Cocktail Time in Cuba

Yesterday, I watched the play ‘Cocktail Time in Cuba’ at Brandeis theater. A journalist with some family trouble visits Cuba to make an interview with Fidel Castro. He meets an old friend at the airport, who turns out to be a real estate agent. The agent waits for Cuba’s communism to break down to be the first real estate agent buying the land for cheap prices and, thus, making the bonus of his life. The journalist also gets into touch with two Cubans, a girl whom’s aunt rents the room to him. He falls in love – more or less – and they become a child; while she seems to spy on him for the government. The other Cuban is a dodgy person, who wants the journalist to write that Fidel is still alive to prevent big changes in politics. This creates the contrast to the real estate agent, who actually wants the journalist to write that Fidel is dead – to be able to buy land.

The play is funny and contains many political and – obviously – historical associations. I recognized many subtle characteristics, which reminded me to my visit of Cuba. For example, the electricity interrupts, the nice and polite way of Cubans talking to you while demanding and almost commanding you, the focus on money and that nothing seems to work – but eventually will work. In summary, the play gives an authentic but exaggerated view of some issues related to Cuba. I recommend to watch the play.

Route 66 Buch 2

So, und hier ist schon das zweite Buch des Reiseberichts meiner Eltern. Und der erste Teil des Buches ist hier…Der dritte Teil ist, glaub ich, nicht ganz so lang und kommt daher auch bald…

Non-watertight camper

After my experiences in Guatemala with my tent, I was happy about staying an a camper – since I expected a camper to be 100% waterproof. However, this is not true. After some heavy rain for 1-2 hours while driving, we realized that not only the rain entered the shower from the ceiling but the bed of my parents (in the back) was wet and the same hold for their clothes in the cupboard. So, I called our rental company to complain about it. They gave me an address of a repair service station where we went. The guy – apparently not too specialized in campers – seemed to be confused. However, he went up on the roof and there we located a couple of cracks. You can see one of them on the picture on the right hand bottom of the ventilator device. After calling his boss, he put some more of this sort-of-glue stuff on it… So far, it works… But we didn’t yet go through another rainfall.

The Jamaican Murder

There is one story I have been told while I was traveling in Cuba and I cannot forget. I met two travelers, who were from the US and from Australia. They told about their experience in Jamaica some time ago: In Jamaica, they met a couple from New Zealand and went out with them. In a touristic district, the wife from the New Zealand guy went in some bar/shop while the three guys waited on the street. In this moment, three Jamaicans approached them and asked for a specific person. They didn’t know about this person. Suddenly, all three had a pistol in their stomachs and where forced to give their money. The guy from the US – being from Brooklyn – decided to escape. He run into the bushes and hid. Then, the guy from New Zealand – apparently thinking he can do the same as the American – jumped into the bushes as well. Then, they heard a shot and as they returned some minutes later to the place, they saw the guy from New Zealand shot on the ground with a serious wound in his chest. Although calling police and ambulance, only police showed up and forced the guy to sit in the car for transportation to the hospital. On the way, he died in the arms of his wife. He got a lung shot.

A really sad story. However, I was wondering that the two surviving guys didn’t really fell responsible for the dead person. I guess, it is easiest to run away as the first person. However, the more persons already escaped, the more conscious the robbers are – and the sooner they gonna shoot. Maybe, the last guy just accidentally did a quick movement and got shot for this. So, I do not only learn not to run away which I already knew before (in case they have long-distance weapons and not only manchetas) but that there is nobody in my company who is going to try to run away…

Route 66: From Chicago to St. Louis

After renting a motorhome (R.V.) in Chicago, we went on the road. Besides minor problems with the RV (the sink drops, missing screws in cupboards), everything works nice. Half the time, we use the interstates as the Route 66 is not always very interesting and sometimes difficult to follow especially with an RV. However, if appropriate we leave the interstate and change to the old road – sometimes with the choice between the older and the newer road. There are small villages with lots of shops, restaurants and petrol station; all of them having the ‘Route 66′ brand. The landscape we have seen so far was mainly covered by corn fields and oil pumps at the beginning. Before St. Louis, the nature changed from plain fields to small hills with some forests – or at least first signs of forests. First pictures are available here.

New York and Niagara Falls with my brother

My brother spontaneously decided to visit the US for my birthday in NY. Before heading to Chicago, we made a stop-over at the magnificient Niagara Falls. Although it seems that my new G10 camera is not very tolerant about water, the visit was a blast! More pictures are here. In the night we traveled to Chicago with Greyhound bus to meet my parents. Read here more about it.

Frida Kahlo in Mexico City

As I got refered many times to Frida Kahlo and her blue house in Mexico City (although by the same person), it was a ‘must’ to walk over there and have a look. Kahlo was born 1907 in the so-called blue house (left) in Mexico City. Due to infantile paralysis, she had a shorter and thinner right leg. In 1925 she had a bad accident leading to lifetime health problems. However, in the hospital she started painting for which reason disease is a re-occuring topic in her objects. In contrast to the doctors’ predictions, she suceeded in learning to walk, again. In 1929, Kahlo married Diego Rivera who was already a world-famous artist. She had a couple of love affairs, i.e. with Leo Trotzki, who moved into the blue house with his wife for some years. Rivera also had lots of love affairs. So, they got divorced in 1939 but married again one year later. Then, they moved into a new house which in fact consists of two different houses connected by a bridge (see 2nd picture below). Kahlo was living in the blue part while Rivera occupied the red part. This way of living (and being married) lasted until Kahlo died in 1954.

The blue house contains a very nice garden (left) giving an authentic atmosphere of a relaxed spot to focus on art or intellectual discussions. Every few meters, there is a photo of Kahlo connected to a citation of Rivera complimenting her work (while she was usually very critical about his work). However, the exhibition in the house is mainly disappointing except the first room. Although the whole museum is dedicated to Kahlo and her work (and is named after her), only this first room contains her works. The small number of paintings are impressive but do not seem to be very representative, e.g. as only one has a connection to disease/health. The next room contains paintings from other artists while the remaining four or so rooms only contain works from Rivera. Furthermore, each room is introduced by a huge citation from Kahlo about Rivera and his genius. In summary, I had the feeling that the whole exhibition was focused on Rivera instead of Kahlo. For me, this points to some chauvinism as Kahlo achieves nowadays higher prices for her paintings than Rivera (if one can take this as a measure). It is really troublesome how the exhibition places Kahlo as a small side-product below the ‘genius’ Rivera.

Before I visited the blue house, I went to the houses connected by the bridge (left). They were supposed to contain exhibitions about the artists, as well. After a long walk, I arrived at these houses. After paying the entrance fee, I entered the exhibition about Rivera. His studio is left as it was and is, therefore I guess, really impressive. Huge windows, a lot of sunlight and all over the place material to paint and create objects next to some everyday-use articles. As I went to Kahlo’s studio, there was another surprise: It was closed due to construction work. I was told that all her work was moved to the blue house, which I visited afterwards (see above). Now, I am really wondering about this: Without the studio closed, which works would have been at the blue house from Kahlo at all?

Soccer: Mexico vs. USA

While being in San Cristobal, I suddenly recognized that only tourists where left on the streets. So, I sneaked into one of the crowded pubs and saw everybody watching soccer: USA vs. Mexico. USA already scored within the first minutes 1:0 – not too good (for me as people usually assume me being a gringo from the US). Fortunately, Mexico played pretty good and in the end it was 2:1 for Mexico. So far, there was nothing too excited about all this. However, the next day, I was sitting in the underground and glimpsed over the shoulder of a man reading a newspaper. In the newspaper, there was a ‘picture-story’ about the goals from Mexico: A series of more than a dozen pictures where each picture showed a single scene for the preparation of the goal (all of them within 1 or 2 minutes of the game). It reminded me to the good old Bravo love stories… So, I thought I had to buy a newspaper myself. At the small shop, I wanted to select the same newspaper as the one I read in the underground. Unfortunately, the saleswoman was not so happy about my selective reading of the papers, thus, I had to grab one in a hurry. Of course, it turned out to be a different one without this detailed picture story but with a similar page with pictures of scenes of the game (left). Anyhow, imaging the picture story, this page gives you a good idea of how it looks – see left.

Diving in Cenotes

The half-island Yucatan in Mexico consists of limestone. This material can be dissolved by water. As the sealevel increased and decreased several times in the last couple of 10,000 years, a huge cave system was created. At some points, the ceiling was too heavy and collapsed creating natural entries to the cave system called cenotes. Some cenotes are connected by caves of lengths of about 100 miles. As the water is super clear, it is a good location to snorkel or dive. So i did: Without a special cave diving certification, which would take more than a week and around 1500 US$, one can only do cavern-diving. A cavern is the entry of a cave from where you can always see daylight (within 60m). On the one hand, this is pretty relaxing because it means in emergency you always know where the exit is. On the other hand, you already get the real cave diving feeling because 60m away of the exit is pretty far and dark. For a lot of pictures, click here.

Diving in the caverns is really cool despite the big bunch of mosquitos on the walk to the cenotes. I got dozens of bites although wearing a 5mm wetsuite (thick enough against mosquitos) such that only face and hands were accessible. A 5mm wetsuite and a hat are recommendable as water is cold down in the cave. Further special equipment are torches because it becomes really dark. To enjoy the fantastic stone formations from stalaktites to stalagnites, old bones and remainings of trees, one only needs a good buoyancy control to prevent moving the dusk from the ground or to hit the stalaktites at the ceiling. One also gets a good impression about the changing sea levels as stalaktites stop growing if they hit water.

Within some of the caves/caverns, there is fresh and salt water. As salt water is heavier, it is at the bottom and does not mix with the fresh water. The border between both types of water, which is called halocline, looks similar to the border between air and water. Diving through mixes salt and fresh water creating an emulsion which is opaque. Furthermore, the salt water is warmer than the fresh water. These things make it exciting to dive through the halocline.

Leaving Habana and arriving in Cancun…

To leave Habana, I booked a cab, which was supposed to bring me to the airport. However, it is unfortunately pretty expensive: Around 20 US$. Sitting in the cab, I saw three more people with lots of luggage at the street. Making a deal with the cab driver, I only paid half price and the three paid others paid 20 US$ including a lift to the bus station for one of them. So, a good deal for everybody. Furthermore, two of them wanted to go to Cancun, as well, and had a lonely planet. Thus, I had some time to gather all the information regarding Cancun. I found the hotel pretty easily and got the last private room. As I got the keys, an American guy showed up asking for another private room, which was not available. As I already recognized him at the airport – because he had some trouble with the emigration out of Cuba – I offered to share my room, which actually had two separate beds. He agreed and as we also shared costs, I made another good deal. However, as I returned later into the room, I just found a note telling that he needed AC and went to another hotel but said thank you for my offer. Good for me – as he already gave me half of the rent and didn’t want it back. Next, I went down to the reception and after some bargaining, I exchanged my Cuba lonely planet for an up-to-date Mexico lonely planet plus 10 US$ (which is reasonable as the Mexico lonely planet is much bigger and almost new).

Back at my room, I met three girls from England next to my door who complained about their shower. As we realized that my shower was working fine, we shared (serially) my shower and – as we recognized afterwards – flooded my room. After grabbing some food and meeting a French guy from Canada, we went to the hotel area to go clubbing. Being five people plus driver in the cab is usually no problem, so we got a cab pretty quickly. However, while driving the police showed up behind us turning the blue light on and commanding to stop. So we did, our driver gave some tip to the police and we were allowed to go on. Easy. At the clubs, the cover was amazing: Most clubs asked for more than 25 US$ per person or more than 40 US$ including open bar. Although we got some special offers (for 15 US$ per person), the club didn’t look sufficiently convincing and we just went to a bar using the 2 for 1 option there. Using the local bus which still goes every 20 minutes late at night, we succeeded to go home after the second trial. In the first trial, the girls from England were unfortunately waiting on the wrong side of the one-way road – while I didn’t realize that they tried to catch the bus…