I am writing this on my iPad and finding very difficult for all kinds of reasons. So please excuse the many errors in spelling, punctuation and formatting. As well as the times the app has pasted in the wrong place or decided to change my words..
Manchester to Havana.
There first part of the journey has been rather like falling down stairs while carrying an overloaded tea tray and after you have picked yourself up finding that the only damage has been a chip to one of the saucers. But perhaps I am being overly optimistic as I’m writing this sitting in my plane in Madrid airport waiting for them to sort out a ‘communication problem’. A little worrying but better than a wing or engine problem I suppose. Unless it is a wing problem. They would hardly say, Ladies and Gentlemen we have a problem with our wings. A communication problem sounds much more reassuring.
The day started with the hellish labyrinth that is Manchester airport where I suspect someone is employed to take down and rearrange signage. There is probably a lot more money to be made from lost and desperate people than calm and happy passengers. One thing is certain, the sales of strong drink would plummet if the signage improved.
I got my flight and changed planes in Malaga. Coming in over Southern Spain we flew over a strange and beautiful dried out landscape; a swirling mixture of greys and browns dotted with little half dried up lakes, teal, indigo and violet. After landing and going to check in for my flight to Madrid, then onward to Cuba,I was told I should have filled in a four page immigration and health form 48 hours earlier. A form only available online and in Spanish. The woman behind the desk said I should have a shot at filling it in as there was still half an hour before take off. I did my best. Some bits like date of birth, passport and phone were easy, but I could not make out the names section. You would think it easy, except that it seemed to be asking for two second names. Gradually the form got harder and I returned to the desk to ask for help. Luckily there was an absolutely brilliant young woman there. One of those people who cuts through all the nonsense with a swipe of her machete. I’m just going to make it all up, she said. And she did. It worked! I took a photo of the accepted form with my phone so I would have evidence. But will they see through the lies in Havana and send me right back? Who knows.
So far all flights have been delayed, and that has means a lot of running between terminals. Comedy running. Where you run very fast in one direction and then do a sudden turn and race back the way you came. Because though people tell you to go to terminal 1, 2 or 3 there are no actual signs for them. All you can do is ask, Donde esta terminal dos? Vine a la derecha Todos directos. Until someone with a modicum of intelligence says, las sennas verde. And you just follow the green signs as you should have done in the first place.
I realise I have not mentioned the turbulence coming into Madrid. It was very turbulent and one poor girl was shaking uncontrollably while sobbing silently. I also have not mentioned the fact that my bag - my one bag that has to last three months- is already falling apart.
I am now in the air heading for the romantic Atlantic. An ocean I have never crossed before.
We took off in parallel with another plane and it was as if we did the shearwater run together and launched ourselves into the air in a race for the clouds. What odd little clouds the were, flat bottomed with grotesque fluffy meringue tops. Strange and unlike clouds should be as if they been designed by the person who does the signage in Manchester airport.
But now we are high above them all and it feels as if God has dissolved the universe and is running across a green field holding high a toy aeroplane with just me in it.
There first part of the journey has been rather like falling down stairs while carrying an overloaded tea tray and after you have picked yourself up finding that the only damage has been a chip to one of the saucers. But perhaps I am being overly optimistic as I’m writing this sitting in my plane in Madrid airport waiting for them to sort out a ‘communication problem’. A little worrying but better than a wing or engine problem I suppose. Unless it is a wing problem. They would hardly say, Ladies and Gentlemen we have a problem with our wings. A communication problem sounds much more reassuring.
The day started with the hellish labyrinth that is Manchester airport where I suspect someone is employed to take down and rearrange signage. There is probably a lot more money to be made from lost and desperate people than calm and happy passengers. One thing is certain, the sales of strong drink would plummet if the signage improved.
I got my flight and changed planes in Malaga. Coming in over Southern Spain we flew over a strange and beautiful dried out landscape; a swirling mixture of greys and browns dotted with little half dried up lakes, teal, indigo and violet. After landing and going to check in for my flight to Madrid, then onward to Cuba,I was told I should have filled in a four page immigration and health form 48 hours earlier. A form only available online and in Spanish. The woman behind the desk said I should have a shot at filling it in as there was still half an hour before take off. I did my best. Some bits like date of birth, passport and phone were easy, but I could not make out the names section. You would think it easy, except that it seemed to be asking for two second names. Gradually the form got harder and I returned to the desk to ask for help. Luckily there was an absolutely brilliant young woman there. One of those people who cuts through all the nonsense with a swipe of her machete. I’m just going to make it all up, she said. And she did. It worked! I took a photo of the accepted form with my phone so I would have evidence. But will they see through the lies in Havana and send me right back? Who knows.
So far all flights have been delayed, and that has means a lot of running between terminals. Comedy running. Where you run very fast in one direction and then do a sudden turn and race back the way you came. Because though people tell you to go to terminal 1, 2 or 3 there are no actual signs for them. All you can do is ask, Donde esta terminal dos? Vine a la derecha Todos directos. Until someone with a modicum of intelligence says, las sennas verde. And you just follow the green signs as you should have done in the first place.
I realise I have not mentioned the turbulence coming into Madrid. It was very turbulent and one poor girl was shaking uncontrollably while sobbing silently. I also have not mentioned the fact that my bag - my one bag that has to last three months- is already falling apart.
I am now in the air heading for the romantic Atlantic. An ocean I have never crossed before.
We took off in parallel with another plane and it was as if we did the shearwater run together and launched ourselves into the air in a race for the clouds. What odd little clouds the were, flat bottomed with grotesque fluffy meringue tops. Strange and unlike clouds should be as if they been designed by the person who does the signage in Manchester airport.
But now we are high above them all and it feels as if God has dissolved the universe and is running across a green field holding high a toy aeroplane with just me in it.
Havana
The first thing that struck me about Havana as I came in tonight was the lack of lighting. Most cities I have seen from the air at night, even poor ones, have looked a bright oriental carpet of coloured lights with the moving yellow light of traffic threaded through it. Havana was a scattering of diamonds on a black cloth. Even after landing the airport was lit only by what was necessary, no bright spotlights illuminating the runways and terminal. I had been the only tourist on the flight as far as I could see and expected immigration and security might be difficult. In fact it was the easiest so far and I did not end up in a prison cell. Just something very like one. My AirB&B is a tiny room in a house in a narrow alley in the old part of town. When I arrived the beds were covered in pink satin, there is a double and a single bed, each had heart-shaped satin pillows. Which made me think that when it is not a B&B it is being used as a kind of love hotel. Although the fact that it has the two beds makes out a little less likely. I hope. The only window has been bricked up. I can tell it has been bricked up because the bricks are very much in evidence, it seems like a punk kind of indoor decoration. – I later I later saw the family photos on the living room walls. All the women seem to be in voluminous pink dresses and the worst photograph was of a baby that had just a froth of pink bubbles from the waist down, which would have looked like some horrific tropical disease If I had not known it was only pink satin –. On the plus side everything is very clean and I have hot water. There has been something of a struggle with the power points which all seem about to fall out of there sockets on the wall. I have managed to get my rather large travel adapter working by arranging Heath Robinson structure of shoes and my book to support and hold it in place.
My first day out and I have been scammed! I sort of knew it was coming when a seemingly friendly person I passed by started chatting to me, telling me he was a teacher and about how great Cuba was with free education and healthcare. An obvious obvious introduction to a con trick. He had a Che Guevara T-shirt on and said he wanted to show me Che Guevara‘s house which was nearby. Like the fool I am I said yes. Che Guevara’s house was actually a bar and on the first floor there was a typewriter and a bed. Which I was told was Che Guevara hours typewriter bed. I may be quite wrong but I think that I would have known if Che Guevara had been a midget. Because the bed was obviously a Childs bed made for someone four feet tall or less. Okay it’s a scam I thought I’ll I’ll buy this man a soft drink and then get out of here. I’ll take his address and promised to send lots of stuff for his “school “ but I made the mistake of not asking price of the drinks before ordering them. Such a stupid mistake, and in the end I paid higher than London prices. But I did come away with a good cigar he gave me and which in England would’ve cost me at least £12. So with the cigar and a two drinks I didn’t lose out all that much If I have been paying English prices. Just an awful lot in Cuba. My next adventure, if you can call it an adventure; when you’re travelling as I am on a proverbial shoestring every problem is an adventure; that’s actually one of the things makes travelling like this enjoyable; my next adventure as I was saying, was trying to get a Cuban Internet card or sim, so I could send some messages home. I found a place to do it, an office with a hard faced security man who let people in two or three at a time. This seems commonplace in shops and offices. Quite why I’m not sure because there’s plenty of room inside and they could easily put some chairs for people to sit on and wait. But that’s not the way it’s done, you have to queue outside in the blistering sun until the security man calls. A very surly young Cuban woman sold me my card, she had red fingernails about 2 inches long, which naturally made typing in Information a little slow and difficult. Then she almost flung my old Sim card back at me. I grabbed it and I think I may have dropped it trying to stick it in my pocket but it is so tiny it may turn up somewhere later on. (It did) It’s not a disaster I don’t need my UK Sim card now anyway. So far the people I’ve met in Cuba have been rather disappointing, not at all open and friendly as I find the Indonesians. When I arrived in my Airbnb yesterday after a very long journey there was no offer of a cup of coffee or tea or even a glass of water. The family seem nice enough but this thoughtless lack of hospitality is not in endearing me tothem. After the exertions of this morning, getting scammed and getting sim, I had a long rest, or siesta as I like to think of it now.
Having rested and erected my Heath Robinson structures for charging my iPad and phone I am almost ready to set out again and see if I can find somewhere to eat this evening. I have downloaded A map of Havana and if I am able to recharge my phone I don’t have to worry about over using it and that is a very great benefit.
I forgot to mention that among my many tribulations is the fact that none of my clothes seem a very suitable now. The zips on my cargo style trousers have already broken and I have to rely on pockets which are not as secure. I hope to buy new trousers in America. It is very hard to find good quality clothing for travelling in the tropics. I know because I have looked online and though there are some very expensive options I could see nothing middle range or cheap-ish.
Second day in Havana. It is of course difficult for a tourist to get beneath the surface of things but staying as I am with ordinary Cuban families I can go deeper than most who are on tours and based in the big hotels. There is rubbish piled up in the streets and I have seen people picking through it for anything worth salvaging. And there was nothing that struck me as worth salvaging. Whatever economic problems Cuba may have clearing rubbish from the streets is surely something easily solved. I also have to return to signage. I’m beginning to feel sorry that I criticised Manchester Airport. Here lack of signage has been turnrd to a fine art. Perhaps they expect another attempted invasion from America and that all the troops will be rushing into museums, galleries, restaurants and shops where they can buy their Internet cards, and just shops generally. I suppose the lack of street names makes some kind of sense but not the rest. I can see that the socialist government does not want the rash of hideous commercial signage that blights so many western cities, but that does not preclude having some elegant and discreet signs just to tell people what the places are and their function.
Today I explored old Havana. It seemed something of a misnomer because old Havana looked much newer than the rest of Havana. It is the big tourist area with churches, castle, big hotels and museums. For reasons I could not understand,mainly because of lack of signage, the big museums were closed. The whole area was like those in so many other countries with tourist attractions like this, great efforts have been made to clean it up and make it look respectable for well-off foreign visitors. I remember the litter free river in Cambodia when we visited Angkor Wat; a little upstream was a barrier and beyond that a river of trash.
During a pause for a cold beer I sat and watched the tour groups who moved in lines, like those pictures of antelopes you see crossing the arid Serengeti plains with a large buck a few steps ahead whic makes frequent pauses to turn and check the others are still following and have not fallen prey to the lurking predators. The predators in this case are the countless touts trying to offer their services to change money get you a taxi and various other dodgy deals. When I arrived at the airport I met a young Russian who had tried to change money with a tout and had been given a huge number of peso notes which unfortunately were near worthless Mexican pesos and not the Cuban ones. I had approached him to ask if you wanted to sharea taxi but he seemed so completely confused and shellshocked that all he could do was stand and look at a huge watch of money he held in his hand and wonder what on earth he could do with it. There but for the grace of God and the tiny little bit of common sense I possess go I, I thought.
It has been proved true that it is difficult to find good cheap food apart from pizzas and spaghetti, just as it said in the guidebooks.
Before my exploration of old Havana I delivered the fishing line that I bought for the man of the family I will be staying with at the end of the week. I have forgotten his name, but he and his wife were very welcoming and genuinely seemed pleased to see me and immediately offered me a coffee. Their apartment is on the third floor of one of these very shabby and enormous houses that line the streets around here. After I had returned to my windowless room and was taking a siesta I was awakened by an incredible thunderstorm, though I could see nothing of it, Only hear the sound of the thunderclaps and the beating of rain outside mixed with the stuttering of the air conditioning. For yes, I was surprised to find that I do have air-conditioning. At first I was a little reluctant to use it but as my hosts have been so indifferent I have not been reticent in turning it on. Tonight I ate at the hotel Inglaterra, sitting outside on the terrace listening to some very good live music. My fried chicken,rice and veg was not that good and rather expensive. The waiter explained that was the some problem with the original order. I don’t think they had the proper vegetables, or something like that. The service was very slow and I was constantly pestered by beggars. Something I was not expecting in Cuba.
I have seen very few young travellers, the backpacking kind that you generally see in cities like this around the world. Although on my way back to my room I did pass a young couple sitting in the street sharing a pizza with a local. I find it strange because I had assumed that Cuba would have been a Mecca for young idealistic backpackers in their Che Guevara tee shirts looking for the socialist alternative to capitalism. Or just those looking for good music and romance in a shabby,but still beautiful, old colonialism city. I can’t imagine that there are many places like Havana still left in the world.
Bus to Trinidad
Getting to the Bus station proved easier than I had anticipated. When. I offered a taxi driver the amount suggested by the Senora from my Casa Particular and he leapt at it. It must have been a lot more than he was expecting but it seemed to me to be a quite reasonable price, nothing like the extortionate figures asked by other taxi drivers I had come across.
I was impressed by the bus station it was big, clean and efficient .The only drawback was that no one spoke English and as usual there were no useful signs to follow. So once again It was the comic routine of being pointed in one direction, walking to the end of the bus station and then being pointed back the way I came, then walking back to where I started. Luckily I had arrived in plenty of time and eventually things worked out without any running involved and I found myself in a large airy, though hot, waiting room. And I waited there for three hours.
I was again surprised to see that the bus looked new and shiny, not the battered old bus I was expecting from Cuba.
The houses in the suburbs of Havana we passed through were mainly three or four story high apartment blocks that looked quite neat and tidy on the whole. I saw none of the piles of rubbish I had come across in the streets near the city centre. Although I saw a couple places where rubbish had been piled up and burned by the roadside.
Once out of the city on either side of the road were scarlet flame trees, Mango banana and other trees I could not identify lined the sides of the road.
.
My route followed the flat coastal plain and was tree-lined for almost all the journey. We travelled on what passed for motorway but was more of a three lane highway, with little horse drawn carts and people standing in the road holding fistfuls of money trying to get a lift. We stopped at one of the best motorway service stations I have ever seen. It was small but sold wonderful fresh juices, coffee, alcoholic drinks, burgers and sandwiches.
It was there I first noticed the lost girl. She was travelling with a young American and I will write her story later on.
I arrived in Trinidad after dark and was a little worried that I might have to find my own way to my lodgings and possibly fall prey to one of the land crocodiles that always hang around bus and train stations. But my host Maria and her nephew were there waiting to help me with my bag and show me the way to their house.
My room is another windowless one with the bathroom attached, but much pleasanter than the room I had been staying in in Havana. I was immediately offered juice and a sandwich when we got to the house and in the morning had a wonderful breakfast on the rooftop: Mango, guava and pineapple with a meat and cheese sandwich and coffee and mango juice to drink. It was the best food I have had for over a week.
Trinidad is the second World Heritage town I have been in that has been empty of tourists. The first was in Galle, Sri Lanka, and there were no tourists largely because of Covid; except for those who came in on tour buses and left in the evening, meaning that I then had to city almost to myself except for the locals. Here in Trinidad there aren’t many tourists either. I don’t know why. Perhaps they come in on buses, stay in the big hotels come out walk around the city a bit and then leave, and I have just missed them. Or perhaps trade is not very good because of the American embargo and a slow recovering from Covid. Whatever the case as I spent the afternoon walking around the city I saw perhaps only one or two people who looked like European tourists. But it’s hard to tell which people are tourists, some of them could be Spanish or Italian ans so look quite Cuban. I once had a whole botanical garden to myself for a day and a night in Sabah. Kit would tell me that if people hear I’m coming they all clear out as fast as they can and only a few unfortunates remain: I have to admit it does feel a bit like that. Twice could have been coincidence, but three times?
Being a World Heritage site the grand pastel coloured buildings and colonaded streets are all very well preserved, as they are in ‘Old’ Havana. You can easily picture the place by remembering a Caribbean town from any pirate film. I think there is a good chance that it may have been filmed here. So no detailed description is required.
Also because of being a World Heritage site there are maps around to tell you where you are. Usted esta aqui. Sadly they were only in Spanish and it was not always clear how to get from aqui to alli. So I got lost. But using what little Spanish I have and the fact I had cleverly taken a photo of a distinctive Italian restaurant I was able to find my way back to my favourite bar very near where I was staying . It is my favourite bar because it is tiny and very like those I have seen in Spaghetti Westerns, and I seem to be its only customer. But it is doing very well out of me so far. The woman behind the bar had broken the cable for her iPhone. She had an iPhone which rather dampened my Spaghetti Western imaginings, but it was an old one and this is Cuba. Perhaps it was taken from some American soldier during the Bay of Pigs fiasco. If it had been it would be worth a lot of money now. Perhaps I should offer to swap. Anyway, I drank two beers - one Cristal, the local brew, and one Three Horses, an expensive import that was just like Cristal,then lent her my cable for a few hours and went to explore the town. Saw the grand pink, cream and pale blue churches and public buildings and the pink, cream and pale blue houses. The same colours and in some ways rather like the carefully arranged pink and cream coloured cakes that I saw on sale at several street corners. I walked the colonaded streets, sat in several shady squares - meaning with shade from trees. I try to avoid the other kind but occasionally end up in them. And I got lost. Finally I made my way back to the bar, drenched in sweat from my broad brimmed hat to my ankle socks. Looking like an extra from a Clint Eastwood Western. Just right for my bar! Retrieved my cable, had another Cristal, smoked a couple more extra strong Upmann cigarettes and then returned for shower and siesta. That counts as an adventure for me now.
Getting to the Bus station proved easier than I had anticipated. When. I offered a taxi driver the amount suggested by the Senora from my Casa Particular and he leapt at it. It must have been a lot more than he was expecting but it seemed to me to be a quite reasonable price, nothing like the extortionate figures asked by other taxi drivers I had come across.
I was impressed by the bus station it was big, clean and efficient .The only drawback was that no one spoke English and as usual there were no useful signs to follow. So once again It was the comic routine of being pointed in one direction, walking to the end of the bus station and then being pointed back the way I came, then walking back to where I started. Luckily I had arrived in plenty of time and eventually things worked out without any running involved and I found myself in a large airy, though hot, waiting room. And I waited there for three hours.
I was again surprised to see that the bus looked new and shiny, not the battered old bus I was expecting from Cuba.
The houses in the suburbs of Havana we passed through were mainly three or four story high apartment blocks that looked quite neat and tidy on the whole. I saw none of the piles of rubbish I had come across in the streets near the city centre. Although I saw a couple places where rubbish had been piled up and burned by the roadside.
Once out of the city on either side of the road were scarlet flame trees, Mango banana and other trees I could not identify lined the sides of the road.
.
My route followed the flat coastal plain and was tree-lined for almost all the journey. We travelled on what passed for motorway but was more of a three lane highway, with little horse drawn carts and people standing in the road holding fistfuls of money trying to get a lift. We stopped at one of the best motorway service stations I have ever seen. It was small but sold wonderful fresh juices, coffee, alcoholic drinks, burgers and sandwiches.
It was there I first noticed the lost girl. She was travelling with a young American and I will write her story later on.
I arrived in Trinidad after dark and was a little worried that I might have to find my own way to my lodgings and possibly fall prey to one of the land crocodiles that always hang around bus and train stations. But my host Maria and her nephew were there waiting to help me with my bag and show me the way to their house.
My room is another windowless one with the bathroom attached, but much pleasanter than the room I had been staying in in Havana. I was immediately offered juice and a sandwich when we got to the house and in the morning had a wonderful breakfast on the rooftop: Mango, guava and pineapple with a meat and cheese sandwich and coffee and mango juice to drink. It was the best food I have had for over a week.
Trinidad is the second World Heritage town I have been in that has been empty of tourists. The first was in Galle, Sri Lanka, and there were no tourists largely because of Covid; except for those who came in on tour buses and left in the evening, meaning that I then had to city almost to myself except for the locals. Here in Trinidad there aren’t many tourists either. I don’t know why. Perhaps they come in on buses, stay in the big hotels come out walk around the city a bit and then leave, and I have just missed them. Or perhaps trade is not very good because of the American embargo and a slow recovering from Covid. Whatever the case as I spent the afternoon walking around the city I saw perhaps only one or two people who looked like European tourists. But it’s hard to tell which people are tourists, some of them could be Spanish or Italian ans so look quite Cuban. I once had a whole botanical garden to myself for a day and a night in Sabah. Kit would tell me that if people hear I’m coming they all clear out as fast as they can and only a few unfortunates remain: I have to admit it does feel a bit like that. Twice could have been coincidence, but three times?
Being a World Heritage site the grand pastel coloured buildings and colonaded streets are all very well preserved, as they are in ‘Old’ Havana. You can easily picture the place by remembering a Caribbean town from any pirate film. I think there is a good chance that it may have been filmed here. So no detailed description is required.
Also because of being a World Heritage site there are maps around to tell you where you are. Usted esta aqui. Sadly they were only in Spanish and it was not always clear how to get from aqui to alli. So I got lost. But using what little Spanish I have and the fact I had cleverly taken a photo of a distinctive Italian restaurant I was able to find my way back to my favourite bar very near where I was staying . It is my favourite bar because it is tiny and very like those I have seen in Spaghetti Westerns, and I seem to be its only customer. But it is doing very well out of me so far. The woman behind the bar had broken the cable for her iPhone. She had an iPhone which rather dampened my Spaghetti Western imaginings, but it was an old one and this is Cuba. Perhaps it was taken from some American soldier during the Bay of Pigs fiasco. If it had been it would be worth a lot of money now. Perhaps I should offer to swap. Anyway, I drank two beers - one Cristal, the local brew, and one Three Horses, an expensive import that was just like Cristal,then lent her my cable for a few hours and went to explore the town. Saw the grand pink, cream and pale blue churches and public buildings and the pink, cream and pale blue houses. The same colours and in some ways rather like the carefully arranged pink and cream coloured cakes that I saw on sale at several street corners. I walked the colonaded streets, sat in several shady squares - meaning with shade from trees. I try to avoid the other kind but occasionally end up in them. And I got lost. Finally I made my way back to the bar, drenched in sweat from my broad brimmed hat to my ankle socks. Looking like an extra from a Clint Eastwood Western. Just right for my bar! Retrieved my cable, had another Cristal, smoked a couple more extra strong Upmann cigarettes and then returned for shower and siesta. That counts as an adventure for me now.
Worshipping the God of Cool Air
Unless you can afford to stay in expensive air-conditioned hotels there is a ritual which must followed by every traveller the tropics at the end of each day.
When you return after exploring the town or city you are visiting and you are drenched in sweat from head to foot. The first thing you do is take a shower. And then before putting on fresh dry clothes you go into your room from the bathroom and stand in front of the fan, your hands raised above your head like a priest before the altar. You stand awaiting the blessing of cool air from the fan on the bedroom wall. Only after the Breath of the God of Cool Air has passed over your body can you put on your clothes and to lie down to rest. I love the way the cool breath of a fan brushes gently across your hot exhausted body, pauses and then returns again and again.
Notes.
The silhouette of a small girl in pigtails roller skating down an empty street
A motorcycle that suddenly lights up and starts playing loud Cuban music.
Unless you can afford to stay in expensive air-conditioned hotels there is a ritual which must followed by every traveller the tropics at the end of each day.
When you return after exploring the town or city you are visiting and you are drenched in sweat from head to foot. The first thing you do is take a shower. And then before putting on fresh dry clothes you go into your room from the bathroom and stand in front of the fan, your hands raised above your head like a priest before the altar. You stand awaiting the blessing of cool air from the fan on the bedroom wall. Only after the Breath of the God of Cool Air has passed over your body can you put on your clothes and to lie down to rest. I love the way the cool breath of a fan brushes gently across your hot exhausted body, pauses and then returns again and again.
Notes.
The silhouette of a small girl in pigtails roller skating down an empty street
A motorcycle that suddenly lights up and starts playing loud Cuban music.
Up on the roof.
I have spent the last two days, just wondering around the streets of Trinidad, pausing only to sit in the shady squares and drink, cold beer and smoke cigarettes. I am not all that interested in looking at museums or the inside of churches, but would rather just sit and watch the people around me. I find it very hard to know what to make of Cuba. I seem to be free to travel wherever I want and see whatever I want, except I guess any military sites. Compared with some of the Asian countries that I have been to people seem reasonably well off. As well as all the old American cars that fill the streets I have seen quite a few new electric motorbikes. Many of the buses and taxis are new but there is still quite a lot of horse-drawn traffic and ancient tractors hauling, water tanks and trailers.
I saw what was probably the biggest supermarket like shop in town and went in out of curiosity. It is a cliche about Communist countries that there is never very much in the shops and it was certainly the case in this one. Although there are It is the cliche about Communist countries that there is never very much in the shops it was certainly the case in this one. Although there were shelves upon shelves of bottles of rum. I thought I might buy a couple of cans of beer to take back and put in the fridge, but I was told could only buy things if I possessed the right ration card. Otherwise, I had to buy my beer from the traders in the streets. If things are rationed and tickets have to be got in order to buy anything but the most basic purchases, then that must make life very frustrating for those who live here. Although I have seen lots of good fruit, vegetables, eggs and meat on sale in the streets. Perhaps that is not the same in other towns across Cuba, I can only speak for Trinidad.
I find it quite difficult for an older independent traveller like myself with very little Spanish on the able to go much beyond the obvious places. I would like to be able to just hop on a bus and go up to see another tenner and then come back later that day but that is not as easy as one might think. I am not even sure that I would be allowed a ticket on the little local buses.
For a country desperately in need of foreign currency independent tourism is very badly organised here. The network of Casa Paticulares B&S is excellent and very easy to book using Air B&B but few hosts speak any English and have none of the maps, books and local info you might expect as a visitor. In every hostel and B&B I have stayed back there was usually a well thumbed pile of guide books and brochures, some provided by the host and others left by previous guests. I might have expected this lack of interest in independent tourism in some other countries but the ease and efficiency of booking my stays here has thrown me. I realise now that this was probably down to the Air B&B system rather than the Cuban government.
It’s is not just a Socialist problem, there are so many irritating little problems in life in the UK and the government similarly does little or nothing to put them right. The technocrats are only interested in the large and complex and strategies that win votes. So the seemingly trivial problems are left to solve themselves. Maybe one day there will be a Ministry of Small Things and life will be a little bit easier.
I have seen my first humming bird! Flitting between the flowers of the scarlet vines above my bench in the town square, pausing only for a second or two to sip nectar from the flowers. It had a beautiful blue and green sheen on its wings but was moving too fast for me to photograph.
The next day after sending some postcards,I walked out of town to see the poorer parts which usually fringe most cites. I passed by shabby and faded concrete blocks of houses, two or four stories high but in better condition than many I have seen in India and Indonesia. The ground between the houses was bare red earth with little attempt to make the space attractive with flowers or shade trees. I got the impression that what I was seeing was ‘poor’ but not ‘poverty’. I had deliberately not taken my phone, camera or much money, just in case I ran into trouble. Not that I was unduly troubled, I can tilt my hat down over my eyes and put on my best Lee Van Cleef sneer and that is usually enough to make people avoid me. But at no time did feel nervous or threatened. Most people just ignored me or nodded and gave a brief Hola as I passed. I left the houses behind and walked down a red earth track between fields of bananas, papaya, lime and a few large mango trees. I walked by a few piles of rubbish beside the tracks one containing several pairs of sandals; one pair in such good condition that I almost considered taking them for myself. A few motorbikes and little horse drawn carts went by but that was all. The track branched and branched again, each stretch of red earth lined by trees looking almost identical. Not wanting to get lost, but more worried that I might get badly burned, I turned back. I was wearing shorts and my pale, but slowly browning, legs are still vulnerable. I guess those legs more than anything else betray the fact I am not Cuban.
I have seen very few people in uniform, police or military, and if there are plain clothes police about they are very well disguised as taxi drivers or touts offering to change dollars. I have also seen only a few political posters or slogans. Che’s face appears everywhere but usually on tee shirts and bags in souvenir shops. I can’t remember seeing any huge pictures of Fidel anywhere. Cuban communism strikes me as mainly being economic and perhaps cultural. I did see a patch of wall where it looked as if some inappropriate slogan had been scraped away, though it could just have been graffiti. I have seen no newspapers on sale and television looks pretty dull. But then television usually does. I seem free to go wherever I want and the only people who ask questions are those trying to sell me something. Though most of the trucks that go by are ancient I have seen a couple of bright new ambulances. There also seem to be plenty of electric bikes. I assume that these new vehicles, buses, ambulances and bikes come from China as the US embargo on imports is still in place. The new buses are part of the State network- I forget the name - but I have seen a couple of clapped out buses shuddering along as though about collapse in a black cloud of exhaust smoke. These may be private buses. I remembered a favourite old bus in Indonesia whose windscreen wipers were operated by string and passengers had to dismount and walk up any particularly steep parts of the route.
I see a lot of people hanging around waiting for transport, buses and anything that may give them a lift. Some stand on the roadside waving fistfuls of money, presumably mostly small denomination notes, to encourage drivers to stop. If only we could do that in the UK I would not have to drive into Lancaster so often. But we do not have small denomination notes and I am not going to wave fistfuls of fivers.
After my long walk in the sun before going back to my room I returned to a juice bar I’d seen in one of the little side streets. It sold the most delicious fruit juice blended with crushed ice. A kind of semi liquid sorbet. I tried to remember what they were called but of course forgot when I had taken less than six steps away from the counter.
My favourite bar has now been closed for two days , the one where I am always the only customer and where I lend the woman behind the counter my cable to charge her phone. Perhaps she could not stand life without a phone or my custom was not enough to keep the place going. Or perhaps…
I have spent the last two days, just wondering around the streets of Trinidad, pausing only to sit in the shady squares and drink, cold beer and smoke cigarettes. I am not all that interested in looking at museums or the inside of churches, but would rather just sit and watch the people around me. I find it very hard to know what to make of Cuba. I seem to be free to travel wherever I want and see whatever I want, except I guess any military sites. Compared with some of the Asian countries that I have been to people seem reasonably well off. As well as all the old American cars that fill the streets I have seen quite a few new electric motorbikes. Many of the buses and taxis are new but there is still quite a lot of horse-drawn traffic and ancient tractors hauling, water tanks and trailers.
I saw what was probably the biggest supermarket like shop in town and went in out of curiosity. It is a cliche about Communist countries that there is never very much in the shops and it was certainly the case in this one. Although there are It is the cliche about Communist countries that there is never very much in the shops it was certainly the case in this one. Although there were shelves upon shelves of bottles of rum. I thought I might buy a couple of cans of beer to take back and put in the fridge, but I was told could only buy things if I possessed the right ration card. Otherwise, I had to buy my beer from the traders in the streets. If things are rationed and tickets have to be got in order to buy anything but the most basic purchases, then that must make life very frustrating for those who live here. Although I have seen lots of good fruit, vegetables, eggs and meat on sale in the streets. Perhaps that is not the same in other towns across Cuba, I can only speak for Trinidad.
I find it quite difficult for an older independent traveller like myself with very little Spanish on the able to go much beyond the obvious places. I would like to be able to just hop on a bus and go up to see another tenner and then come back later that day but that is not as easy as one might think. I am not even sure that I would be allowed a ticket on the little local buses.
For a country desperately in need of foreign currency independent tourism is very badly organised here. The network of Casa Paticulares B&S is excellent and very easy to book using Air B&B but few hosts speak any English and have none of the maps, books and local info you might expect as a visitor. In every hostel and B&B I have stayed back there was usually a well thumbed pile of guide books and brochures, some provided by the host and others left by previous guests. I might have expected this lack of interest in independent tourism in some other countries but the ease and efficiency of booking my stays here has thrown me. I realise now that this was probably down to the Air B&B system rather than the Cuban government.
It’s is not just a Socialist problem, there are so many irritating little problems in life in the UK and the government similarly does little or nothing to put them right. The technocrats are only interested in the large and complex and strategies that win votes. So the seemingly trivial problems are left to solve themselves. Maybe one day there will be a Ministry of Small Things and life will be a little bit easier.
I have seen my first humming bird! Flitting between the flowers of the scarlet vines above my bench in the town square, pausing only for a second or two to sip nectar from the flowers. It had a beautiful blue and green sheen on its wings but was moving too fast for me to photograph.
The next day after sending some postcards,I walked out of town to see the poorer parts which usually fringe most cites. I passed by shabby and faded concrete blocks of houses, two or four stories high but in better condition than many I have seen in India and Indonesia. The ground between the houses was bare red earth with little attempt to make the space attractive with flowers or shade trees. I got the impression that what I was seeing was ‘poor’ but not ‘poverty’. I had deliberately not taken my phone, camera or much money, just in case I ran into trouble. Not that I was unduly troubled, I can tilt my hat down over my eyes and put on my best Lee Van Cleef sneer and that is usually enough to make people avoid me. But at no time did feel nervous or threatened. Most people just ignored me or nodded and gave a brief Hola as I passed. I left the houses behind and walked down a red earth track between fields of bananas, papaya, lime and a few large mango trees. I walked by a few piles of rubbish beside the tracks one containing several pairs of sandals; one pair in such good condition that I almost considered taking them for myself. A few motorbikes and little horse drawn carts went by but that was all. The track branched and branched again, each stretch of red earth lined by trees looking almost identical. Not wanting to get lost, but more worried that I might get badly burned, I turned back. I was wearing shorts and my pale, but slowly browning, legs are still vulnerable. I guess those legs more than anything else betray the fact I am not Cuban.
I have seen very few people in uniform, police or military, and if there are plain clothes police about they are very well disguised as taxi drivers or touts offering to change dollars. I have also seen only a few political posters or slogans. Che’s face appears everywhere but usually on tee shirts and bags in souvenir shops. I can’t remember seeing any huge pictures of Fidel anywhere. Cuban communism strikes me as mainly being economic and perhaps cultural. I did see a patch of wall where it looked as if some inappropriate slogan had been scraped away, though it could just have been graffiti. I have seen no newspapers on sale and television looks pretty dull. But then television usually does. I seem free to go wherever I want and the only people who ask questions are those trying to sell me something. Though most of the trucks that go by are ancient I have seen a couple of bright new ambulances. There also seem to be plenty of electric bikes. I assume that these new vehicles, buses, ambulances and bikes come from China as the US embargo on imports is still in place. The new buses are part of the State network- I forget the name - but I have seen a couple of clapped out buses shuddering along as though about collapse in a black cloud of exhaust smoke. These may be private buses. I remembered a favourite old bus in Indonesia whose windscreen wipers were operated by string and passengers had to dismount and walk up any particularly steep parts of the route.
I see a lot of people hanging around waiting for transport, buses and anything that may give them a lift. Some stand on the roadside waving fistfuls of money, presumably mostly small denomination notes, to encourage drivers to stop. If only we could do that in the UK I would not have to drive into Lancaster so often. But we do not have small denomination notes and I am not going to wave fistfuls of fivers.
After my long walk in the sun before going back to my room I returned to a juice bar I’d seen in one of the little side streets. It sold the most delicious fruit juice blended with crushed ice. A kind of semi liquid sorbet. I tried to remember what they were called but of course forgot when I had taken less than six steps away from the counter.
My favourite bar has now been closed for two days , the one where I am always the only customer and where I lend the woman behind the counter my cable to charge her phone. Perhaps she could not stand life without a phone or my custom was not enough to keep the place going. Or perhaps…
Trying to understand Cuba
I’m now in my new room back in Havana. To my delight and surprise the room has a window and a small balcony. It’s on the first floor of a shabby apartment block in the narrow street. It’s just opposite a place where government food supplies are delivered. There is no sign outside to say so as far as I can see but yesterday a truck pulled up loaded with eggs and soon there was a huge queue outside. The tills are set up just inside two large iron gates and people come with bags and baskets and buckets, show what is presumably a ration card, have their bags filled up and then pay for the eggs. Because of the large queue yesterday afternoon I assumed that the delivery of eggs would soon be all used up, But here I am at 8 o’clock the next day and there is no queue just people turning up and getting the eggs. Eggs would seem a fairly simple product to supply, especially if you’re your not too concerned about animal welfare. I can see it getting food for the chickens maynot be that easy but there must be ways to do that. Outside of Havana I have seen chickens scrabbling around in every small town we went through, and even a few in the streets here.
Yesterday I was approached by a man asking if I had any spare clothes I can get him for his family. He was not was not the usual type of beggar, he was late middle aged and could speak English. He looked rather down at heel middle class. At the time I was just carrying an empty bag and had nothing to offer him. He told me that the situation in Cuba is desperate, that the rations for rice and meat are not enough to feed his family and that sometimes they have nothing to eat but rice for a day. I don’t think that this was just a scam get me to give him something. I have a lot of experience of people who come into my bookshop and ask me for money so I think I can usually guess those who are in genuine need, and I felt this man was genuine and that he was ashamed to be approaching me in this way.
After my breakfast of juice, coffee and wonderful plate of fresh fruit, mango, papaya and pink guava followed by a indifferent omelette and bread roll, I’m out on the balcony again watching the people still turning up for their eggs. So why the rush yesterday? Perhaps you can never be sure if enough eggs will turn up, perhaps just the urge to be first in the queue. I have seen what I think of as pointless queuing in the UK. There is a sign outside the building but it is a little further down. It says INDER Direccion Municipal De Deportes Centro Havana. I have to lean forward and twist around to see it, so the words may not be entirely accurate. Maybe if the whole of Central Havana has to come to this shabby little street to get their eggs, so it may be a good idea to arrive early especially if you live some distance away. Now I think about it I have seen nobody I would put down as being well off come for eggs, and certainly no one has turned up to collect their eggs on a shiny motorcycle or in a big car. I could if I had Internet try to find out how the rationing system works, or revisit these notes later on, but I’m not writing reportage, just my fleeting and most likely inaccurate impressions of the country I am passing through
Sitting on the balcony going through my notes. There is a slight breeze; what joy a cool wind brings in a hot country.
Trinidad. A man walking the streets spelling green bananas from an old wheelbarrow. The barrow is almost empty. It must have been a good day for him, just the last few and he can trundle off home.
Trinidad. Sitting under scarlet vines in the town square. There is a woman -mid thirties?- sitting a few benches down. Judging from her pale legs she is probably a European tourist staying in the big hotel across the way. I don’t think she has come far, she still looks fresh and cool. Her bag is new and fashionable, not a backpack but practical nonetheless. She is writing in a notebook. Unlike me she writes slowly and thoughtfully as though first composing each perfect sentence complete with punctuation before writing it down. I am envious. In the style of Facebook I am only able to write fast and break things.
Trinidad. I have only seen one cockroach so far. Its crushed carapace lay on the pavement. It was huge.
Trinidad and on the bus. So many eagles circling around. Are they eagles, or vultures or buzzards? Something like buzzards I think. I remember from the old six-thirty Westerns of my childhood the word buzzard seemed to crop up regularly. You goldarn low down buzzard! Or something like that. Which suggests buzzards were a common sight in the southern desert country.
On the bus. We pass people selling fruit and vegetables by the side of the road. There are also people just holding up a mango or two or tiny bunch of bananas. Are they offering these in exchange for a lift or do they have more fruit for sale hidden out of sight?
On the bus. Horrible hands. That is exaggeration and I would not have made a note about the hands, or rather hand to be precise, if it had not been forced upon me. The young woman in the seat directly in front of mine flung her right arm across her shoulder so that her hand dangled over the back of her chair only a few inches in front of my face. It was a rich dark brown and rather large for a woman’s hand, I thought. It was a woman, as far as we can ever be certain, in the seat in front, let me be clear about that lest in this age of LGBTQIA you may read and think, Ah. The hand had large muscular fingers, probably the result of years of hard work, and they seemed to me to be unpleasingly arranged. I mean most fingers run from thumb via index finger past the longest central finger, which if it has a name I don’t know it, to the little finger, in a kind of arc. These fingers seemed mixed up, the index being longer than the middle, the little almost as long as the next to last. This was probably just a trick produced by the way the hand was lying but I just describe it as it appeared to me. On each finger was the too perfect oval of a nail, coloured the sort of bluish grey that forms on top of a cup of coffee if you leave it aside for a day. I wondered if the owner of the hands lacked the confidence to paint them in conventional scarlet or a daring lime green, and hoped that she just found blush grey an attractive colour. I think I have rather good hands, a good arc from thumb to little and strong practical fingers. Perhaps too strong for someone once told me I have murderer’s fingers. So I am the last person to pass judgement on someone’s hands. I am simply describing.
On the bus. The service stop on the way back to Havana is at what looks like a beach bar and restaurant in Playa Larga. I buy a glass of juice made from some unfamiliar tropical fruit: it tastes a little like papaya. The restaurant and bar are big, open, spread out and thatched with palm. Beach hut style, with shaded tables and chairs. There are well kept gardens edged with low hedges with familiar scarlet flowers. Are this the same plants that grew like vines to cover the arbor I used to sit under in the square in Trinidad? I stand at one end of line of tables and watch little swallows - swiftlets? - zooming around, some swoop in above the tables, bank sharply and are out again. I think perhaps they are nesting in the thatch.
On the bus. We pass a smallish solar farm. The only one I have seen although if Cuba wants cheap energy what better way is there than to have solar panels everywhere. I have not seen a single wind turbine and that has made me wonder where the electricity is germinated. Old power stations still using coal?
The embargo may be preventing the import of wind turbines and solar panels yet there is no problem importing beer and armaments it seems.
Like most travellers abroad I am fascinated by the iconography of the tee shirts I see people wearing. The more so when they seem totally inappropriate. I can never remember the best and the only ones I have noted down are; Let’s Paw TV, Sun’s Out Guns Out and World’s Best Grandma. The first two seem just meaningless phrases and I like the last best because it was worn by an otherwise cool looking young man; jeans, trainers and dark glasses. I wonder if the shirt I brought back from Georgia has an equally inappropriate message. But I never saw any Georgians laughing at me when I wore it and I find that reassuring. By coincidence, or perhaps because of the mention of Georgia, a picture of me wearing the tee shirt has appeared as an icon on my iPad, although I can’t open it. I am on some high tower and there is sea in the background. I think perhaps it was taken in Lebanon.
Below in the street the gates are closed and the egg sale seems to be over.
I’m now in my new room back in Havana. To my delight and surprise the room has a window and a small balcony. It’s on the first floor of a shabby apartment block in the narrow street. It’s just opposite a place where government food supplies are delivered. There is no sign outside to say so as far as I can see but yesterday a truck pulled up loaded with eggs and soon there was a huge queue outside. The tills are set up just inside two large iron gates and people come with bags and baskets and buckets, show what is presumably a ration card, have their bags filled up and then pay for the eggs. Because of the large queue yesterday afternoon I assumed that the delivery of eggs would soon be all used up, But here I am at 8 o’clock the next day and there is no queue just people turning up and getting the eggs. Eggs would seem a fairly simple product to supply, especially if you’re your not too concerned about animal welfare. I can see it getting food for the chickens maynot be that easy but there must be ways to do that. Outside of Havana I have seen chickens scrabbling around in every small town we went through, and even a few in the streets here.
Yesterday I was approached by a man asking if I had any spare clothes I can get him for his family. He was not was not the usual type of beggar, he was late middle aged and could speak English. He looked rather down at heel middle class. At the time I was just carrying an empty bag and had nothing to offer him. He told me that the situation in Cuba is desperate, that the rations for rice and meat are not enough to feed his family and that sometimes they have nothing to eat but rice for a day. I don’t think that this was just a scam get me to give him something. I have a lot of experience of people who come into my bookshop and ask me for money so I think I can usually guess those who are in genuine need, and I felt this man was genuine and that he was ashamed to be approaching me in this way.
After my breakfast of juice, coffee and wonderful plate of fresh fruit, mango, papaya and pink guava followed by a indifferent omelette and bread roll, I’m out on the balcony again watching the people still turning up for their eggs. So why the rush yesterday? Perhaps you can never be sure if enough eggs will turn up, perhaps just the urge to be first in the queue. I have seen what I think of as pointless queuing in the UK. There is a sign outside the building but it is a little further down. It says INDER Direccion Municipal De Deportes Centro Havana. I have to lean forward and twist around to see it, so the words may not be entirely accurate. Maybe if the whole of Central Havana has to come to this shabby little street to get their eggs, so it may be a good idea to arrive early especially if you live some distance away. Now I think about it I have seen nobody I would put down as being well off come for eggs, and certainly no one has turned up to collect their eggs on a shiny motorcycle or in a big car. I could if I had Internet try to find out how the rationing system works, or revisit these notes later on, but I’m not writing reportage, just my fleeting and most likely inaccurate impressions of the country I am passing through
Sitting on the balcony going through my notes. There is a slight breeze; what joy a cool wind brings in a hot country.
Trinidad. A man walking the streets spelling green bananas from an old wheelbarrow. The barrow is almost empty. It must have been a good day for him, just the last few and he can trundle off home.
Trinidad. Sitting under scarlet vines in the town square. There is a woman -mid thirties?- sitting a few benches down. Judging from her pale legs she is probably a European tourist staying in the big hotel across the way. I don’t think she has come far, she still looks fresh and cool. Her bag is new and fashionable, not a backpack but practical nonetheless. She is writing in a notebook. Unlike me she writes slowly and thoughtfully as though first composing each perfect sentence complete with punctuation before writing it down. I am envious. In the style of Facebook I am only able to write fast and break things.
Trinidad. I have only seen one cockroach so far. Its crushed carapace lay on the pavement. It was huge.
Trinidad and on the bus. So many eagles circling around. Are they eagles, or vultures or buzzards? Something like buzzards I think. I remember from the old six-thirty Westerns of my childhood the word buzzard seemed to crop up regularly. You goldarn low down buzzard! Or something like that. Which suggests buzzards were a common sight in the southern desert country.
On the bus. We pass people selling fruit and vegetables by the side of the road. There are also people just holding up a mango or two or tiny bunch of bananas. Are they offering these in exchange for a lift or do they have more fruit for sale hidden out of sight?
On the bus. Horrible hands. That is exaggeration and I would not have made a note about the hands, or rather hand to be precise, if it had not been forced upon me. The young woman in the seat directly in front of mine flung her right arm across her shoulder so that her hand dangled over the back of her chair only a few inches in front of my face. It was a rich dark brown and rather large for a woman’s hand, I thought. It was a woman, as far as we can ever be certain, in the seat in front, let me be clear about that lest in this age of LGBTQIA you may read and think, Ah. The hand had large muscular fingers, probably the result of years of hard work, and they seemed to me to be unpleasingly arranged. I mean most fingers run from thumb via index finger past the longest central finger, which if it has a name I don’t know it, to the little finger, in a kind of arc. These fingers seemed mixed up, the index being longer than the middle, the little almost as long as the next to last. This was probably just a trick produced by the way the hand was lying but I just describe it as it appeared to me. On each finger was the too perfect oval of a nail, coloured the sort of bluish grey that forms on top of a cup of coffee if you leave it aside for a day. I wondered if the owner of the hands lacked the confidence to paint them in conventional scarlet or a daring lime green, and hoped that she just found blush grey an attractive colour. I think I have rather good hands, a good arc from thumb to little and strong practical fingers. Perhaps too strong for someone once told me I have murderer’s fingers. So I am the last person to pass judgement on someone’s hands. I am simply describing.
On the bus. The service stop on the way back to Havana is at what looks like a beach bar and restaurant in Playa Larga. I buy a glass of juice made from some unfamiliar tropical fruit: it tastes a little like papaya. The restaurant and bar are big, open, spread out and thatched with palm. Beach hut style, with shaded tables and chairs. There are well kept gardens edged with low hedges with familiar scarlet flowers. Are this the same plants that grew like vines to cover the arbor I used to sit under in the square in Trinidad? I stand at one end of line of tables and watch little swallows - swiftlets? - zooming around, some swoop in above the tables, bank sharply and are out again. I think perhaps they are nesting in the thatch.
On the bus. We pass a smallish solar farm. The only one I have seen although if Cuba wants cheap energy what better way is there than to have solar panels everywhere. I have not seen a single wind turbine and that has made me wonder where the electricity is germinated. Old power stations still using coal?
The embargo may be preventing the import of wind turbines and solar panels yet there is no problem importing beer and armaments it seems.
Like most travellers abroad I am fascinated by the iconography of the tee shirts I see people wearing. The more so when they seem totally inappropriate. I can never remember the best and the only ones I have noted down are; Let’s Paw TV, Sun’s Out Guns Out and World’s Best Grandma. The first two seem just meaningless phrases and I like the last best because it was worn by an otherwise cool looking young man; jeans, trainers and dark glasses. I wonder if the shirt I brought back from Georgia has an equally inappropriate message. But I never saw any Georgians laughing at me when I wore it and I find that reassuring. By coincidence, or perhaps because of the mention of Georgia, a picture of me wearing the tee shirt has appeared as an icon on my iPad, although I can’t open it. I am on some high tower and there is sea in the background. I think perhaps it was taken in Lebanon.
Below in the street the gates are closed and the egg sale seems to be over.
Last days in Havana
Yesterday was, when I was not watching people buying eggs, was mostly a futile search for Internet. I have used up all the data on my Cuban SIM card and now replaced it with my old one. All the biggest and most expensive hotels have Wi-Fi. But as I found out, only for their guests. Hotel Inglaterra in the main square let me use theirs after buying an expensive beer and having to pay for it with a bank card. The Wi-Fi was so painfully slow that all it could do was frustratingly load the subjects of emails before the connection up completely.
I did not eat last night and instead bought two cold beers and drank them on my balcony smoking the cigar I got ‘given’ when I first came to Havana.
I did go in search of a cheap pizza without success, there are little places everywhere that sell them from their living room windows. Everywhere that is until you want one. These living room shops seem to pop up and burst like bubbles. You go to buy a beer or bottle of water, or perhaps a pizza, from one and then return five minutes later when you have decided you need another beer and the shop has vanished. After the shutters have been closed on the window there is nothing to show that there was ever a little shop on the street. Often things seem to be going on in dark rooms just beyond the pavement and I am not always sure if the place is a shop, bar, cafe or just someone’s front room. Or something more sleazy!
In Trinidad I walked past one of these rooms attached to a church. I could just make out a table covered with religious trinkets, statuettes, rosaries and pictures of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Deeper in the shadows sat a nun. There was something overwhelming sad and melancholy about the figure, she sat quite still and could have been a life size version of one of the little statuettes on the table.
I have seen plenty of churches, especially in Trinidad, but no obvious signs of religious practice, no church bells, no sound of singing as I went by, no nuns and priests walking through the streets. I would guess that while private worship is tolerated and public displays of religion are not.
Yesterday was, when I was not watching people buying eggs, was mostly a futile search for Internet. I have used up all the data on my Cuban SIM card and now replaced it with my old one. All the biggest and most expensive hotels have Wi-Fi. But as I found out, only for their guests. Hotel Inglaterra in the main square let me use theirs after buying an expensive beer and having to pay for it with a bank card. The Wi-Fi was so painfully slow that all it could do was frustratingly load the subjects of emails before the connection up completely.
I did not eat last night and instead bought two cold beers and drank them on my balcony smoking the cigar I got ‘given’ when I first came to Havana.
I did go in search of a cheap pizza without success, there are little places everywhere that sell them from their living room windows. Everywhere that is until you want one. These living room shops seem to pop up and burst like bubbles. You go to buy a beer or bottle of water, or perhaps a pizza, from one and then return five minutes later when you have decided you need another beer and the shop has vanished. After the shutters have been closed on the window there is nothing to show that there was ever a little shop on the street. Often things seem to be going on in dark rooms just beyond the pavement and I am not always sure if the place is a shop, bar, cafe or just someone’s front room. Or something more sleazy!
In Trinidad I walked past one of these rooms attached to a church. I could just make out a table covered with religious trinkets, statuettes, rosaries and pictures of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Deeper in the shadows sat a nun. There was something overwhelming sad and melancholy about the figure, she sat quite still and could have been a life size version of one of the little statuettes on the table.
I have seen plenty of churches, especially in Trinidad, but no obvious signs of religious practice, no church bells, no sound of singing as I went by, no nuns and priests walking through the streets. I would guess that while private worship is tolerated and public displays of religion are not.
A difficult day
I left my casa particular in Havana at five thirty in the morning, said goodbye to my hosts the wend down the dark and dirty stairs and into the street to search for a taxi. A fair well cup of coffee or even a banana to take with me would have been greatly appreciated.
I walked to where there are usually expensive taxis near the government building and I got to the airport in plenty of time. Though I had my flight details, I could not see the name of the airline on them, so I had to do some searching around to find the offices. It had not been possible to do everything online before arriving. The man behind the desk at first airline office that I thought might be mine was a little confused and told me that as I was going to America, I would not be allowed to fly and would have to return to the UK. After a moment of panic and visualising the loss of all the money I’d already spent on air fares, I went off and eventually found the right airline. I was about to check in when I found that I’d dropped my passport. I searched all my pockets and the shoulder bags I was carrying, I knew it would not be in my small backpack. I searched and searched again before going off to look for help. It was a strange thing about Havana airport that there were hardly any, none I could find, security guards or police around. I asked various officials none of whom could speak more English than I could speak Spanish and none were able to help. One suggested I returned to Havana and went to the British Consulate who would ship me home. Eventually, someone pointed me to a Middle-aged woman sitting by the entrance doors to the airport, who I think may have been some kind of help and information person. She turned out to be brilliant and sensible. She could speak a little more English than the rest and was able to take me to the proper immigration office, which was tucked away right at the end of the check-in desks. People had tried to send me there but had only pointed vaguely in its direction, and as there was no obvious sign outside the office I had not been able to find it. The immigration officer could speak no English either and just gestured at me to wait, then five minutes later someone turned up with my passport. If it had not been for the wonderful woman by the entrance, I may well have returned to Havana, the British Consulate and been put on a plane back to the UK. The incident is a good example of how just one sensible and caring person can make an enormous difference.
Getting onto my plane was now very simple.
I had to fly to Cancun and then get a connection to San Jose in Costa Rica with at different budget airline. I have forgotten the name of the first airline, but it was the only one in which I have been offered a free packet of biscuits, custard creams, in place of any other snacks or food. The biscuits came with the choice of Coke or Sprite as a drink.
Unlike Havana Cancun was a huge modern airport packed with the usual expensive shops and cafes. I expected a free and efficient Internet access, but that was not to be. Every time I got online the system crashed in about five minutes. I got my boarding pass and headed for the appropriate gate to wait for my plane. I should’ve had only an hours wait, but after that I was up there came notice of a half hour delay. After that, a 15 minute delay. After that delays of 10 minutes, which went on for roughly 4 hours. As all the announcements were in Spanish and spoken very quickly, I had to ask someone to tell the details. It turned out that there was some mechanical fault with the plane that they were trying to fix. Eventually, they decided it could not be fixed and had to get us another plane which left from another gate. I was very hungry and thirsty, but only managed to get a KitKat and a bottle of juice. Because every time I thought about buying something to eat, there was an announcement that the plane would be leaving in 10 minutes time.
I got into San Jose airport at midnight and took a taxi to my guest house. The taxi was something like an Uber, but a different company, and I was quite impressed with its technical efficiency and reassured that I would not be robbed by being charged with an incredibly high fair. When I got to Casa Leon, my guesthouse, the owner Patrick, was just about to go to bed and told me I was lucky that there was anyone around to unlock the gate. I asked if I could get a cup of coffee as I was very thirsty and he said no, but the tap water was drinkable.
Things are better this morning, Patrick seems very helpful though, perhaps a little morose. There is a wonderful bakery nearby, where I had breakfast, some kind of bread, with embedded meatballs, a fruit turnover, and a huge, very good cup of milky coffee. And even better, there is proper Internet access!
I left my casa particular in Havana at five thirty in the morning, said goodbye to my hosts the wend down the dark and dirty stairs and into the street to search for a taxi. A fair well cup of coffee or even a banana to take with me would have been greatly appreciated.
I walked to where there are usually expensive taxis near the government building and I got to the airport in plenty of time. Though I had my flight details, I could not see the name of the airline on them, so I had to do some searching around to find the offices. It had not been possible to do everything online before arriving. The man behind the desk at first airline office that I thought might be mine was a little confused and told me that as I was going to America, I would not be allowed to fly and would have to return to the UK. After a moment of panic and visualising the loss of all the money I’d already spent on air fares, I went off and eventually found the right airline. I was about to check in when I found that I’d dropped my passport. I searched all my pockets and the shoulder bags I was carrying, I knew it would not be in my small backpack. I searched and searched again before going off to look for help. It was a strange thing about Havana airport that there were hardly any, none I could find, security guards or police around. I asked various officials none of whom could speak more English than I could speak Spanish and none were able to help. One suggested I returned to Havana and went to the British Consulate who would ship me home. Eventually, someone pointed me to a Middle-aged woman sitting by the entrance doors to the airport, who I think may have been some kind of help and information person. She turned out to be brilliant and sensible. She could speak a little more English than the rest and was able to take me to the proper immigration office, which was tucked away right at the end of the check-in desks. People had tried to send me there but had only pointed vaguely in its direction, and as there was no obvious sign outside the office I had not been able to find it. The immigration officer could speak no English either and just gestured at me to wait, then five minutes later someone turned up with my passport. If it had not been for the wonderful woman by the entrance, I may well have returned to Havana, the British Consulate and been put on a plane back to the UK. The incident is a good example of how just one sensible and caring person can make an enormous difference.
Getting onto my plane was now very simple.
I had to fly to Cancun and then get a connection to San Jose in Costa Rica with at different budget airline. I have forgotten the name of the first airline, but it was the only one in which I have been offered a free packet of biscuits, custard creams, in place of any other snacks or food. The biscuits came with the choice of Coke or Sprite as a drink.
Unlike Havana Cancun was a huge modern airport packed with the usual expensive shops and cafes. I expected a free and efficient Internet access, but that was not to be. Every time I got online the system crashed in about five minutes. I got my boarding pass and headed for the appropriate gate to wait for my plane. I should’ve had only an hours wait, but after that I was up there came notice of a half hour delay. After that, a 15 minute delay. After that delays of 10 minutes, which went on for roughly 4 hours. As all the announcements were in Spanish and spoken very quickly, I had to ask someone to tell the details. It turned out that there was some mechanical fault with the plane that they were trying to fix. Eventually, they decided it could not be fixed and had to get us another plane which left from another gate. I was very hungry and thirsty, but only managed to get a KitKat and a bottle of juice. Because every time I thought about buying something to eat, there was an announcement that the plane would be leaving in 10 minutes time.
I got into San Jose airport at midnight and took a taxi to my guest house. The taxi was something like an Uber, but a different company, and I was quite impressed with its technical efficiency and reassured that I would not be robbed by being charged with an incredibly high fair. When I got to Casa Leon, my guesthouse, the owner Patrick, was just about to go to bed and told me I was lucky that there was anyone around to unlock the gate. I asked if I could get a cup of coffee as I was very thirsty and he said no, but the tap water was drinkable.
Things are better this morning, Patrick seems very helpful though, perhaps a little morose. There is a wonderful bakery nearby, where I had breakfast, some kind of bread, with embedded meatballs, a fruit turnover, and a huge, very good cup of milky coffee. And even better, there is proper Internet access!
A story.
The Lost Girl
I first noticed her when the bus from Havana to Trinidad stopped to give the passengers a break during the seven hour journey. The roadside cafe was surprisingly like a Western fast food cafe, selling drinks, fresh juices, hamburgers and sandwiches with a bustling efficiency. Like a Western fast food joint only better; this one also sold beer, rum and cigars. The girl was with a young American man in his late twenties or early thirties. He was thin, taller than me, with what I think of as an Ivy League haircut; not too short and longish at the front, just enough to fall across the forehead and be boyishly brushed back from time to time. A quite acceptable haircut for a job interview with an investment bank, or some other respectable business. His clothes belied the haircut. He was dressed for the beach; long baggy shorts and a long green sleeveless tee shirt. All he lacked was the surfboard to complete the Beach Boy look.
He had drawn my attention because for much of the journey he had been talking into his phone; not loudly enough for me to be able to hear what he was saying but loud enough for me to know that he was speaking English and that he was American. The only American I had come across in my first four days In Cuba, and that was enough to arouse my curiosity.I wondered who he had been talking to for so long on the phone; girl friend, friends, family, ticket agency or dictating text to a blog. Just as I am dictating text to this iPad. I liked this last option and imagined that he had been sent by one of the big travel agencies to check out places for future tours of Cuba. Either that or he was one of these new generation travel bloggers who tour the world building up a following among other young travellers and who make a living from the advertising they can attract to their sites. But there was something about him that suggested the former to me rather than the latter.
When we all got off the bus and crowded around the cafe bar he ordered a juice for himself and I think one for the girl too. But I cannot be sure of that, she may have had to order her own. I could not help but notice her because she started to dance to the loud Cuban music that was playing. She said, Dance with me! You can learn a new dance in every country you go to!
And she raised her hands above her head and twirled around as though demonstrating some exotic foreign dance. She was much shorter than him, with caramel skin, wide bright eyes and one of those broad childish infectious smiles. She was wearing a bandana of brightly coloured cloth and a yellow dress that reached just below her knees. It was difficult for me to guess her age, I thought she could have been anywhere between sixteen and twenty five, But there seemed to be a fragility, something desperately vulnerable, about her, that made me put her in her late teens rather than the more experienced twenties.
As she danced he attempted one or two steps alongside her and then simply turned away. It did not seem that he was embarrassed, irritated or angry; he just seemed bored by her, indifferent. He walked off down the the road past the bus, took out his phone and began talking again. The girl stopped dancing and went to sit on a bench in the café garden, where she finished drinking her juice.
It was only when we reboarded the bus that I realised that the two of them were travelling together. I had not noticed the girl on the first half of the journey, she was curled up in her seat beside the American and not even the flourish of a knot she had tied in the bandana, which she wore high upon her head, showed above the seat to betray her presence. The man had been constantly talking to his phone, never turning to say a word to the girl next to him, so I naturally thought he was travelling alone. Seeing her dance at the cafe at first I assumed she was one of staff just being flirtatious and teasing the good looking but reserved American. I chose the word reserved but perhaps distant would have been better. He stood apart from the rest of us, as though he did not want to be drawn in; even as an awkward old Englishman with just a Spanish phrase book to help me along I had felt I was more a part of of the crowd around the cafe bar than he was.
My journey to Trinidad continued; the girl vanished again into her window seat and the American sat silently, for the first time in our journey he put away his phone.
Several hours later the bus stopped at the beach resort of Playa de Larga and the couple got got off. ‘Playa de Larga. The scene of that embarrassing incident of ours’ he said, seemingly more to himself than the girl. I guessed he was referring to the failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs. Out on the dusty road they stood as their luggage was retrieved from the space beneath the windows of the bus. The American thrust his hand luggage at the girl and then flung the water bottle he was carrying for her to catch, before turning to look for the bags. But she could not catch anything as her hands were already full of his things and the bottle fell to the ground beside her with a cruel emphatic thud I could hear from my seat within the bus.
She stood beneath the burning sun, her body tilted slightly forward as though in supplication. The sunlight glinted on the tears that started to run down her cheeks. She raised a hand and brushed them away. I felt an overwhelming pity for her. I wanted to leave the bus put my arms around her and comfort her as one might comfort a child or small animal in distress. To say, it’s alright. This will pass. By tomorrow it will be forgotten and the world will be wonderful again. To say those words knowing nothing would be understood except for the tone of voice. Of course I did nothing except to try and take some photos through the window of the bus. Only one has come out to help me tell this story. The bus moved on.
I’m writing this on the rooftop of my casa particular in Trinidad, smoking a cigarette, listening to the sound of traffic while eagles lazily ride the thermals above and I’m trying to understand why this incident seems so important to me.
I have tried to imagining that after a night in a beach hut at Playa de Larga she slowly lifts the American’s arm that encircles her, cautiously climbs from the bed, puts on the yellow dress, ties her hair back with her bandana and then carefully removes everything from the money belt the American has carelessly left in the tangle of clothes beside the bed. She takes every dollar, every peso, every bank card and finally she takes his passport. She opens it to where his picture looks out at her and and then she tears out the page before replacing the passport into the empty money belt. She slides his picture into her pocket, slips on her sandals, quietly unlocks the door to the beach hut and leaves. When the sun rises she is already halfway back to Havana and the American still lies sleeping.
But I know that is just my imagination. She will stay with him for the rest of his time in Cuba. She will endure his coldness for the occasional moments of affection, his kisses and murmured endearments at night, dancing in the open air bar, sitting on the beach with his arm around her shoulder watching the stars above the sea. Always the hope that when he leaves Cuba he will promise to return, or even ask her to come with him to America or the next country on his route. Instead at the airport he will give her a brief hug, say goodbye, offer her a few dollars as a ‘present’. She will refuse. He will insist. She will take the dollars and stuff them into the pocket of her yellow dress. This will be the way for the rest of her life. Her need for affection, for affirmation, will lead to inevitable disappointment. She was a lost girl from the moment she was born, a lost girl who will grow to be a lost woman constantly yearning for a lost life.
I pick up my phone and look at the only picture that came out. She stands leaning slightly forwards on her toes, almost as though she is about to reach out and launch herself forward to catch something just out of view of the camera, but she is frozen in position, eyes damp with tears. The bottle lying in the dust at her feet.
It is a visual cliche in science fiction or fantasy films that an area of the screen blurs and crackles before a transported figure emerges. In the photograph it seems to me that she has appeared just like that, captured in the moment. No past, no future and no context except for the small patch of dusty earth on which she stands.
I am building in my head my own personal tarot pack - with my taroc pack, my taroc pack and my weird luck…- Each card has a special symbolic significance for me. There are among others, The Menggaris Tree, The Pathfinder, The Lady of the Mosses, The Dolphin Puppet, The Tokay Gecko. Now another card has been added to the Major Arcana. The Maiden of Folorn Hope.
I first noticed her when the bus from Havana to Trinidad stopped to give the passengers a break during the seven hour journey. The roadside cafe was surprisingly like a Western fast food cafe, selling drinks, fresh juices, hamburgers and sandwiches with a bustling efficiency. Like a Western fast food joint only better; this one also sold beer, rum and cigars. The girl was with a young American man in his late twenties or early thirties. He was thin, taller than me, with what I think of as an Ivy League haircut; not too short and longish at the front, just enough to fall across the forehead and be boyishly brushed back from time to time. A quite acceptable haircut for a job interview with an investment bank, or some other respectable business. His clothes belied the haircut. He was dressed for the beach; long baggy shorts and a long green sleeveless tee shirt. All he lacked was the surfboard to complete the Beach Boy look.
He had drawn my attention because for much of the journey he had been talking into his phone; not loudly enough for me to be able to hear what he was saying but loud enough for me to know that he was speaking English and that he was American. The only American I had come across in my first four days In Cuba, and that was enough to arouse my curiosity.I wondered who he had been talking to for so long on the phone; girl friend, friends, family, ticket agency or dictating text to a blog. Just as I am dictating text to this iPad. I liked this last option and imagined that he had been sent by one of the big travel agencies to check out places for future tours of Cuba. Either that or he was one of these new generation travel bloggers who tour the world building up a following among other young travellers and who make a living from the advertising they can attract to their sites. But there was something about him that suggested the former to me rather than the latter.
When we all got off the bus and crowded around the cafe bar he ordered a juice for himself and I think one for the girl too. But I cannot be sure of that, she may have had to order her own. I could not help but notice her because she started to dance to the loud Cuban music that was playing. She said, Dance with me! You can learn a new dance in every country you go to!
And she raised her hands above her head and twirled around as though demonstrating some exotic foreign dance. She was much shorter than him, with caramel skin, wide bright eyes and one of those broad childish infectious smiles. She was wearing a bandana of brightly coloured cloth and a yellow dress that reached just below her knees. It was difficult for me to guess her age, I thought she could have been anywhere between sixteen and twenty five, But there seemed to be a fragility, something desperately vulnerable, about her, that made me put her in her late teens rather than the more experienced twenties.
As she danced he attempted one or two steps alongside her and then simply turned away. It did not seem that he was embarrassed, irritated or angry; he just seemed bored by her, indifferent. He walked off down the the road past the bus, took out his phone and began talking again. The girl stopped dancing and went to sit on a bench in the café garden, where she finished drinking her juice.
It was only when we reboarded the bus that I realised that the two of them were travelling together. I had not noticed the girl on the first half of the journey, she was curled up in her seat beside the American and not even the flourish of a knot she had tied in the bandana, which she wore high upon her head, showed above the seat to betray her presence. The man had been constantly talking to his phone, never turning to say a word to the girl next to him, so I naturally thought he was travelling alone. Seeing her dance at the cafe at first I assumed she was one of staff just being flirtatious and teasing the good looking but reserved American. I chose the word reserved but perhaps distant would have been better. He stood apart from the rest of us, as though he did not want to be drawn in; even as an awkward old Englishman with just a Spanish phrase book to help me along I had felt I was more a part of of the crowd around the cafe bar than he was.
My journey to Trinidad continued; the girl vanished again into her window seat and the American sat silently, for the first time in our journey he put away his phone.
Several hours later the bus stopped at the beach resort of Playa de Larga and the couple got got off. ‘Playa de Larga. The scene of that embarrassing incident of ours’ he said, seemingly more to himself than the girl. I guessed he was referring to the failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs. Out on the dusty road they stood as their luggage was retrieved from the space beneath the windows of the bus. The American thrust his hand luggage at the girl and then flung the water bottle he was carrying for her to catch, before turning to look for the bags. But she could not catch anything as her hands were already full of his things and the bottle fell to the ground beside her with a cruel emphatic thud I could hear from my seat within the bus.
She stood beneath the burning sun, her body tilted slightly forward as though in supplication. The sunlight glinted on the tears that started to run down her cheeks. She raised a hand and brushed them away. I felt an overwhelming pity for her. I wanted to leave the bus put my arms around her and comfort her as one might comfort a child or small animal in distress. To say, it’s alright. This will pass. By tomorrow it will be forgotten and the world will be wonderful again. To say those words knowing nothing would be understood except for the tone of voice. Of course I did nothing except to try and take some photos through the window of the bus. Only one has come out to help me tell this story. The bus moved on.
I’m writing this on the rooftop of my casa particular in Trinidad, smoking a cigarette, listening to the sound of traffic while eagles lazily ride the thermals above and I’m trying to understand why this incident seems so important to me.
I have tried to imagining that after a night in a beach hut at Playa de Larga she slowly lifts the American’s arm that encircles her, cautiously climbs from the bed, puts on the yellow dress, ties her hair back with her bandana and then carefully removes everything from the money belt the American has carelessly left in the tangle of clothes beside the bed. She takes every dollar, every peso, every bank card and finally she takes his passport. She opens it to where his picture looks out at her and and then she tears out the page before replacing the passport into the empty money belt. She slides his picture into her pocket, slips on her sandals, quietly unlocks the door to the beach hut and leaves. When the sun rises she is already halfway back to Havana and the American still lies sleeping.
But I know that is just my imagination. She will stay with him for the rest of his time in Cuba. She will endure his coldness for the occasional moments of affection, his kisses and murmured endearments at night, dancing in the open air bar, sitting on the beach with his arm around her shoulder watching the stars above the sea. Always the hope that when he leaves Cuba he will promise to return, or even ask her to come with him to America or the next country on his route. Instead at the airport he will give her a brief hug, say goodbye, offer her a few dollars as a ‘present’. She will refuse. He will insist. She will take the dollars and stuff them into the pocket of her yellow dress. This will be the way for the rest of her life. Her need for affection, for affirmation, will lead to inevitable disappointment. She was a lost girl from the moment she was born, a lost girl who will grow to be a lost woman constantly yearning for a lost life.
I pick up my phone and look at the only picture that came out. She stands leaning slightly forwards on her toes, almost as though she is about to reach out and launch herself forward to catch something just out of view of the camera, but she is frozen in position, eyes damp with tears. The bottle lying in the dust at her feet.
It is a visual cliche in science fiction or fantasy films that an area of the screen blurs and crackles before a transported figure emerges. In the photograph it seems to me that she has appeared just like that, captured in the moment. No past, no future and no context except for the small patch of dusty earth on which she stands.
I am building in my head my own personal tarot pack - with my taroc pack, my taroc pack and my weird luck…- Each card has a special symbolic significance for me. There are among others, The Menggaris Tree, The Pathfinder, The Lady of the Mosses, The Dolphin Puppet, The Tokay Gecko. Now another card has been added to the Major Arcana. The Maiden of Folorn Hope.
Monte Verde
The only thing I did in San Jose apart from eating at the wonderful bakers, was to visit the National museum. It is in what used to be the old fortified barracks and to enter you have to pass through a butterfly enclosure. The museum gives a very good account of the history of Costa Rica with a few early artefacts. There were some beautifully carved stone tables, and some cruder carved statues and sacrificial bowls. I know next to nothing about South American history, but the carving did seem somewhat similar to pictures. I’ve seen of Inca and Aztec carvings, Which might suggest some kind of cultural exchange throughout Latin America. Similar things happened across Southeast Asia so it is a real possibility. This morning, I left my guest house by taxi at 5:30 am to get the bus to Monte Verde. There was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing at the bus station, but it all went very smoothly and was only about if I have a ride. Monte Verde Is a small town built around ecotourism and there are more tourists here then I have seen so far in my travels. It seems a bit strange after the emptiness of Trinidad. My room here is very pleasant with a shared balcony outside the blocks across the valley. I sat there this afternoon and watched a host of green parrots, eating fruit and bickering among themselves like jackdaws do. I also saw a hummingbird was by a bright blue bird. I couldn’t identify, a few large brown birds are very pointed beaks and squirrel with a beautiful bronze front. The one downside to this place is that it is non-smoking. I know most of my writing is rubbish, but on this trip, most of my writing seems to have been about rubbish. In contrast to Cuba, Costa Rica seems to have sorted its rubbish problem, at least in the countryside. As I rode along in the bus and looked out of the window I could see neatly tied rubbish bags put out for collection at various points along the way. However, it was not nearly so clean and tidy in the capital. Yesterday I went to a nearby park and walked the trails. They were very easy going and I was able to cover almost all the marked routes in around five hours. The park was also very popular and there were few times that I was walking alone for more than five minutes before meeting other people. As usual most of the birds were high in the canopy or deep in the undergrowth so I saw very little, except for the times I came across a group with a guide. All the guides carried powerful scopes tilted up towards the top of the trees, so standing nearby and using my little binoculars. I was able to pick out one of two things, including a quetzal. In some ways, I would’ve seen a lot more if I had been in a group. But on the other hand, I would not have covered so much ground. as I was returning towards the entrance of the park, suddenly, the whole tribe of coatimundis poured out of the bushes, and across the trail, large, middle size, and tiny babies. As usual, there were monkeys hanging around the buildings at the park entrance, hoping to scavenge something tasty that might be thrown out of the restaurants or left by visitors. I’ve got a good look at them, but they were moving very quickly and high up in the trees. My best guess is that were are some kind of spider monkey. Last night, I ate avocado, tacos in a big fast-food sort of place. They were very nice, but rather overpriced bystanders around here. Tonight I have booked a night walk. Monte Verde is a little town almost entirely geared up for ecotourism, almost every house seems to be a guesthouse, restaurant or offers tours of some kind. And everyone seems to speak at least a little English. Set among the cloud forest it is constantly misty and damp, with heavy showers of rain and the occasional patches of sunshine when the clouds clear for a while. There are many similarities between the rainforest here and the forest I know of from Borneo and Sri Lanka. Though the trees and vines are nowhere near as spectacular as some I have seen. There are lots of plants found only in the Americas but I don’t know enough botany to be able to pick out the subtle differences. So far it has been the birds and animals that seem so different to those in the Old World. Especially the birds. The Giftie Gie Us
The little black dog trotted up the steps and into the cruciform arbor, roofed by scarlet vines, which stood in the centre of the town square. It ran down between the rows of seats that lined the arms of the cross. Pausing to eat any scraps of bread or meat it found. Suddenly it swerved and dashed out of the arbor. There had been a man sitting on one of the benches and he did not smell like the usual people the dog had become used to as it scavenged beneath the benches. This scent was something new and strange and therefore to be avoided. Bonita hurried towards her favourite bench where she had arranged to meet Pablo. There was an old gringo sitting there. In her head she spat on his shoes, but then she noticed Pablo on a shadier bench a little further on. She waved and ran towards him. Every so often Janet and I like to slip away from our tour group and go on what Janet calls our ‘little adventures’ and I like to think of as our ‘ anthropological investigations’. We collect people. Janet will pretend to be adjusting her hair, or putting on lipstick, and will take a surreptitious photo of someone who interests us. Then later back in our hotel we will look at the picture and invent a little biography. It’s a game Janet invented and has become a little ritual of ours we do whenever we travel. Today we came across an old man sitting alone on a bench in the town square. Janet nodded at me and took out her phone. The man was clearly a European and not someone I would have picked for our game as I thought there were many more interesting Cubans of all ages promenading up and down the square. But who am I to argue with Janet! She thought of the game and she chooses our subjects. Later that evening sitting on the balcony of our hotel room with a couple of very tall mojitos we looked at Janet’s picture. ‘You go first’ she said. ‘Well… I think he washed up here like one of those characters in a Somerset Maugham story. He came to Cuba as a young man full of socialist idealism and married a local girl. They tried to open a bar but everything went wrong. Endless and incomprehensible red tape, corrupt business rivals and government officials. He has lost all his money, his wife despises him and he cannot afford to go home. So every day he sits in the square drinking.’ ‘Oh David, stop being such a romantic. First look at his shoes. Didn’t your mother tell you that you can always judge a man by his shoes? They are new and not a brand you would find here. I think I saw a pair like that in a hiking shop in Kendal. Now look at his legs. Much paler than his arms. That means he has not been here long. Now his clothes. A rather rather shabby tee shirt and pair of shorts. That means he is not very well off. He can afford new shoes but not new clothes. That also suggests to me that he is not part of an organised tour like ours. Those do not come cheap.’ ‘So why do you think he’s here?’ ‘I think he is a poor old Englishman touring Latin America in a futile search of his lost youth.’ ‘Lost youth? Do you mean sleaze?’ ‘Possibly… No probably, yes.’ I have to admit that Janet is much better at this game than I am. Javier Martel enters the arbor, his pockets stuffed with worthless Mexican pesos. He is looking for a foreign tourist to work his currency exchange scam on. He makes a good living, as long as the amount is not too great it is far too much hassle for the victim to go to the police and have their holiday completely disrupted. As well as having to admit to a very stupid and illegal act. He notices the old man and starts to move in. The phrase ’Like to change money? I have the best rate for you’ does not leave his lips. This is the man who turned him down yesterday. No matter the English couple he noticed earlier look a much better prospect. They would not need to change money but they might be interesting in supporting the school where he works. School or hospital? No something better! Hospital for sick animals. He has been working on this one in his mind for a few months now but has never had the chance to try it out. He hurries after the couple hoping to catch them before they leave the shade of the arbor. Consjero Vargas walks by on his way to a Party meeting. He notices the man on the bench and wishes that his town did not have to rely almost entirely on tourism for its income. It was designated a World Heritage Site and he is proud of that. But he doesn’t like tourists who just come to stare and know nothing of the Revolution and the suffering the people went through to build socialism. If there are going to be tourists let them stay in their hotels and be shown around the town by a properly accredited guide. We do not want to attract people like this old man who only comes here to drink beer, he thinks. Yainci the old man who collects empty beer cans which can be traded in for a small fee notices that the Gringo has almost finished his beer. The man is just a Gringo to him; he does not judge or make comparisons. All that interests him is the beer can. He picks a seat three benches up, sits down and waits. There are other beer can collectors working this square. I take a last swallow of beer and finish the can. I leave it on the bench for those people who come around and collect them. I sling my bag around my shoulder and head back to my room. Yaincy picks up the empty can. The sun has moved and the patches of shade within the arbor have changed. Bonita and Pablo move along and retake possession of their favourite bench. A hospital for sick animals? says Janet. Portland
This is now my third day, staying with Madison and Morgan in Portland. We have been on a hike along a waterfall trail about an hours drive away. The forests of hemlock, pine, fir and cedar ( I am guessing about the trees as I struggle to recognise the difference) are extraordinarily beautiful. I find the city rather difficult and disorientating, all the suburbs where Madison lives are set out in a grid and to me all the blocks look very much the same, neat two storey houses with gardens open to the road. I find myself navigating by remembering distinctive trees or particular flowers in peoples gardens as there are no shops or signs to guide me. Although there are the signs that people put up in their gardens, Black Lives Matter, Save the Orcas, LBGT Rights etc. All useful to help me find my way. I find myself disturbed by the number of homeless people who are so evident even in the city centre, some have even set up their tents in the main streets. Here in America, so much is the same as back home in the UK, but on the other hand so much is different, often in small and subtle ways, such as understanding the menus in a restaurant or suddenly finding your English word for some trivial thing cannot be understood. I find the lack of small shops, the corner shop, makes it difficult to buy things easily. Everything is so spread out that the shop you need can be hard to find. For example, I wanted a charging cable for my phone, something in England, which would be very easy to find and cheap to buy. I saw no shops in the city centre where I could buy one and only came across by chance an expensive little place that mainly sold pounds but also had accessories. Very few people seem to walk, so I guess that if they want something they will get in their car and drive to the appropriate place a bit like people in the UK drive to the big supermarkets for their weekend shopping. I have spent today, just sitting in the little yard outside Madison’s door, catching up with work for the Music Festival and paying bills that needed to be paid . I’m going to try and do as much of that kind of thing, as I can while I have a good Internet connection. We took a drive to the coastal town of Astoria and visited the small Oregon film museum , largely devoted to the film The Goonies that had been filmed locally. As I had not seen The Goonies much was lost on me. We then went to the nearby Flavel House Museum. Flavel had made his fortune as a pilot on the Columbia river in the nineteenth century and built a splendid wooden mansion in the European style, looking rather American gothic to me. We moved on to Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock, the largest of several volcanic outcrops rising from the sands. The rocks around the base of the were covered with huge mussels and the pools full of huge plum coloured starfish and huge green sea anemones. Both the stacks and the pools were cordoned off to protect the wildlife. Seabirds nested high on Haystack Rock too far for me to see clearly, though a black oyster-catcher landed on a nearby rock and I got a good look at a familiar but very different bird. It reminded me of the first time I saw a black swan. Yesterday I tried to take a bus into town to visit the famous Powell’s bookshop. Powell’s City of Books. It claims to be the largest independent bookshop in the world and is certainly among the top five. It takes up four floors of a whole block, subject areas are coloured themed to help one through the labyrinth of stairs and steps. Despite the vast size of the stock there were some sections I thought were lacking. I felt the philosophy section, though excellent, leant rather to the right and the popular. The religious section also far outnumbered the philosophy. Atticus’s tiny few shelves of philosophy stood up well in comparison. I was surprised to see that prices were higher than most UK shops as I had always supposed books to be much cheaper here. My journey to Powell’s was supposed to be by bus but I waited for about thirty minutes and no bus passed so I started walking. Then of course the bus went past. I reached a stop where a sign told me the next bus was in an hour and a half so I continued walking. And walking. I got lost. I had not taken my hat as I thought I would be riding busses and the sun was high and burning. Once again there seemed to be no shops, cafes or bars around where I could get a brief rest from the heat. Or people to ask directions as the map on my phone was not easy to read. I passed an old lady who asked, Are you lost? Yes, I said, can you tell me how to get a bus into town, I’m going to Powell’s bookstore. She looked rather puzzled but kindly pointed me in the right direction before asking, Are you Bob? At which point I realised that she was repeating her first question that I had heard as ‘lost’. I explained I was not Bob and that I hoped he would turn up, thanked her and went off to finally catch a bus for the last part of the journey. I mishear a lot of things in the USA. I’m now staying in Madison’s friend Melissa’s camper van for a couple of nights before starting our trek to Marion Lake.
|
The Temple of 1000 Gods
Elizabeth Travers steps out of the jungle and into the clearing and gasps. It was there in front of her towering upwards for what must been at least four hundred meters. Made them dark volcanic rock cut into huge close fitting stones to make a step pyramid with a black gaping entrance on the side that faced her. She takes off her wide brimmed bush hat and wiped her brow. The movement disturbed a flight of scarlet macaws in the canopy above and they take off with loud harsh calls which cause the grey long tailed langurs which sit in groups on the side of the pyramid to turn their heads and stare for a moment before going back to the careful work of mutual grooming. They have seen plenty of explorers arrive this way in the past. I should add that this is a world in which langurs and macaws live side by side.
Elizabeth put the hat back on her head and stepped forwards towards the pyramid. The Temple of a Thousand Gods! She speaks the words aloud and with perhaps a little reverence. She climbs the grey, almost black, stone steps, to the entrance scattering the monkeys as she does so. It takes her eyes a moment or two to adjust to the darkness. The only light comes from cleverly cut gaps in the three sides of the pyramid. Then she gasps in wonder. The inside of the pyramid is vast. The square base surrounded by tier on tier of grotesque statues. The thousand gods! She knows what she must do. She has come for one statue only and she has a drawing of it in the top pocked of her sweat stained shirt. She takes out the paper and begins to unfold it. Then with a terrifying screech a langur launches itself from out of the shadows behind one of the statues and snatches the paper from her hand before racing away out through the square of light that marks the entrance. She stands momentarily confused, her eyes dampen but she does not cry. Instead she steels herself; she has come this far and she will not simply turn back now and admit defeat. She walks slowly around the interior of the temple gazing at the statues. Most seem threatening, many evil. At last she stops before a statue with a scrunched up monkey face and toothy monkey grin. She is reminded of the statues of Hanuman she has seen in India. She has a fondness for the Hanuman and the story of the monkey bridge to Sri Lanka. So out of the thousand she chooses this one. She kneels on the floor before it, raises her hands above her head and repeats the words she has been learning for the last month.
Oh, great and powerful god I am the most miserable and unworthy of your servants but please in your beneficence grant me one small boon. Hear my oath and grant that I keep it. I Elizabeth Travers swear this oath here in The Temple of a Thousand Gods and may all misfortune fall upon me if I break it. I swear I will never carry unnecessary and cumbersome baggage when I next travel to a distant country. I will not carry bulky presents for my friends, I will not pack thick sweaters that I will never wear, I will not pack heavy boots and binoculars for treks I will never go on. I will not carry donations of books for charities that can easily order them on line. I will take only what I consider essential and buy anything else when I arrive. I will walk through all security and customs checkpoints with a smile on my face and a song on my lips. This is my oath. O Great God grant that I may keep it.
She touches the ground in front of the statue with her forehead before rising and walking out into the sunlight. In the clearing a helicopter has landed to carry her home.
After the helicopter has taken off and become just a black speck in the cloudless sky the langurs begin to screech and pour in their thousands down the sides of the pyramid and into the temple, countless others drop from the trees around the temple and follow them. The inside of the temple is packed with screeching and chattering monkeys surrounding the statue of their god.
The stone smile on the face of the god begins to crack and widen.
Then The Monkey God of Mischief, Small Misfortunes and Broken Oaths begins to laugh, and laugh. Loud enough to shake all the thousand statues So loudly that high above the temple in the helicopter the pilot turns to Elizabeth Travers and asks, Did you just hear something?
Elizabeth Travers steps out of the jungle and into the clearing and gasps. It was there in front of her towering upwards for what must been at least four hundred meters. Made them dark volcanic rock cut into huge close fitting stones to make a step pyramid with a black gaping entrance on the side that faced her. She takes off her wide brimmed bush hat and wiped her brow. The movement disturbed a flight of scarlet macaws in the canopy above and they take off with loud harsh calls which cause the grey long tailed langurs which sit in groups on the side of the pyramid to turn their heads and stare for a moment before going back to the careful work of mutual grooming. They have seen plenty of explorers arrive this way in the past. I should add that this is a world in which langurs and macaws live side by side.
Elizabeth put the hat back on her head and stepped forwards towards the pyramid. The Temple of a Thousand Gods! She speaks the words aloud and with perhaps a little reverence. She climbs the grey, almost black, stone steps, to the entrance scattering the monkeys as she does so. It takes her eyes a moment or two to adjust to the darkness. The only light comes from cleverly cut gaps in the three sides of the pyramid. Then she gasps in wonder. The inside of the pyramid is vast. The square base surrounded by tier on tier of grotesque statues. The thousand gods! She knows what she must do. She has come for one statue only and she has a drawing of it in the top pocked of her sweat stained shirt. She takes out the paper and begins to unfold it. Then with a terrifying screech a langur launches itself from out of the shadows behind one of the statues and snatches the paper from her hand before racing away out through the square of light that marks the entrance. She stands momentarily confused, her eyes dampen but she does not cry. Instead she steels herself; she has come this far and she will not simply turn back now and admit defeat. She walks slowly around the interior of the temple gazing at the statues. Most seem threatening, many evil. At last she stops before a statue with a scrunched up monkey face and toothy monkey grin. She is reminded of the statues of Hanuman she has seen in India. She has a fondness for the Hanuman and the story of the monkey bridge to Sri Lanka. So out of the thousand she chooses this one. She kneels on the floor before it, raises her hands above her head and repeats the words she has been learning for the last month.
Oh, great and powerful god I am the most miserable and unworthy of your servants but please in your beneficence grant me one small boon. Hear my oath and grant that I keep it. I Elizabeth Travers swear this oath here in The Temple of a Thousand Gods and may all misfortune fall upon me if I break it. I swear I will never carry unnecessary and cumbersome baggage when I next travel to a distant country. I will not carry bulky presents for my friends, I will not pack thick sweaters that I will never wear, I will not pack heavy boots and binoculars for treks I will never go on. I will not carry donations of books for charities that can easily order them on line. I will take only what I consider essential and buy anything else when I arrive. I will walk through all security and customs checkpoints with a smile on my face and a song on my lips. This is my oath. O Great God grant that I may keep it.
She touches the ground in front of the statue with her forehead before rising and walking out into the sunlight. In the clearing a helicopter has landed to carry her home.
After the helicopter has taken off and become just a black speck in the cloudless sky the langurs begin to screech and pour in their thousands down the sides of the pyramid and into the temple, countless others drop from the trees around the temple and follow them. The inside of the temple is packed with screeching and chattering monkeys surrounding the statue of their god.
The stone smile on the face of the god begins to crack and widen.
Then The Monkey God of Mischief, Small Misfortunes and Broken Oaths begins to laugh, and laugh. Loud enough to shake all the thousand statues So loudly that high above the temple in the helicopter the pilot turns to Elizabeth Travers and asks, Did you just hear something?
Waiting and searching
I’m sitting outside next to the trailer I’ve been staying in waiting for Madison to arrive before we get off on the hike to Marion Lake. I’m thinking about travel and why I do it, there is so much discomfort and so much waiting and searching; waiting for planes, buses and pickups and searching for misplaced tickets, passport, camera, hat. This morning I lost my hat. And in this heat a hat is essential. I was convinced it was somewhere near by, either in the van or I’d left it just outside. I searched the blankets, searched my bag, searched outside. On the third time, I’ve searching my blankets, I found it. Yet, somehow, all the searching and waiting adds something positive to the whole experience, it is in its way, a small adventure of its own.
To get to Marian lake Madison, Morgan, Sydney and myself made a long drive through steep wooded valleys up into the hills and then a little way down the dirt track to the trailhead. I started off carrying the paddleboard but found it very hard going and uncomfortable, although the trail itself was very easy, and had no shop inclines or climbs, just a gentle slope up to the lake. I started lagging far behind the other three and then swapped loads with Madison who was carrying a rucksack full of food and other supplies. It was only about 5 1/2 miles to walk, but I still found it difficult. I had expected there to be a little open land and grass around the lake, but in fact, the trees came right down to the shoreline. our camping site was just a patch of cleared ground, but some rectangles made of logs for us to sit on. Wildfire is such a danger that no open fires of any kind are allowed. Stepping down to the lake, the woods opened up into one of the most fantastic views I have seen. On the other side of the lake in the distance above the tree line rose a huge jagged mountain stippled with snow. We unpacked our bags set up the tents and inflated the paddleboard and then cooked pasta with tuna for dinner. There was some discussion about the quality of the lake water for drinking. Madison had bought a filter, but the water still tasted slightly brackish. I drank some straight from the lake. It looked perfectly clear and uncontaminated in my cup but still had the taste of forest in it.
The next day started off misty but cleared up into another hot day of sunshine. The others had not slept well and were worried about the water. I went out on the paddleboard, although I didn’t risk standing up as I was scared of losing my glasses and I am not at all a good swimmer. Just kneeling on the board, it felt quite secure and very manoeuverable, though not as comfortable as my inflatable canoe. When I return to camp after the paddle boarding the other tents had been taken dow and the bags packed up. Much as I would like to have stayed there was no choice but to return. Going back down, the trail was so much easier perhaps because the previous days exercise had relax my muscles and perhaps because most of it was downhill.
The next day Madison took me for a hike around the slopes of Mount Hood, the other two preferred to stay at home and relax. At the height of over 11,000 feet, Mount Hood is the highest peak in Oregon. We drove up to the ski lodge and then did a loop of trails through some wonderful forests of Douglas fir, Cyprus, hemlock and various kinds of pine trees and across clearings full of wild flowers.
That evening we went to the cinema to watch the new Barbie film, it was silly, funny and clever so quite enjoyable.The cinema was extraordinary, it was huge and sold vast amount of popcorn, soft drinks and even pizza.
The following day Madison drove us down through the Columbia Gorge, where in the 1920s, the engineer who built the road, also built a wonderful view point house and places to pull in and admire the waterfalls that cascade over the cliffs along the route. The view down the huge Columbia river, looking off into the mountains was spectacular.
My final day was spent paddle boarding on a lake close to Portland. it was a small lake dedicated to recreational boating and canoeing. Once again, I did not dare stand up on the board for fear of losing my glasses and getting thoroughly wet.I did think I might try standing if I could find some shallow water, but every shallow bay was filled with small children playing in the water and I was too self conscious to want to risk falling in in front of them.
Now I’m writing this on my last day in the USA.
I have found Portland a very hard city to get around. The grid system with all the little wooden houses open to the street left me confused. Madison tells me that many American cities don’t have a city centre, where you will find all the shops, museums and restaurants, as they do in European cities. Things are usually much more spread out. I have been continually stunned into silence by the choice offered on almost everything. To just buy a coffee or a beer has been going through pages and pages of menu, or at least that’s the way it seemed to me. So most of the time I had to turn to Madison and ask her to make the choice for me. The food was always very good, but so often they seemed to have far too many ingredients and I started to look forward something as simple as a poached egg on toast or a salad of just lettuce and tomato.
Apart from the wonderful hospitality and kindness shown to me by Madison and Morgan it is the extraordinary forests that I will remember most of all. So it will also be hard to forget the scatological conversation and descriptions of their worst cases that arose out of having three nurses in one car.
I’m sitting outside next to the trailer I’ve been staying in waiting for Madison to arrive before we get off on the hike to Marion Lake. I’m thinking about travel and why I do it, there is so much discomfort and so much waiting and searching; waiting for planes, buses and pickups and searching for misplaced tickets, passport, camera, hat. This morning I lost my hat. And in this heat a hat is essential. I was convinced it was somewhere near by, either in the van or I’d left it just outside. I searched the blankets, searched my bag, searched outside. On the third time, I’ve searching my blankets, I found it. Yet, somehow, all the searching and waiting adds something positive to the whole experience, it is in its way, a small adventure of its own.
To get to Marian lake Madison, Morgan, Sydney and myself made a long drive through steep wooded valleys up into the hills and then a little way down the dirt track to the trailhead. I started off carrying the paddleboard but found it very hard going and uncomfortable, although the trail itself was very easy, and had no shop inclines or climbs, just a gentle slope up to the lake. I started lagging far behind the other three and then swapped loads with Madison who was carrying a rucksack full of food and other supplies. It was only about 5 1/2 miles to walk, but I still found it difficult. I had expected there to be a little open land and grass around the lake, but in fact, the trees came right down to the shoreline. our camping site was just a patch of cleared ground, but some rectangles made of logs for us to sit on. Wildfire is such a danger that no open fires of any kind are allowed. Stepping down to the lake, the woods opened up into one of the most fantastic views I have seen. On the other side of the lake in the distance above the tree line rose a huge jagged mountain stippled with snow. We unpacked our bags set up the tents and inflated the paddleboard and then cooked pasta with tuna for dinner. There was some discussion about the quality of the lake water for drinking. Madison had bought a filter, but the water still tasted slightly brackish. I drank some straight from the lake. It looked perfectly clear and uncontaminated in my cup but still had the taste of forest in it.
The next day started off misty but cleared up into another hot day of sunshine. The others had not slept well and were worried about the water. I went out on the paddleboard, although I didn’t risk standing up as I was scared of losing my glasses and I am not at all a good swimmer. Just kneeling on the board, it felt quite secure and very manoeuverable, though not as comfortable as my inflatable canoe. When I return to camp after the paddle boarding the other tents had been taken dow and the bags packed up. Much as I would like to have stayed there was no choice but to return. Going back down, the trail was so much easier perhaps because the previous days exercise had relax my muscles and perhaps because most of it was downhill.
The next day Madison took me for a hike around the slopes of Mount Hood, the other two preferred to stay at home and relax. At the height of over 11,000 feet, Mount Hood is the highest peak in Oregon. We drove up to the ski lodge and then did a loop of trails through some wonderful forests of Douglas fir, Cyprus, hemlock and various kinds of pine trees and across clearings full of wild flowers.
That evening we went to the cinema to watch the new Barbie film, it was silly, funny and clever so quite enjoyable.The cinema was extraordinary, it was huge and sold vast amount of popcorn, soft drinks and even pizza.
The following day Madison drove us down through the Columbia Gorge, where in the 1920s, the engineer who built the road, also built a wonderful view point house and places to pull in and admire the waterfalls that cascade over the cliffs along the route. The view down the huge Columbia river, looking off into the mountains was spectacular.
My final day was spent paddle boarding on a lake close to Portland. it was a small lake dedicated to recreational boating and canoeing. Once again, I did not dare stand up on the board for fear of losing my glasses and getting thoroughly wet.I did think I might try standing if I could find some shallow water, but every shallow bay was filled with small children playing in the water and I was too self conscious to want to risk falling in in front of them.
Now I’m writing this on my last day in the USA.
I have found Portland a very hard city to get around. The grid system with all the little wooden houses open to the street left me confused. Madison tells me that many American cities don’t have a city centre, where you will find all the shops, museums and restaurants, as they do in European cities. Things are usually much more spread out. I have been continually stunned into silence by the choice offered on almost everything. To just buy a coffee or a beer has been going through pages and pages of menu, or at least that’s the way it seemed to me. So most of the time I had to turn to Madison and ask her to make the choice for me. The food was always very good, but so often they seemed to have far too many ingredients and I started to look forward something as simple as a poached egg on toast or a salad of just lettuce and tomato.
Apart from the wonderful hospitality and kindness shown to me by Madison and Morgan it is the extraordinary forests that I will remember most of all. So it will also be hard to forget the scatological conversation and descriptions of their worst cases that arose out of having three nurses in one car.