DAY 4: THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

Some brief observations about dogs in Cuba.  Dogs are everywhere, unleashed and untagged.  The breeds are overwhelmingly Heinzes.  Dogs are streetwise and wary, but not unfriendly, and small to medium-sized with predominance of brown or brown-and-white coats.  Most of the dogs are thin, but not overtly ill.  They are instantly alert where food might be dropped, or offered.  We did not see a single Havanese, the so-called "national dog of Cuba" (we're guessing they're all in the USA).  Cats are more visible in rural areas than in Havana.  They are skittish and exhibit the same desperation for food.

This day commenced by bus ride to the harbor, around the Havana rail yard (Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Cuba).  Though the yard is a big facility, only a small part seemed in use.  Trains do run, however, to all parts of the country.  We boarded the harbor ferry, just across the street from a fairly new Russian Orthodox church, for a short ride to Regla. The ferry is an old metal clunker with a clattering diesel motor.  Passengers stand in the open bay and hang onto poles similar to those in subway cars in the US.  The doors are open, with a single thin barricade, and local kids fish out them.  The ferry fare is approximately 25 cents American, although we were paid up front as a group.  To board, one must pass through security, as rigorous as at the airport.  They do bag checks and allow no parcels over a certain size, etc.  Photography in the terminal and on the boat is strictly verboten, so please ignore the photographs below, which MJ most certainly did not take.  Viviana told us that security was added after an incident in the 1990's, when gunmen hijacked the ferry, passengers and all, intending to sail it to Florida.

Russian Orthodox Church,  Havana

Looking back from Regla, with ferry returning to Havana

Regla is a workers' town, and it is evident from murals and posters in the community that there remains strong support for the Revolution there.  Per our guide, Regla was a slave town, and then ex-slave community, and is still populated largely by people of African descent.  Given the demographics, it is a place where Santería, the religion blending traditional African Yoruba religion with Spanish Catholicism, took root and is commonly practiced.  For perspective, Santería shares some beliefs and practices with Vodun, or the voodoo of Haiti and Louisiana, which mixes African and French Catholic motifs.  Standing out, because they wear brilliant all-white clothing, are the Santería initiates.  Once their yearlong period of purification and rejuvenation is complete, they can resume wearing usual clothing.  By this time their stature is recognized among their fellow practitioners.  A few of the basic tenets of the religion were explained by our guide.  The philosophy is quite complex.

Santería ritual at water's edge, Regla

Rose petals, part of the offering

In the church at Regla, a fusion of Santería and Catholicism has evolved.  The church dates from the early 1800's, but a shrine has been on the site since the 1600's.  The shrine is dedicated to "The Black Madonna," a sainthood conferred by combining the Yoruba goddess of the ocean with the conventional Virgin Mary.  The Catholic Church accepts the concept.

Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Regla

This day the church was packed for Christening Day.  There were babies wearing white gowns and many family members taking pictures.  Upon entry, we were greeted by great bustle and murmur of voices – clearly, this is a social as well as religious occasion.  Though very obviously Catholic, the gathering suggested some elements of Santería, too.

Time constraints limited our experience of Regla to the church, and to bus passage through the main streets of the town, which to us had a barrio-like character.

Beyond some other smaller towns, we came to the neighborhood of San Francisco de Paula.  SFDP, a Havana suburb, is at the edge of Finca Vigia, the Cuban estate of Ernest Hemingway.  Next to the main gate of Finca Vigia, there is a little league baseball field, and practice was in full swing.

Baseball is NOT the Cuban national pastime.  It's the Cuban national PASSION.  We paused here while Michel, our driver, and Tom, of our group, strolled onto the field to offer a clutch of new baseballs to the manager (he's standing on the mound with the pitcher).  New equipment is a godsend for these teams.  In some locales, it is said, wadded up editions of "Granma" serve as balls and stacked editions as bases.  The manager's pleasure was visible, and there were abrazos for Tom and Michel.  It was a little bit emotional.  Viviana told us that this very same field has been coached by the elderly man, wearing #42 in the picture, since the 1950's.  Some pre-Revolutionary US major league players grew up here, and, she believes, one called "The Cuban Rocket" (sic) is in the Hall of Fame.  If so, the closest match I can find to her legend is Orestes "Minnie" Minoso, "The Cuban Comet".  Locals say Hemingway used to join in the games.

Finca Vigia is up the hill, above the baseball field.  The backstory, if true, holds that Hemingway's wife (Martha Gellhorn at the time, if research is accurate) rusticated him to this finca (farm).  She hoped, thereby, better to discourage his alcohol consumption and bar-crawling proclivities, which had progressed in the city to the point of near-ruination.  More distance from his preferred hangouts might have helped, in that Hemingway continued to write, and from this refuge produced works to include "The Old Man and the Sea".   His respite from booze, though, was only partial and temporary.

Finca Vigia is a generic tour stop, probably the closest to such that we encountered on our itinerary. The parking lot is crowded with buses and taxis.  There are an outdoor bar, a gift shop, and lots of Europeans and Japanese.  MJ bought a shower curtain with a naked lady on it.  Much to Dave's delight, a certain taxi driver was here, in the parking lot, at the same time we were.  He had driven one load of our group, the night before, on the Malecón excursion.  He sported a unique (well, probably common, but the only one we saw) straw hat imprinted with the image of Che on front, the Cuban flag on one side, and an emblematic homage to the 26 July Movement on the other side.  Dave had tried to buy the hat, on the spot the preceding evening, before he drove off with his passengers.  But, "Nah, nah, hombre," and a hearty laugh, and he sped away.  Now, serendipity(?) put this fellow here at Finca Vigia, and MJ urged Dave to go and see if he'd part with the hat today.  Turns out he was willing to negotiate this time (negotiate?  Dave simply paid what he asked).  So the hat is now Dave's, faded images on down to the authentic sweat ring.

Hat looked better on him, maybe

                                                                       

Hemingway's place is on a hilltop, and is encompassed by woods.  At the pinnacle he built a separate observation tower, surmounted by a writing room to which we could climb but not enter.  By report, he wrote very little up there.  He didn't like the isolation, and preferred to write, standing up, at the writing desk in the study.  From the tower, though, is a great view toward Havana in the distance.

North, from the tower at Finca Vigia

The house interior is off limits to tourists, who might (probably) deface or pocket valuable items.  We could photograph through the windows, from all sides.  Hemingway had books everywhere (sources say there are more than 9,000 in the various rooms).  Apparently, he fixated on his body weight and blood pressure, and through the bathroom window one can see a meticulous, hand-scrawled chronology of his weight on the wall next to a scale.  He also had some pickled creatures, one apparently a lizard, one a bat, in jars on a shelf near the bathroom window.  Game trophies adorn walls in several rooms.  And his living room displays oil paintings and a bullfighting poster, and partially filled liquor bottles easily accessed from his favorite chair.

Main entrance,  FincaVigia

Meticulous weight records near toilet

Lizard and bat in bathroom

Hemingway's typewriter.  MJ traded lipstick for this photo.

Hemingway's study and preferred writing desk

Living room

The manicured grounds include a sizeable back yard, which descends to the baseball field.  Walkways lead to the swimming pool; his restored fishing boat Pilar, which was moved here from Cojimar; and a pet cemetery wherein lie several of his dogs.  Dave quietly left the path, tried to amble inconspicuously down through the trees to the baseball field.  A guard intercepted, and said he understood, baseball is great, but stay on the paths.

Rumors of a nude Ava Gardner

It is intriguing that, in 2001, a long-rumored "secret basement" at Finca Vigia was opened and explored by literary archivists.  There is a treasure-trove of Ernestiana, still being examined and catalogued.

And one morning at Hotel Parque Central, we shared breakfast with the son of Hemingway's personal furniture maker.  Bruce was in Cuba to negotiate the potential repatriation of a large collection of Hemingway papers, which he holds and curates in Key West, Florida.

From Finca Vigia, we bussed to Cojimar, a small fishing village a few miles to the east of Havana.  Getting there, we traversed countryside that alternates cultivated fields and woods, with rocky outcroppings here and there.  Tractors and horse-drawn wagons share the road with buses and cars.  Cojimar, with its bay and harbor, is the conceptual setting for "The Old Man and the Sea," although not named Cojimar in the book.  It is easy to picture the old man beaching inside this harbor, his boat still lashed to the shark-eaten skeleton of the huge marlin which he had caught and reeled in, alone, by hand.  Sentinel at the harbor entrance, the Spanish fort Torreón dates from the 1600's.   A guard collects 1 CUC to enter, where from inside one sees exactly what one sees from outside.  When tour buses arrive in Cojimar, a few locals materialize.  One elderly couple, we guess to be in their 80's, play guitar and sing at the Hemingway bust pictured below, and are pretty doggone good.  A CUC in the hat brings a smile.

Some beguiling scenes from Cojimar:

Carmella Padilla will discover that entry is 1 CUC

Hemingway moored Pilar at this pier

Pier entrance

Hemingway looking to the sea.  Erected just after Hemingway's death

José Martí's version of
"Actions speak louder than words."

Che, "There are no difficult tasks, only incapable men."

On a residential street a few blocks inland, we lunched at Paladar Ajiaco de Cojimar.  Ajiaco is an indigenous stew, and indeed ajiaco was served, along with the inescapable mojito.  Among the main dishes, fittingly, was grilled marlin.  Thinking of "The Old Man and the Sea," and never having eaten marlin before, Dave ordered it and loved it.  Not mentioned by our guide, but referenced in several guidebooks, is a fracas in the summer of 1994, when thousands of boats, homemade rafts, skiffs, inner tubes, what have you, gathered at Cojimar Bay to attempt the crossing to Florida.  The "balseros" believed that the USA was offering political asylum.  Most did not make it.   For evenhandedness, though, it bears emphasizing that:
     – this happened during the "Special Period," when Cubans no longer had Russian assistance but still lived under the US embargo, a time of terrific deprivation;
     – the Cuban government was actually indifferent to allowing some people to leave, if they wished;
     – the Cuban Coast Guard did try to intercept and rescue unworthy craft; and
     – at least some departees were criminals hoping to escape capture and prosecution by emigrating.

Going westward from Cojimar back to Havana, along Via Blanca, we passed the Estadio Panamericano and its peripheral playing fields, courts, and dormitories.  The facility hosted the 1991 Pan American games.  It looks essentially abandoned.  It's a plebeian design, ugly and already falling apart.  Perhaps it can be useful in future, if refurbished.

Back in Habana Centro, we drove up a narrow side street.  Michel was seeking a turnaround, wanting to re-enter the main thoroughfare with the bus pointing in the right direction.  These streets show a criss-crossing latticework of individual electrical cables, heading off in all directions, and at differing elevations, from the closest transformer.  Surely some are "off-the-grid."  The bus took one cable completely out from its home attachment, provoking the sudden egress of a shirtless, wildly gesticulating and clearly pissed-off fellow.  Other than smile and apologize, though, there wasn't much we could do.  Here's betting he had it reconnected in less than an hour.

The bus repositioned, we parked next to the gallery of Esterio Segura, an accomplished and notable Cuban artist.  Esterio is constructing a new studio-gallery, in an old edifice in a working class neighborhood.  He employs local neighborhood assistants, and plows some of his earnings back into the community, investing where he works.  This, we learned, is a recurring theme, artists who gain some prominence helping out their neighbors.   These are Esterio's gallery neighbors:

Painting an aerial sculpture

Bricking up an old door

Esterio's neighbors

Esterio works in a number of forms, from drawing to painting to large-scale sculptures.  His oeuvre is politically and, ahem, erotically charged, frequently with subordinate themes of militarism, or repression of free speech.  One controversial piece comprises a 12-place dinner setting, with bowls and plates illustrating Fidel Castro in a variety of sexual poses, having congress with a voluptuous, female representation of the nation of Cuba.   Erotic images are superimposed on photographs of cityscapes and other landscapes.  The Cuban government has not censored Esterio for these, but has not yet permitted their exhibition, either.  "Cuba is not ready for this," the government tells him.  We will, in this blog, honor Esterio's agreement with his purchasers, that none of his work be shown publicly until shown first in Cuba.  Here, though, are some permitted photographs of his work, which is wonderful:

Explaining his erotic place settings

Esterio Segura

Postequality airplane:  all seats are first class

Esterio's work exemplifies an idea:  that art can sometimes cross boundaries, in a restricted society, which journalism and literature cannot.

From Esterio's, we went back into Habana Vieja, to visit the studio of Luis Rodriguez Noa.  Luis went to the Havana National Arts School, and is the son of Luis Eliades Rodríguez Martínez, famed artist of Baracoa.  Noa's studio/gallery is tucked away in an old building needing restoration.  We met Noa last night, at La Boguedita del Medio.  He came there with wife and beautiful daughter, seen in the photos and seen dancing in the videos of Day 3.  Noa's cogent oral artist's statement, in English, explained that he is trying as an artist to portray visual images which reflect how human thoughts work – rapidly processed and often incomplete, in disarray.  We think he's caught that notion perfectly.  Noa and some of his works:

A friend purchased this one.

Noa and a serigraph which is now in our house

Mary Jane (AKA Janie, inside joke), peregrinating in and around Noa's building, met the homeowner downstairs from him, on the street level.  This man is immensely proud of his home, and offered to let MJ come in, meet his dog, and take photographs of him and his dwelling:

The folks double-parked on a nearby street also didn't mind a photo:

It surely appears that Cubans like to pose for photographs.

For dinner,  Paladar Le Chansonnier in Vedado.  Elegant, French-themed with Cuban basics, and very beautiful.  It rained gently, for the first time during our trip, while we were inside, refreshing the air nicely.  Le Chansonnier and its environs:

Chandelier of recycled plastic bottles and sheeting

The penultimate activity for Day 4 was a stop at the infamous Hotel Nacional.  A Mafia stronghold during the pre-Revolutionary period, and particularly during Bautista's administration, the hotel has been visited by a wide assortment of politicos, gangsters, athletes, and celebrities.  There was an all-out gun battle here when Bautista's coup took place in 1936.  Frank Sinatra performed here regularly.  Frank's performances were mostly smokescreens, since he had little recognizable talent, but came and went as a bagman, carrying briefcases of money back and forth between Las Vegas and Havana.  The hotel casino is no more since the Revolution, but the casino bar is still here.  It has a fabulous photo gallery of the famous and infamous who have stayed, wagered, or imbibed here.

Hotel Nacional

Historic bar, Hotel Nacional

Hotel Nacional, rear courtyard

Meyer Lansky

To our great advantage, our stop at Hotel Nacional was on a Saturday night.  Saturday nights feature the gathering of thousands of young people and fun seekers on the Malecón.  From far away, the sursurrus of voices, radios and players, and car horns is audible.

Malecón, Saturday night, from Hotel Nacional

How to top off a day like this?  A small group of us roached up at a table in the lounge of Hotel Parque Central until 2:45 am, enjoying Cuban rum and cigars.  Present were Jonathan Viscoli; Dave; Mary Jane; Laura, our facilitator from Cuba Cultural Travel; and Laura's friend Maya, a young Cuban woman who had been a tour guide until her engagement to a Dutchman.  There ensued a complex social and political discussion.  Maya had no hesitation to portray Cuba honestly, as a native, holding forth on the good things, the warts, and all in between.  We could have gone on until dawn, but then we might have missed Day 5.