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Michael Seewald's
Cuba Day Journal

Cuba series, July 2 to the 25th, 2013

Series sponsored by Dr. Charles Cantor and Eric Yee.

Cuba images here

Well, this trip has been months in the planning. I had to get a letter from my church that explained I was going to work with our sister church in Havana, Calvary Chapel. Once I got that, I was good to go to do this trip 'legally', because if you go and do church work it's ok with the government (USA). Cool.

Got zero hours of sleep last night, last minute bookwork, etc.. Phil Fisher, a good friend from church, was nice enough to get up at o-dark-hundred and give me a ride to downtown San Diego, as I'd prepaid for a shuttle to take me to the Tijuana airport from there. Taking Volaris Air. It was to pick me up at 4 a.m., as I had a 7:30 am departure and you need two hours to check in, they say. It took less than an hour, and for some reason they waived my having to get a Mexican visa, which was $26 and I almost paid it before check in, glad I didn't.

Grabbed a Subway sandwich and then took the plane from Tijuana to Guadalajara, a three hour flight. Depart to Cancun in one more hour from now, I'm using free wifi to publish this. Two hour time difference. I'll stay in Cancun overnight, check the place out a bit (I've got a room in the old city, the beach was too costly).

Click photo to enlarge.
Lou playing the guitar, time exposure.
Testing out my new digital back a few days before departure.

I'll update from there later, don't know how the internet connection will be in Havana, for those updates, we'll see. I do get email from pastor Ricardo every couple of days, I heard they don't allow folks on for all that long.

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The view of Cancun from the plane was spectacular, but of course you eye can zoom into something a mile away and make it look close. this is just an iPhone snap, so no such ability.  The day was a bit rainy, as you can see from folks leaving our plane.

Update 7.2.'13 7p.m..

Checked into the Gaby Suites Hotel, downtown Cancun, after taking the ADO bus, which runs every hour between the airport and the terminal downtown (only $5), then talked a taxi into taking me to the hotel, about a km away, for $3 US. Veronica called me by name as I checked in, because I'm the last/only to check in today? Place is very clean, air conditioner ROCKS, and has a big screen TV- and close to market and restaurants.

Cubana Air was closed at the airport, still have to pay for the reservation- so will do it in the a.m.. The hotel strip, which runs along a long peninsula just south east of town was so beautiful as we landed. It was sprinkling, which I heard has cooled it a bit, but still stuffy out.

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7.29.'13

Well, the idea of an update of my travels here fell through the cracks when I found out that my pastor friend Ricardo told me that internet connection is illegal in Cuba! What? But I've been communicating through e mails with him for the past month. That's right he said, but e mail is not 'internet connection with website access' he said. So folks have e mail, but not access to the web.

So I had no daily news updates through my regular sources, although if I wanted internet connection bad enough one could always use one the government hotels to access it, at $6 per hour, which is what most tourists did. I was not staying at one, and opted not to add the expense when I had the opportunity.

So I will add a few images I took on my iPhone while there, and post some comments, starting here with updates to follow, as I'm now home to type/add this part as I get a chance.

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Click photo to enlarge.

Pastor Ricardo and myself in front of the congregation on my first Sunday there.

Per my first e mail to Valerie...

"Hi Valerie. Cuba is so hot and humid, as I´d heard. My rental car came in great last night, they had a mid week bible study at the church and it rained cats and dogs for over two hours. The half paved, half dirt streets with giant holes became running rivers. Everyone walks here, they are all very poor, so I felt I should drive the older ladies home and asked Pastor Richard's 14 year old son to come with me, to help me find my way back as I don't know the streets yet. I don't know how these folks would have made it. Electricity was off. After dropping the three ladies off, while returning, I drove through a big dip and was surprised that the water came up to the car windows, we almost stalled and got washed down river. I thought we were goners for a second, as it didn't look that deep when we approached it, but I down shifted to first gear and the tires barley caught the road and moved us forward, what a close call!

Then Richard took the next load, as he would not need a co pilot and could take an extra person home. I got concerned after he took more than the 15 minutes my trip took, and later he called and said he'd stalled after hitting a small river on the main road. Took two hours to get it started again and for him to get back, well towards midnight. Oh well, trips can be interesting."

Carlo Alberto Vedera, age 11, Cojima, Havana.

Cojima, just east of Havana, is a little bay, the favorite one of Earnest Hemmingway they say. There is a restaurant there with a table still reserved for him overlooking it. Speaking of Hemmingway, I went to his home, not far from where I stayed, 20 minutes south-east of old Havana, which is now a museum. I usually don't do musuems such as this, but this time I was glad I did. I'll post some pics of it.

On a side note: We take everything for granted, they are very, very poor overall and it makes you count your blessings. For example, if you have two things in your refrigerator, you might just have one more item than them. A family car is pretty much unheard of, and a junker would cost you about $10 grand. And at an average of $20 a month in income, figure the odds of that happening!

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Click photo to enlarge.

 Scenes from Varadero, Cuba.

This is the 'tourist area' of Cuba, and it's about a 2 hour drive east of Havana. I went here twice, hotel hopping looking for interesting scenes that might make a piece of art. Many tourists fly into here, and never see the 'real' Cuba, as it's more like Cancun, wide clean beaches and hotels that are 'all inclusive' for food and drinks, starting at about $100. Mostly five star, with a three or a four here and there.
 

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The old taxis are something else. This guy would turn the steering wheel about 1/2 way around, and it would barely move the wheels enough to move it an inch, so as to miss a pot hole big enough to swallow a small car, in some cases.

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Old Havana town. iPhone photo.

The color and architecture of Old Havana is as spectacular as has been portrayed, and can be a bit overwhelming for an artist. The one thing that surprised me was the fact that not every single car is an American one from the 40's or 50's. Oh, there are plenty of those, but the US boycott means no new American cars are being shipped there, but there are plenty of Nissan's and Toyota's taking up the slack, although even those are mostly in poor shape, they just don't have the means to afford a new anything, overall. An old clunker would be about $10K, and since the average income is about $20 a month you can see not many could afford one.

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Market, Havana, Cuba.

I love my panorama app on my iPhone, I'll most likely make a book from my favs some day. I even got a couple accepted in the San Diego Fairs Int'l photo competition last year.

 
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Mr Debonair.

This young gentleman and I became fast friends, which is funny considering our language barrier, I don't speak great Spanish. He was at my pastor friends home, waiting to go to an elaborate quinceañera event in downtown Havana, at a 5 star hotel just off the Malcon (the walkway along the ocean that runs a few km).

Click photo to enlarge.

My pizza was the backdrop to show the variety of bills I found in my pocket to pay for it. I used the money in the front, which is known as Peso. Whereas the 'official' tourist money is the 'Cuban Peso', which is the one in the back. Notice I still had Mexican money (brighter notes in the middle). The pizza ran 10 pesos, which at 24 to the dollar, was about 50 cents American- not bad huh? This low price was from little mom and pop shops that are now legal for the folks to run. Not long ago this sort of thing was illegal, as was a bed and breakfast, but with government approval is now a way that many make extra income. The price of the same kind of pizza from a 'government restaurant' would run about $3 US.

Bucanero Malta, as the ad reads, "is a non-alcoholic malt beverage with a sweet and smooth taste. This highly nutritious, invigorating brew has been a favorite of Cubans for decades."

More coming ...

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Headed home...

 
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Well, I was so beat from Cuba's heat and humidity I decided to just find the closest place in Cancun to the airport for my overnight stay, and the Marriott fit the bill, as they had free pick up and drop off shuttles from the airport and was only 5 minutes away. The extra $40 over staying at a cheap hotel in downtown Cancun, which is some 30 or 40 minutes from the airport, with buses and taxis needed to and from, seemed a no brainer.

The real benefit, soon realized, was not needing to go find a decent restaurant either. And as I had not had a steak in over three weeks, rice and beans and beans and rice, with chicken thrown in here and there, it was the first thing I saw on the menu and was promptly ordered. Well, I knew I ordered a decent Black Angus cut when they brought a steak knife to my table that looked to be something the chef was supposed to be using in the kitchen, with the Black Angus logo on it to boot. And man o man, it seemed I never had one tastier. Funny how we miss our own style of comfort food so much when we travel.
 

 
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Dramatic clouds from atop of them, this one just after leaving the Cancun airport.
 

             
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More dramatic clouds from atop of them; sometimes you forget just how majestic the Lord makes them, and you need to get back up there to refresh your memory. Felt good to be headed home, even though Cuba was a wonderful place to work, photographically, it was very tough, as the heat and humidity was something I hardly could get used to. The residents themselves have a hard time this month, and next month will be even worse they said.

Got back early Friday morning, July 26th, about 1 a.m., after a direct flight from Cancun to Tijuana. Then took a shuttle to downtown San Diego where Nicholas MacConnell, a past student of mine and now an exhibitor at my gallery, picked me up with the wife's car- his sports car was too small. Thanks Nicholas, you're the man.