Adam Jacot de Boinod revels in the lingering nostalgia and rustic otherworldly beauty of Cuba.
Now is the time to visit this great country. Now that it has reached true prominence, and with a focus that’s now shining upon this uniquely troubled, special and intriguing island with its most dramatic of capitals. People flock to the island typically for the sun and sand, and for the cigars, the salsa and the old colourful cars. The main tourist spots outside of Havana are Matanzas, Villa Clara, Trinidad, Jardines del Rey and Holguin. But they may as well be newcomers to the real consequences of socialism.
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Some tourists may suffer from the lack of products on offer in the shops or any modern technology. My hotel bookshop, for instance, only stocked copies of Fidel Castro’s life and works and other Communist bibles. But hopefully, tourists will recognise that a visit to Cuba is about so much more than creature comforts. There’s the spirit of the country, the charm of the people and the music running through their bones.
This lack of efficiency can only partly be excused by the Caribbean sun and any attempts at manual work in the midday heat. It’s more that the entire sense of time has been frozen since 1959 when the revolution took hold of the island. While Cubans are highly intelligent and articulate, they show little initiative or enterprise. The State has stripped away any self-reliance and any desire to challenge. So, Cuba is in one massive time-lapse. A museum to Communism.
Cuba is nonetheless one of the world’s most sustainable countries, based on its own human welfare index (life expectancy, literacy and GDP) and an ecological footprint (the amount of land needed to fulfil a person’s food and energy needs). Luckily, it’s also a blissful and providence land, so food is plentiful for all. I had pineapple nearly every meal (or else guava, papaya and mango) and the waters remain full of the very fish Hemingway was so keen to catch.
I love Havana. It’s almost cinematic and certainly scenic. Beautiful old cars from the 1950s, many working as taxis, hoot and crank around the city, customised with doors and side mirrors held together, literally, with Sellotape. The city strongly resembles Naples in its laundry lines and systematic chaos, bustle and deprivation. Better at night and sundown for me even than by daylight. All steamy, all frenzy and oh-so-very Tennessee Williams.
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The semi-clad figures emerge from the balconies (that drip with rusty electricity wiring) to express themselves, brandishing food, cigars and drink. The fading, peeling Art Nouveau buildings with their intricate iron grills match the roads in their state of disrepair, with potholes so deep taxi drivers joke every ride comes with a free massage.
The top spot for luxury, and nowhere being more characterful, is the Hotel Nacional. This imposing 1930s structure is truly redolent of Cuba’s yesteryear glamour, with a wall of fame, in its own museum, boasting Frank Sinatra, Walt Disney and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The stylish music hall and casino with its cloud of cigar smoke are highly nostalgic, and the swimming pool is so retro and in need of repair that it has a cachet of its own.
Most memorable are the specific room numbers of the historic guest list. All on the same floor are 218 for Nat King Cole, 214 for Sinatra, 228 for Fred Astaire and 235 for Errol Flynn. The prize restaurant is the Comedor de Aguiar, with penguin-besuited waiters and sparkling chandeliers. The Cordero lamb dish and the Santa Digna wine are excellent. I recommend a daiquiri in the Churchill Bar.
To take a breath from city life, I leave Havana the next morning to get a feel for the countryside. I pass small shacks, tumbledown houses with a slap of paint here and there and goats and hens roaming the gardens. The undulating fields vary in size. and tractors are saved for the larger centrally owned farms. It’s common to find tall palm trees standing in the middle of a field seeded for crops.
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It is a four-hour bus ride to Cayo Coco amongst the archipelago of wetlands that make up the Jardins Del Rey. These mangroves are joined to the mainland by a lengthy causeway. There’s a divinely white sandy beach running along the back of my hotel, and there, every little comfort is included in the hotel package as Pedro and his donkey patrol the beach handing out beers and soft drinks to the hard-pressed sunbathers.
Rustic, frustrating at times and stuck in its delightful time warp, this is the Caribbean at its best.
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