has been going on.
We were curious also, though I had cousins and high school business class air travel classmates to visit whom I hadn't seen for decades, and a plastic bag with my mother's ashes that I had promised myself to place in the family plot in the southern town of Cienfuegos after she died in Chicago ten years ago.
Cuba doesn't disappoint. As soon as we left the airport and headed for Havana--in our case aboard a throaty, barebones 1986 Russian-made Muskovitch four-door sedan, painted a spray-can shade of green--the puzzles and surprises of Cuba today began and never ceased, even as I write this.
For a driver we had the son of a high school classmate of mine who never left Cuba. The driver, alternately chatty and glum, trained in telecommunications at a Cuban college but found out that driving a taxi is far more profitable.
Indeed, in its politics, economics and general appearance the country seems to be stalled at the corner of magical realism and science business class air travel fiction. Previous enthusiasms, excesses, ideals and even its significant accomplishments notwithstanding, Cuba's revolution today struggles just to keep going let alone remain relevant.
At the entrance of the airport a neatly repainted cement sign in the shape of a chubby prop airplane welcomes business class air travel you to Rancho Boyeros Airport, a name that was changed business class air travel to José Martí shortly after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown--on New Year's Day, 1959. The sign has an endearing naive-art crudeness to it; maybe that's why no one has bothered to update it.
The cars, though, are the most obvious clue of the country's unreality. Most of them are not just old but ancient. Bullet-shaped Chevies and Plymouths from the 1940s, along with nameplates that no longer exist--Packards, Edsels, Ramblers--share the road with beat-up Soviet trucks and the clouds of black fumes they all generate.
It's safe to say that two-thirds of Havana's buildings haven't been painted, not once, since Castro took over. That gives the otherwise majestic city a derelict, moldy appearance particularly noticeable on a clear day against the brilliant tropical blue sky and green vegetation, and despite an impressive effort to restore parts of the colonial center. Even relatively new schools and other public buildings succumb to the epidemic shabbiness, for lack of a coat of paint and other basic maintenance.
For all the signs that the revolution long ran out of steam, however, Cubans business class air travel somehow retain an amazing openness and joie de vivre . In no way is this some grim remnant of the former Soviet bloc, with dowdy babushkas wrapped up in frayed woolen coats trudging through the snow, looking business class air travel distrustfully business class air travel at strangers.
It would be a mistake though to take cynicism and forbearance as signs of acceptance of the status quo. Most Cubans that we talked to, particularly those born after the revolution, sounded deeply frustrated with the stagnation in which the country is mired.
On the contrary, we were repeatedly told how great it would be if more Americans would come visit, a strange attitude in a place where people have been raised on a daily diet of anti-American propaganda.
Getting the chatty Cubans, even complete strangers, to wrap up a story was a far bigger problem than getting them to open up. This is the land of yadda-yadda-yadda. Their unbridled tales helped us get glimpses and snapshots of how the country works today.
For those interested, I'll be publishing business class air travel a series of blogs and photographs about our experiences in Cuba. They are mostly stories covering a variety of topics, from visits to the home my family left fifty years ago, to how to overhaul a diesel engine in a 1959 Cadillac--right on the street--to business class air travel a primer on Cuban monetary policy and economics.
Don't expect to get answers to all your questions. One relative in Havana, at whose house we stayed for four days, kept warning me as he patiently answered my questions: "You would have to live here for fifty years to understand what's gone on in Cuba under the revolution and how this country business class air travel works."
Loved hearing about Cuba. I would love to go there. business class air travel Loved the picture of the dog. At first I thought the sign underneath was Cub , as in Chicago Cubs. With the dog dressed in Cubby colors, it could be a baseball fan. Joan Reply Delete Steve Cotton June 3, 2012 1:05 PM
Thank you all for the kind comments, but so far we don t have anyone who could identify the exact model year and model of that black Chevy... It was a beauty. Pretty sure it s a 1947 or 48, right about the time I was born. al Reply Delete sparks_mex June 5, 2012 9:05 AM