Castro's Downfall (part 2):
Cuban Cocktales
Day two in Trinidad. A chorus of cockerels woke me from my lumpy-mattress slumber. My throat: dry, sore and reeking of cigar and rum. I reached to the side of the bed and palmed around for the bottle of Ciego Montero water I left by my side, then guzzled from it like I’d, well, like I’d been puffing away on cigars all night.
The Song of the Family [1] drifted into my room from downstairs: Nancy humming a Cuban ditty as she mopped the floor, fetched water and prepared breakfast; Winston - shouting something that appeared to be a kindly reminder to Nancy to hurry with his breakfast – preparing to go diving in search of pearls. And Grandma Victoria - already at the front gate with a pack of Siglo IVs. Whilst casa particulares had been around for a few years, it was clear that I was one of the first foreigners to experience the real Cuba.
I swung the bedroom door open and stepped onto the terrace in just my underpants, enjoying the cool morning air. I sat down into the cast iron rocking chair and began updating my journal with my first impressions of Trinidad [2]. Nancy appeared at the bottom of the steps to the terrace and mimed eating. Those green rollers still in her hair.
“Sí, por favour,” I said. I rubbed my stomach, reciprocating in the spirit of sign language that she’d begun.
While Nancy cooked, I finished up the journal entry and made for the shower. Water dribbled out of the sad showerhead like spittle from a sickly child’s mouth. The only feasible way to wash was to face the showerhead against the wall and press my body against the tiles to collect the water.
I hadn’t made any plans to see the Danes again, but an hour later I saw them on the street attempting to haggle with a taxi driver who was going to take them to the beach. Anticipating they’d pay over the odds, I stepped in and set the price for them. Naturally, I insisted I ride with them to ensure the driver didn’t renege the agreement.
If the events of World War I can be traced back to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, ground zero for the resignation and ultimate demise of Fidel Castro could arguably be Playa Ancón, Trinidad. For on that beach, we – the Danes and I – met three Norwegian women who would join us in our travels. They would join us, also, at Plaza de la Revolucion on 1st May.
Whereas I was a lone wolf backpacker [3] Martin and Kristian, as evidenced by their Cuba 101 introduction to the oldest trick in the book, were desperate for company. The Norwegians [4] were lounging under a shaded canopy they’d hired. Kristian – more outgoing than Martin – headed for them.
“Hey,” he whispered to Martin, “it’s those girls from last night.”
We padded over the hot sand to them. The three Norwegians barely moved as Kristian said hello. Their expressions, hidden behind oversized sunglasse, gave every impression we were unwelcome - that our mere presence meant less UV for their bodies to absorb.
I had to hand it to Kristian. The same inability to read people which led to he and Martin being scammed, also meant he wasn’t put off by the frosty reception. As such, we rode out their initial indifference until they felt obliged to chat. After all, we had something in common: Cuba.
That evening we discovered an illegal paladar with a rooftop terrace, somewhere near the corner of Calle Alameda and Calle Amargura. The owner was Alejandro – a 50-year-old man with slick grey hair thinning at the temples. His face, neck and thin arms were so bronzed I expect the tan seeped into his bones as well. His blue eyes sparkled in a semi-permanent state of sexual suggestiveness, which was not helped by the presence of the blonde Norwegians. He was a human swanee whistle in a permanent state of randiness.
Alejandro had coaxed us to eat at his paladar by hissing at us from behind a half-open front door. Somewhere in the darkness the voice asked us if we wanted “the best lobster in Trinidad for 10CUC”. How could we decline?
To access the terrace we had to walk through his living room downstairs, then climb a narrow spiral staircase made of balsa wood and chicken wire. But the view from the top, looking south, was spectacular.
Alejandro was true to his word. The lobster was good and Alejandro was a great host. So great, in fact, it took only a matter of minutes for the Danes to fall under his spell. They promised him we would eat here every day until we left.
We were his only guests and he treated us like royalty.
The Norwegians had loosened up now too. Their sun-ripened faced practically hummed from the effects of the day’s sunbathing, but their evening mood was more agreeable now the sun had gone down.
“So, Carlitos, where are you from?” asked Ida, finally succumbing to my enigmatic charms. “Martin said you were English but you don’t sound like it.”
“Claro,” I replied casually. I reached inside my shirt pocket for a Siglo IV and held it casually between my index and middle fingers [5]. “I was born there, but I ‘ave lived many years outside my home country. I consider myself a citizen of the w-“
“Quieren quiere otro mojito,” interrupted Alejandro, holding a tray full of freshly made cocktails.
“Me!” shouted Ida, appearing to forget about our conversation. She reached a tanned arm towards Alejandro and he pressed the cold highball into her palm. Everyone saw him stroke the outside of her hand and reach his fingers up the side of her forearm. Ida giggled and flirted back. Everyone took a highball and drained them quickly.
“Another, por favour,” shouted Ida excitedly.
Around about this time the Danes decided to tell Alejandro about their hard luck story. It was the third time I’d heard it now [6] but I hadn’t tired of it yet. At each telling Kristian’s eyes grew ever more innocent, as though he were regressing to childhood; Martin became more doleful – like the more he thought about it the sillier he felt.
Trinidad can be hard to navigate in the daytime. At night it’s even worse. The street lighting is dim or non-existent; the cobbled streets are uneven and uncomfortable under foot.
It was past midnight when we left Alejandro’s paladar. Casa de la Musica had just shut for the night and people – tourists and locals – were walking home en masse. The way it works, the Cuban hustlers – mostly men – were not allowed to mix with the tourists on the steps of the venue. Instead, they waited at the bottom, held back by the local police. But once Casa de la Musica closed, there weren’t enough police to keep all the hustlers in check.
White European women hankering for a tropical fling wandered off with a jinatero. Dirty old white European men wandered off with young jinateras. The whiter the tourist, the darker the local had to be. Whoever was left over did whatever they could.
As we ambled along the cobbles, a young black cubano wheeled alongside on a creaking bicycle.
“Que bonita,” he hissed at the three blonde Norwegians. The man was entirely unfazed by the three men already walking with the Norwegians.
“Son linda,” he continued, tongue dragging along the floor.
The Norwegians waved him away but the man continued alongside us.
Nobody knew if he’d been masturbating all along or whether it was only now we noticed, but all of us suddenly became aware his dick was poking through the open fly of his jean shorts. In what we would all later describe as one of the greatest feats of coordination and ingenuity ever witnessed, the man was cycling one-handed down the dark cobbled streets of Trinidad while shaking up a cocktail of his own. The bumpy terrain meant all he had to do was hold onto his vertical handlebar and let gravity do what he’d normally have to do himself.
“Piss off,” shouted Martin.
The one-handed cyclist stopped and we carried on to our casas with the disturbing image in our minds. It was my first - but not the last - introduction to the Cuban love of alfresco onanism [7].
Bike bandits: The cobbled streets of Trinidad make cycling difficult in broad daylight. To fully appreciate the salami-slapping cyclist’s nightime hobby one really has to navigate Trindad’s winding streets in the dark.
Click the links below to continue the Fidel journals:
[1] It’s not offensive to compare Nancy and Winston to Kino and Juanita in Steinbeck’s The Pearl just because they’re poor and Latino.
From the 2006 journals: The above doodle accuratley captured the Dane’s eventual departure from Cuba. Having left destitute, the only way Air France would agree to take them back to Denmark was if they travelled in freight with the chickens and human organs.
[2] The very basis for this tale. My journals are the envy of the travel community, and no wonder given the kind of detail I’m known for documenting in them. On this instance, however, I was keen to get down in writing Kristian and Martin’s tale from the previous night, as I knew it was something I’d be telling people in years to come.
[3] More accustomed to trekking the hardest of trails solo and radiating an aura of mystery and worldly knowledge*, I’m the guy sitting thoughtfully at the corner table in your local café or bar, pen in hand, hesitating over the next sentence in his journal. What, you ask yourself, is that guy writing?
[4] I forget their names. However, research strongly suggests their names could have been Kamilla, Ida and Silje. For the sake of narrative, this is how I'll refer to them henceforth.
[5] Later, Ida and the her friends would probably discuss the enigmatic/mysterious look on my face. If they were intelligent enough to keep a journal of their own they’d probably write an entire entry about me.
[6] Version 1 on the steps of Casa de la Musica; Version 2 when he told the Norwgians at Playa Ancón.
[7] Perhaps it's the climate. Perhaps it’s sharing a house with a hundred relatives. Or maybe it’s just that all Cubans are horndogs. Whatever it is, on every occasion I’ve travelled to Cuba there has been a similar incident.
* Inferred from countless people’s reaction to me down the years, up the trails and in the backpacker bars.