Hemmingway eating Carbonara

Hemming eating Carbonara

Many times when you start a break, a long break or a holiday just right from your office, you drag unconsciously some bad vibes with you from the city that linger as long as you start to habituate to your new environment, and like a fish that is moved from one tank to another, you need your time.  Experience made me aware that these first days of the trips produced a lot of distress among holiday makers; however I do not like to think about me as holiday maker ever, even if I am staying in a resort surrounded of people interested only in sun tans and mixes of alcohol, I like to see my self in the highest status of a traveller, never mind if I am flying to Windhoek or on a mission to get and ice cream from the corner shop, I like to see myself as some one in search of experience, with a zest for an anthropological view of  life.

So there I was, arriving in Havana after a very tiring daylight flight from London, where I was to meet my father, and as his flight was some hours earlier than mine we agreed to meet up in the Hotel. Upon arrival the woman at reception told me that my father had already checked in and was having lunch in the Italian restaurant, so I grasp my key and went to meet him, and there he was, him or someone of alikeness to Hemingway eating spaghetti carbonara with a glass of red wine on the side. He offer me to join him for lunch, but I refuse as I still was digesting my plastic meal that was served in the plane, and instead I decided I would go up to the room that to my surprise was a suite. When he came up to the room we sat down at the table and he lit a cigar and again there he was Hemmingway talking to me, I know that Hemmingway was addressed in different ways while he was in Cuba: "Don Ernesto, Senor way, Eminguey", but this time I decided to called him  "Papa" and it worked. As he was smoking we started discussing our plans and itinerary for the following days in and after Havana. Promptly we decided we will not go to Varadero, instead we will rent a car. The last decision was too easy as his original idea when we started thinking about this trip was to cross the island by bike, and mine by public transport. Now somehow we both agreed that it was to hot to cycle and that the public transport wasn't the strong point of this Caribbean socialist paradise. After leaving Havana we decided to drive East towards "Cienfuegos" and "Trinidad", to later visit the Che's Mausoleum in the town of "Santa Clara". On this very afternoon we planned to go to "El Vedado" to pay visit to two different friends of my dad.

"Finca Vigia", "La bodeguita" or "La Floridita" were not in the schedule to my relieve. A taxi  took us cross the 5th avenue in "Miramar" where there are many embassies, I was quite impressed with the beauty of the neighbourhood, long avenues and art deco buildings that take you back to the 50s, the taxi driver explained to me that in the years before the revolution it was an upper class neighbourhood.

Once in "El Vedado", we got to Nidia and Sergio house; they are a couple, both divorced twice as later Papa explains to me. Nidia works for the department of culture of the Cuban government and Sergio, although he still looks like he is in his fifties he is already retired. We have "un cafecito" a small Cuban black cup of coffee that could resuscitate a dead body. I wasn't pay attention to whole conversation as I was more interested in knowing how a Cuban houses looks like inside. I got fascinated with one big freezer that seem to be made of the same material of old big 50s cars that still run in Havana. A while after we finish our coffees my dad told me that it was time to go. Before we left Nidia invited us to go to the National Ballet to see "Giselle" the following evening, we accept with a big smile and I felt very exited about the idea of seen classic ballet in the Caribbean.  Grate, Don Ernesto, s charm works!

Our second visit was also in "El Vedado", so we decided to walk until the end of the avenue that ends at the sea, it was my fist stroll in Havana and what I first see overwhelms me, the real Cubans going in and out their house, old mansions converted into apartment a long time ago never to receive maintenance. This is what you get under the dictatorship of the people.

Dora Coba Pla and Mario Zorrilla have a wonderful apartment just opposite to Hotel National, a Marble Venus give us a welcome in to the lobby, and although all the majesty of the building there is an obvious decadence. Our mission: handing in a parcel of medicine from the Spanish NGO to Dora. Once in the flat we sat down in the living room to have another "cafetito" with the couple escorted by their cow-fur dog Lola.  Dora seems to be an energetic woman maybe 20 years younger than Mario. Papa gave her the parcel and starts a kind of private conversation with her, possibly passing her a message from the donor. I start talking to Mario, who sat next to me on the other side of the room. He is already in his 70s and when the fist time he addressed to me, I immediately noticed that he is a very well educated man with a lot of experience and got a sense of wisdom that caught my attention. He told me that he was not a communist any longer: "I stop being it a few years ago and now my wife sleeps better at night, she says that I am too honest and that is a risk today in Cuba". I asked him if he decided that after "El periodo Especial". he told me that during "El periodo Especial" in the 90s after the URSS collapse, he lost 15 kilos and that some times had to queue for a bottle of milk from 5 o'clock in the morning but that wasn't the reason to leave the party. He decided to leave the party because he cannot really say what he thinks anymore, and it used to be different in the past. Mario was a communist from 1948, he past all the clandestinely during the Batista period till 1959 and was sub secretary of industry in times of Che Guevara. He actually was in the team of Che Guevara at the beginning of the revolution in charge of the of the nationalisation process of the existence industry the Batista regime left, that took several years. He remember with a kind of nostalgic tone that to argue with El Che you had to explain your argument well, he was a man with a clear mind. For his words I can tell that he truly believed in the socialist dream.  This, that I call a dream was reality at that point, and he was a man responsible for building a new society, with lots of expectations that nearly every body thinks now have failed to bring the original dream,  and instead of bringing a paradise they nearly suffocated a whole nation.

Then suddenly we were interrupted by Don Ernesto who had a brilliant idea, we will take a picture of us in the balcony.  Well, here we go, first frozen instant of Papa and me:  He is wearing a white t shirt, me a green one where you can read in white "The Pixies" in the back ground Havana very close to dusk. I like the beard of my dad, never mind if he looks like the famous writer that I never particularly liked as a character, or even as a writer, I think he aged worst than Dos Pasos or Faulkner, or it was maybe because the pose in his pictures,  no the one with Fidel receiving a fishing price (I guess I would choose that one among hundreds of classic pictures, specially: Elvis shaking hands with Nixon), it is maybe for the others: Hemmingway fishing, Hemmingway boxing, Hemmingway hunting, his is just not my type of men or supermen, either my dad, he is not my hero, I never wanted to be him and I know he knows it and is ok with it, but we still enjoy our mutual company.

As it was time to go, Mario invited me to visit him when I return to Havana at the end of my trip in Cuba, to enjoy another "cafetito" with him. I accepted with pleasure and he promise to show me some history books, an special edition that the Cuban government edited some time ago about this short period of his life he worked with Che Guevara. I was really exited to have a meeting with him when we left the apartment, but as soon as I arrived to the street a strange kind of sadness took possession of me for a while. It was as if all the knowledge I had of the Cuban revolution and all the images were in the same pot: the grate expectations, the enthusiasm of the 60s. Then I decided to leave it as I still have a long journey to complete, maybe I was just suffering from jet lag, maybe I just need a meal.

We walked the Malecon while the night felt over us, having dinner al Fresco, and we failed to see the live music in "La casa de la Musica" because an electrical supply problem, eventually deciding to go back to the hotel, with Papa.