Fidel Castro is old. I know this because he was on TV last night, dressed in his Team Cuba Olympic jacket. When I tuned in he was handing the interviewer copies of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Alan Greenspan’s biographies. He then proceeded to read exerpts from each book in Spanish. He’s still charismatic and you immediately recognize him as an intelligent and powerful man but there is a certain degree of force and energy that he lacks. I have watched footage of speeches Fidel has given and even if I didn’t understand them, they could bring me to tears. He was an incredible orator with his over-rolled “r’s” and his strong voice. But now he’s 80 and that strength has decrescendoed. Nonetheless it was incredible to see him and he seemed to be looking not unhealthy, just old.
Today we went to Las Terrazas, an ecological biosphere about 90 minutes west of Habana. Before the Revolution the entire area had fallen victim to massive deforestation in order to make room for coffee plantations and build railroads. After the success of the insurrection in 1959 the area along with 5 others were given priority to reforest and create a sustainable habitat for plants and wildlife. The town is called Las Terrazas because the farmers during the reforestation used a terrace system so the mountains would be accessible and in order to prevent erosion.
Of course the place was beautiful. Lush, looming mountains with streams and lakes, but really the highlights of the whole trip were the strange little incidents that took place throughout the day.
First of all, when we travel as a group we usually split up into two vans but today as we waited out on the porch our own personal city bus came lumbering down the street. We all piled in, awed by the monstrosity and barely filled half of the seats.
Once we had been on the road for about 45 minutes we stopped because there were some men selling cheese, guava jelly, and entire cooked chickens along side the road. I guess our bus driver was hungry because suddenly the men were in the bus and our bus driver was negotiating prices with the guys while one of them was running into the brush and coming back with more cheese. We couldn’t figure out where this cheese was coming from, all we knew is that it was in the bushes somewhere. In the end we ended up buying about 9 pounds of cheese and 3 pounds of guava jelly, which we all enjoyed immensely. Oh, we also bought a cooked chicken because it looked like a little naked person and we all found that amusing.
Once we got to Las Terrazas we…well, we looked at the terrace system and chased chickens for a while. Then we went to one of the only vegetarian restaurants in Cuba. All the food was amazing and already I forsee it being the best meal during my time here. We had a cold pumpkin soup, delicious varieties of hummus and bread, eggs and beans, things that I can’t really describe, and ICECREAM WITH HONEY. Even better though, is that the owner said we could Email him and he would send us the recipes to everything in Spanish as long as we would translate them to English for him!
After lunch we drove to a natural bath. The road down was narrow and bumpy and our driver doubted whether our not our city bus would fit, yet decided to try anyway. I’ve learned that in Cuba it’s always right to go against your better judgement. So off we went, bumping down this narrow unpaved road with branches coming through the windows and hitting us in the face. We stopped momentarily but no one could see what was going on until a 15 -year old kid brandishing a rifle boarded the bus. Apparently we were giving him a ride and he made a big show of disassembling his rifle in the middle of the bus. We made it to the bath but not before meeting another bus going the opposite direction. How we got past each other I’ll never really know, but we did it. The moment we got to the bath the sun slipped behind the clouds and a swarm of mosquitos and weird flies that draw blood settled right over the water. I abstained from getting in so instead got eaten alive.
Finally we set off for home. A trip that took longer going than coming because we kept picking people up along side the road and then dropping them off. At one point the bus couldn’t make it up the hill so we had to all get out and walk up the hill until the bus chugged its way up to meet us. Oh, there was also this weird tiny island in the middle of a lily pond with 5 monkeys on it, and there are NO monkeys in Cuba so they were shipped from somewhere. And also, I sat on a bunch of fire ants and now my butt hurts.