The Cuban Missive Crisis

For this title you have to thank Joe. I was going to call it “A Tale of Incompetence” but I thought no-one would believe me.

It all started off in a fairly ordinary way for any ordinary round the world trip – drunk. Let’s face it, can you imagine Magellan or Drake setting off sober – they would not have set off if they were sober. It was quite simple really, I had arranged to travel avoiding the dreaded Christmas Day in England by booking a flight at 12.30 on Boxing Day; the ignorant amongst us – i.e. the Americans – can look that up.

The only problem was that the flight was 12.30 a.m. – hmm! Fortunately my American friends next door saw the way through this – a bottle of gin before I set off. This worked extremely well in that I had one beer during dinner on the 10% full plane and fell asleep for most of the flight. I changed planes in Frankfurt and got to Bristol (despite The Sloth being half an hour late picking me up – what a surprise) by 10.30 or so on Boxing Day. It did take me a couple of minutes to work out why I had a bag of sliced lemons in my pocket. Nora had equipped me for the potential meanness on the flight for the right ingredients for a decent G & T.

A few days of normality ensued i.e. seeing lots of people all over England (although not all I wanted to see, of course) and drinking huge amounts of alcohol. New Years Day was symptomatic of the aging process. About 10 of us went for a walk. We were in the pub inside 45 minutes and didn’t take much longer walking back. These days were pretty well incident free apart when I visited my dad. Dad had a big stroke six years ago which has imposed severe physical limitations on him but that has not stopped him enjoying getting out in the country, so that is what we did when I arrived on his doorstep. Off we went, driving up Swaledale and we were going much better than I expected because, those of you who live in Northern England may recall, there was quite a lot of snow in late December in Yorkshire. I thought that I didn’t want to go to the top of the valley, it was too far and the conditions on the road were likely to get worse, and inquired from Dad if I could cut off north to join the A66 – a main Trans-Pennine road. (Maps? What are those?) He assured me that it was fine, I could take the road up to Tan Hill and join the A66 there but there were three or four hairpin bends out of the valley that might be a bit icy. Why was I so stupid – I knew that the Tan Hill Inn is the highest pub in England – I had been there 30 years before whilst walking the Pennine Way. Anyway, up we went and sure enough the hairpins were a bit slippery but with a front wheel drive car and keeping it in a low (but not too low) gear meant we were fine through those. Up through a hamlet and we are on to compacted snow. “Dad, how far?” “Not far.” So I keep going for a couple of kilometres up a gently rising road – no problem, just a bit of wheelspin. Then the road steepens a bit – and I mean no more than 1 in 10 – and the wheelspin on the front starts in earnest. OK, I try different gears, I back down and try again, I try spinning my way up this short climb, I try spinning enough to get through the snow to the road to give me some grip; it is a hire car – Hmm!

So what do I do? Shall I get my Dad to sit on the bonnet (hood if you are American), it is front wheel drive after all? A little tricky for an 85 year old in the frost – perhaps his reactions are not up to falling off the front and then jumping out of the way when I get some grip. Shall I get him to drive? A bit dodgy when his clutch foot is extremely weak. Push – no definitely not. So back down the road backwards. I did get out and look a couple of times where it was fairly flat and thought that I might be able to swing the car round far enough so that the front end would be pointing down the road after the swing off the road but no way. So I happily (?) reversed all the way back to the hamlet, sometimes between a ditch and a nasty drop off. Only took half an hour and all very exhilarating in a rather unexpected way. When I asked Dad why we had gone that way he said “Well, you were driving” You can’t really call your father a “duplicitous bastard” when he is that aged.

From then on things could only get worse.

I went and saw some friends in Ireland and the second-best sea-foam I have ever seen but that is not why I went. Gary has always had “a job” and now he doesn’t have one. That is life. I went to try and persuade him that you can make money to live without “a job” but by doing other things. We have lots of contacts in China willing to do things that make money for some or all of us, including Gary’s area of expertise. Could I persuade him? If you know Gary you don’t need an answer. If you don’t you will have guessed by now.

Things got worse. I had intended another foray to the North but I was too tired before the next thing – skiing. It may seem bizarre but the main thing that you miss living in a Chinese city in exercise – walking, skiing and golf in my case. Skiing is the most compact holiday of those three – ski all day and drink until 2.00 a.m. every night – you have to get up at 8.00 a.m. to be first out on the slopes. You never think about work – you are too busy concentrating on trying not to die or so busy celebrating surviving the day.

On the first lift I put my goggles down and the lens fell out of my glasses. Ah well it happens, you put it back but you are reminded that you normally ski in Contact Lenses – which I had forgotten. This event recurred.

Karel is not the man to go with if you want a gentle day out. He is a couple of years older than me, much fitter and a vastly better skier. However, he thinks he is still young and took up snowboarding 4 years ago so we should be OK despite the fact that I have not been skiing for three years. How stupid can you get? We get a flight at some ungodly hour of the morning, which means that we get half a days easy skiing when we get there. Ho Ho Ho. Towards the end of the afternoon we are heading off the mountain but end up on a black run. For the ignorant the grades are green, blue, red and black – no prizes for guessing the order. Now, in Italy, I can make a fair attempt at skiing black runs, this is not elegance personified as you may well have guessed, but I expect to get down them without falling over most times. This was France – where a black is a black, or f******g steep. Anyway walking back up the slope in ski boots is a definite no-no, so off you go. Boarders can just tilt backwards and scrape their way down the slope – just as Karel did. Skiers have to ski across, make a turn, ski back, make another turn etc. Even non-skiers will have realised that this means that you are pointing down the slope at some point in the turn. On most slopes this is OK, but a French black? Anyway I made a few but sure enough, at one point, I didn’t quite get round the turn and over I went. As an experienced faller on ski slopes this is not really a problem, the difference was that on this occasion I started gathering speed after I had fallen over – not the usual occurrence. Now that may not be such a problem if you knew what you were doing or where you are going. Tricky those two I found. The decision making process can also be a little suspect on these occasions. Of course, I come to a halt after 100 metres or so when the slope levels out a bit but, funnily enough, my confidence isn’t great after such an event. I walk to a lift, go down and go to the bar.

Can it get worse? Of course.

The following day I had left Karel to go down some silly black run at the end of the day. I took a long, slow green run off. However, I had noticed on the bus into the resort the day before that the black towards the bottom didn’t look too bad so I headed 30 metres off the green to pick up the last bit of the black. Ah! A sheet of ice. Hmm, perhaps not. Easy, take your skis off and walk back to the green. There were a few other people there who had obviously made the same mistake but didn’t have my powers of recovery. I had taken my skis off, turned to walk back when I slipped. Yes, again I went down a 100 metres at least gaining speed etc. Boring, boring, boring. Two differences were that I lost my skis and collected a girl.

An interesting experience, falling down a ski slope, completely disoriented, your head pointing in various random directions at any given moment, not knowing where you are going or what is going to happen next whilst you are apologising for being a complete pillock.

She stops, I don’t know how, a good 30 metres above me; I am about 20 metres directly above a huge stanchion for a lift and, no, I don’t want to think about it, thank you very much. So now I have to walk back up the slope (for non-skiers, this is no joke, it will take about 200 steps) sweating like the proverbial pig to apologise and then try and find my skis. Wonder of wonders, a beautiful blond appears with my skis and dismisses my behaviour as perfectly understandable; her friend is fine. I grovel for a bit and leave as quickly as decency allows (and no Sleazy, Sheepshagger etc. I did not get a phone number, even though I deserved to buy dinner for half the town).

So can things get worse? Of course.

The following day is a non-confidence day, I even manage to fall a long way down a blue run. However by Tuesday it is time I started showing a bit of form so I was determined to improve. It was snowing. A minor fall on an easy run meant that Karel was a couple of minutes in front of me. Another fall meant that the gap was growing and, after waiting a few minutes, he assumed that I had passed him and went up the lift. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Skis are designed to come off when you fall over. However, this doesn’t always happen at low speeds and sure enough my left ski had not come off. Bit of a bugger when you do the splits. I knew that I was injured but if you have any sense of claustrophobia you do not want to come down in a body bag off a ski slope. Don’t get me wrong, these guys are brilliant skiers and you are laced in tightly so that they have control of the movement of the toboggan that you travel in with you interfering in no way and they will get down any slope, one in front to clear the route and another behind pulling the sledge with you in it.

Notice I said pulling the toboggan; that is that they are going at full skiing speed, often a lot faster than I would ski. Do I want to be in that thing? No. I put my skis back on and got to a lift, found Karel and went down. By the time I got to the doctor it hurt.

Straps, money, pills an exercise routine for a physiotherapist when I got back to England etc.

Yeh, yeh ,yeh So we went to see Bouncy. One of the great advantages of a skiing holiday in a chalet is that you meet fun people. (We have only had one experience when this did not happen). In this case it included a 21 year old who was a good skier (or so he said) and a better drinker. The latter I can testify too – it is the first time I have ever been outdrunk on a skiing trip – Ben was so drunk one night that the whole chalet woke up, not because of Ben falling over but my laughing at him. I have to say that, despite my injury, the only reason that Ben managed as much skiing as me in the whole week was because I drove him out on the last day, normally he had hangovers. The other really fun guy, Kev, was supposed to be boarding but always seemed to get back by about 3 in time to relax before the first of the, normally, two visits each the day to Bouncy. I was, of course, in the, outdoor, jacuzi or the, indoor, sauna most of the last three days. Life is tough when you are an injured skier.

So skiing could not be considered a great success. Back to England one day, Toronto the next and Havana on the third day.

Havana! Cuba has been on my list for 30 years and Castro’s accident last year made me realise that there was no putting it off. I am sure that when he dies the mighty dollar will win and the country will change very rapidly. In fact it already has. The collapse of the Soviet Union left Cuba deeply in the shit. Its main product has always been sugar and when the USA cut off imports in 1960 they were, how can I put it, fucked. The Soviet Union took up the slack pushing Cuba into an alliance that was stronger than they, Cuba, wanted and, largely, causing the crisis that this article is named after.

The USA, being the good liberals that they are, learnt nothing from this and have continued to try and repress Cuba ever since. I regard Castro as one of the great men of the twentieth century for withstanding this totally irrational intolerance from big brother.

The inability to sell their sugar was a big problem for Cuba in the early 90s and brought quite a lot of hardship. There solution was the classic Caribbean answer – tourism. This is now Cuba’s biggest business, overtaking sugar by the late nineties.

Havana is a beautiful city. I am sure it was probably even more so in the early part of the last century but many buildings have now been restored to their former, Spanish, glory. Not all, there are many rundown areas, but it is still a fabulous city to look at.

What else? Cuba is famous for beautiful girls and there are many of them. The problem is exactly that – they are girls. In many cases the onset of puberty is about a week before the onset of obesity – they eat too much sugar! An interesting fashion note here. In China, and other parts of the world, young women in uniform often wear something that looks like a skirt from the front but is actually a pair of shorts that you see from the back. In Cuba they have it somewhat differently. The school uniform in some schools is a pair of shorts with what can only be described as a rather thin loincloth over the top. Weird.

Music. Ah the music. Cuba is, of course, famous for the Buena Vista Social Club. You would never guess if you only go to restaurants. You get a trio singing three quick boring songs, always including “Guantanamera” (or however it is spelt) in ten minutes and then they pass the hat. Go to a decent bar. There they will play four or five songs and pass the hat and try and sell their CDs. I bought a couple of CDs but did not get CDs for the best two bands that I heard. These four or five songs will take close to an hour but the bands are fantastic. Take the tunefulness and lyrics of the BVSC and add driving drum rhythms that would put Africans to shame – fantastic. Find a bar that you like and go back, they change the acts each night and rotate them over three or four days.

I had arrived on a Friday afternoon so it was Monday morning before I saw the queues. The first one was at an electricity place – presumably to pay the bill but after that the queues were common. I never went to Eastern Europe in the Warsaw Pact days (in fact I still haven’t much) but I guess this was the face of communism that the western press used to always go on about. Cubans still get a basic ration issue but this is, apparently, barely minimal. To buy other things they often need Convertible Pesos, hence everyone wants to get hold of them so people who can rent out a room or two are comfortable – others may not be so. The stuff in shops was poor quality and little choice.

By this time my glasses had given up and the lower part that holds the lens in on the right hand side had broken. Cuba has, possibly, the best health system in the world. You don’t believe me? Read where some of the medical progress has come in recent years or about the export of doctors to underdeveloped countries. I was, however, disappointed that the posh specs shop that I tried could not fix my glasses so I bought some sellotape, did the necessary myself and could still read.

However, there is always a however, Cuba is competing in the luxurious Caribbean tourist market. Cheap it ain’t. Even though I was staying in people’s houses, a sort of B & B, this still cost 30 Convertible Pesos a night. This is easy to do and hotels cost at least double that. However, I was still spending 100 bucks a day. The local peso buys things cheap but you never get in to that market. Cuba set up the Convertible Peso as a dollar equivalent and you pay in that currency unless you stay for a while and can obtain the local currency – in 9 days I did not. Things in local currency cost 10% or less than in convertible currency. The illustrious president of the USA has upped the anti against Cuba and the Cubans responded so now you pay an 8% premium for using the US dollar i.e. the Convertible Peso (in Cuba, it is worthless outside) is worth more than a dollar. This includes credit cards and taking money from an ATM. So, despite the fact that credit cards issued in the US are not acceptable, you are charged the premium because the transaction is converted into USeless dollars. Take another currency in cash – lots of it – Euros, Pounds, Canadian or Aussie dollars, they probably even take Bhat.

This cost made me decide to go to a beach resort for a few days – particularly so that I could swim and strengthen my dodgy leg for the next part of the trip. The main attraction was the fixed price – 90 Convertible per day including all food and drink – yes booze. Well you know me. This was, of course, a mistake. I stayed in the hotel the first night and got thoroughly pissed with a Russian who I am pretty sure would not remember me. After that I had to go out and find bars with decent music so I spent more money. The swimming was also less than successful. I was in a tourist resort full of fat old people but it took me a good hour to find some fat bastard swimming shorts – perhaps this is indicative of the problems of supply. After that I did not swim – I do not like even slightly cold water!

The cars. It is true. There are a good number of small Japanese and French cars but also lots of the old American monstrosities – I went to the bus station in a 1928 something or other. There is something fascinating about watching somebody washing out a huge six cylinder engine block with water by the side of the road. They also have “eggs”. These are converted motorbikes with two wheels on the back, rather like a tuk-tuk in South-East Asia but they are yellow-orange and shaped like their name.

Cuba is a fascinating country – unlike anywhere else I have ever been. Go there soon. Just do it better than me – a few days in Havana and a few in Trinidad and a beach up the west end or a bit of walking (there are lots of big birds) would be much better.

Back to Toronto and then on to see Ian & Yvonne in western New York State for a weekend’s skiing.

One thing first. This was Toronto, where I packed the cigars I had bought whilst in Cuba in my ski boots hoping that they would avoid detection by the US customs machine. You are not allowed to take anything from Cuba into the USSA (perhaps I will leave that reference to the old USSR!) and any American who is caught having gone to Cuba is fined $7,500. I needn’t have worried – US customs and immigration are in Toronto and they want to get you on to the aircraft.

Those of you know who this couple in New York State will know about how they spend six months of the year living near a frozen lake and driving through metres high snow banks. Bullshit. I have a photograph that shows about 10 square centimetres of snow outside their house. The lake was full of waves. This was late January. Do not trust them.

It was fun though. The first night was going to see the local amateur musical show. Not quite the quality of Cuba although, to be fair, the brass band were pretty good. At this point, well actually in the pub afterwards, my glasses gave out and the top half of the right side also became detached from the rest of the frame. As you know my eyesight could give a mole a good run for its money so I was pretty keen on getting to an optician in the morning so where did we go first – wait for it – Walmarts! Impossible I thought. 18 bucks and half an hour later I come out with my lenses fitted into new (admittedly rather ugly) frames. All praise to Walmart.

That evening I & Y invited a couple round who we gradually realised that I had met on my previous visit 5 ½ years earlier. The lady is Russian and the guy is big and likes to be shrouded in mystery – wants you to think, that he was a spy - that type of stuff. Anyway conversation fell to hunting and he was asserting that hunters conserved the wildlife of America – the usual self-justifying bollocks that you get from these bloodthirsty types. My arguments were going quite well until I did an imitation of a hunter using a submachine gun to mow down the animals – rat-tat-tat-tat-tat - when my chair broke and I collapsed on the floor. Seemed to undermine my argument.

We went to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, which was excellent. True to form we had tried to go to another museum first but it was closed for six months. This turned out to be a good thing because the R & R HoF needs several hours. 2 hours in most museums is enough for me but I would have been happy to stay there 6 or 7 hours.

The following day we went to a local pancake house with some other friends of Y & I (who I had also met before) for breakfast. Closed. After lunch we went back to their place with loads of beer and ended up watching The Superbowl. Pleasant although, surprise surprise, not a great game. But is that what I had gone round the world for?

Of course it snowed heavily all day so Ian had a bit of fun driving home. So we can ski after all. Not quite, it was Monday the following day and they were working and I was off to my next destination.

I am not allowed to tell you where that is except Northern California. Neil & Kuldip had got married in August 2000 and I hadn’t seen them since so what did I expect? They live in a three-story house with Kuldip’s brother – Paul. Pol, Pohl or something similar. Let me describe the bottom floor where I was staying. My bedroom was (and probably still is) big. That is to say the size of a large master bedroom in most houses, six sided of course. It had its own en-suite which, of course, I did not use. Next door was a shower –steam room combination with an overhead jet and normal shower head plus the steam, much better. When I got up fairly early the day after I arrived I used my personal laundry room to wash and dry my clothes. This I did because I could not see any deer out of my bedroom at the time – that came later.

The rest of that level was quite minimal. I walked out the corridor into the rather well equipped bar. Off that is
1. A bit of a junk room – bigger than most living rooms
2. A wine cellar with plenty of racking for a couple of thousand bottles, although there were definitely no more than 500 bottles there – I checked.
3. A cinema. There are only 8 seats – fully reclining leather naturally.

Yes, they have it tough. P has made lots of money and has decided that he wants to make films. Those of you who know Neil will guess the rest – this household is entirely dedicated to films. They watch films all day – short and long; if you go out to visit somewhere you are scouting for talent or locations; if you are sat at a computer you are checking out the opposition or looking for ideas; if you are (rarely) sat at a desk doing some real work you are phoning or emailing people about business. Everything. They have actually made some films but never got then to market – which they assured me would be profitable. Why? In my opinion it is because they have too much money to drive them. Odd isn’t it, Neil has never two happenies to rub together but they need a real kick up the arse to actually show that they can deliver what they aspire to.

As a confirmed anti-American (well politically) I have to say that northern California is beautiful. We went to Santa Cruz, Monterrey and Carmel (Clint was mayor if you remember) – lovely. But of course we were scouting for talent (lots) and locations – remember Neil, the haunted house just before you get to the city limit of Monterrey.

An evening in a Jacuzzi at Narita airport near Tokyo and then home.

P.S. An Irony

I had come home a few days early because I had a visitor. We went to Yunnan province – my 5th visit and did stuff that I had done before. We went to Lijiang where we sat around in the sun drinking and wandering round the lovely old town. I don’t really know Shelley that well but we had a great time, especially walking Tiger Leaping Gorge. I have walked this before but it is a wonderful walk, now apparently closed to foreigners because they want to build a damn. It is three kilometres deep and much steeper-sided than The Grand Canyon. I am not belittling the GC – it is spectacular – but so is TLG. We met some fine people – an Aussie student who was a perfect gentleman, an English cook who spends more than half of his time travelling the Silk Road and a German film producer. The mantle of incompetence was definitely passed on. Julia lost her pouch with her passport and money in it. She speaks competent Chinese and a few hours of frustration in the local police station caused her to get pissed off and abuse the local police. She had to go back sham-faced in the morning and grovel when an old lady handed everything in – and wouldn’t take any money. Shelley took over by leaving her cash card in an ATM. A bit of a bugger when she was due in Auckland in 4 days, having been to Manchester first.

It was, perhaps, the best bit of the whole trip.

P.P.S. I hung around in Guangzhou for a week, bored, so went to Thailand for a week before teaching started – but that is a different story.