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| Mass transit in Santa Clara |
About 60 miles due east of San Francisco is Stockton, California. Having been to both, I think it is safe to say that it is unlikely anyone would ever confuse the two cities. They and the people who live in them are as different as night and day.
Proximity does not mean similarity. Spending the week in Havana did not mean I had experienced Cuba. I knew this, so getting out of the big city was important if I really wanted to get a sense of the place. But how to do it? Public transportation in Cuba is difficult and frankly a lot less comfortable than I was willing to accept. Like those quaint 1950s Chevys, Cuban buses have a few decades on them and nowhere near as much charm.
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| Cienfuegos |
You could rent a car, but imagining the legal and financial hassles that would come with a fender bender was more than enough to deter me. That and the thought of trying to arrange hotels at each stop. No, I wimped out. Took the easy way - a packaged tour. Destinations all laid out, lodgings reserved and meals arranged. Even better, it could all be paid in advance by wire transfer to a Florida travel agency. “Just don't mention to your bank that it is for Cuba” they told me. I'm not sure why they give you those instructions or what your bank does if it slips out.
My tour began by changing hotels in Havana to spend the night before being picked up in the morning. It was a step down from four stars to three stars (Cuban) and you could tell the difference. Not a big deal, just kind of dingy. It didn't really matter - all I was doing was sleeping there. At 8:30 AM the guide would pick me up and off we go.
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| Trinidad |
About 9:15, Odalys finally arrived. When she found me, her first question was whether I spoke Spanish. “Not really,” I said. I could see from her expression that this could be a problem. The tour was supposed to be with an English speaking guide, but she did not really speak English. I tried my alternates: Deutsch? Français? She lit up. “Vous parlez français?” I do and it was a good thing. My tour had seven people in it. Four were from France, two from Argentina and me. Our tour was in Spanish and French. It was lucky I understood and kind of fun to do the tour in French but I wondered what we would have done if I hadn't spoken French. I don't think there was another tour to join. I would've been out of luck? It does not seem like a minor detail. To me it spoke to a deficiency that plagues the Cuban tourism industry. It is not enough to have great beaches and great weather. You have to take care of people when they get there. They let a lot of things fall through the cracks in that department.
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