I went to Cuba as part of student performing arts program. I was there with classmates and teachers and we stayed for a week. The year was 1998 and I was a teenager. I was born in Mexico and so young at the time that there were no issues with immigration. It has been a while since then, but this is what I remember:
1. Beggars outside ou…
I went to Cuba as part of student performing arts program. I was there with classmates and teachers and we stayed for a week. The year was 1998 and I was a teenager. I was born in Mexico and so young at the time that there were no issues with immigration. It has been a while since then, but this is what I remember:
1. Beggars outside our hotel who begged for food/goods rather than money.
2. Having given the extra food I had packed to such beggars (not much foresight on my part).
3. Our hotel was not luxurious by any means. We barely had any furniture in our room (what it lacked on furniture it made up on cockroaches, though).
4. I don't consider myself a picky eater, but the hotel food was terrible (salad with just lettuce and no dressing, flat tasteless pancakes with no butter or syrup, milk with curd). Moros y cristianos was the only food that tasted OK.
5. Feeling hungry and being unable to find anything resembling a restaurant or store near the hotel.
6. We visited a pizzeria and an ice cream parlor (coppelia) in Habana 1 time each during our stay. In both venues, were the only costumers and we paid with dollars. These were the 2 filling “meals” I had in Cuba.
7. Fidel propaganda billboards and anachronistic cars.
8. Empty Habana streets.
9. My friend twisting her ankle and her being sent to a shaman/witch doctor, rather than to a proper clinic.
10. Beautiful beaches that’s were almost empty.
11. Few Europeans, many of them wearing Che t-shirts.
12. Lovely and warm Cuban people.
13. Interestingly, we could watch VH1 from the hotel TV along with the Cuban Channels (only that one random American channel though).
You were in Cuba in 1998, during the terrible Special Period (1991-2001) that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. What you’re describing is consistent with those years of extreme deprivation and poverty as the result of Cuba’s loss of its nanny state. By the time I visited in 2011, the country had recovered significantly due to foreign investments in tourism. I also had the impression that a small amount of private enterprise was allowed. We visited an outdoor market in Havana where all kinds of fruits and vegetables were available for sale, apparently by private citizens (although prices were fixed).
I’m not a Cuba expert, but it seems that COVID dried up the tourism industry and Cubans are again suffering from hunger and shortages of everything. Cuba is a small but very fertile island and it surprised me to see how much of it remains undeveloped (we saw the entire length of the island from the plane).
I went to Cuba as part of student performing arts program. I was there with classmates and teachers and we stayed for a week. The year was 1998 and I was a teenager. I was born in Mexico and so young at the time that there were no issues with immigration. It has been a while since then, but this is what I remember:
1. Beggars outside our hotel who begged for food/goods rather than money.
2. Having given the extra food I had packed to such beggars (not much foresight on my part).
3. Our hotel was not luxurious by any means. We barely had any furniture in our room (what it lacked on furniture it made up on cockroaches, though).
4. I don't consider myself a picky eater, but the hotel food was terrible (salad with just lettuce and no dressing, flat tasteless pancakes with no butter or syrup, milk with curd). Moros y cristianos was the only food that tasted OK.
5. Feeling hungry and being unable to find anything resembling a restaurant or store near the hotel.
6. We visited a pizzeria and an ice cream parlor (coppelia) in Habana 1 time each during our stay. In both venues, were the only costumers and we paid with dollars. These were the 2 filling “meals” I had in Cuba.
7. Fidel propaganda billboards and anachronistic cars.
8. Empty Habana streets.
9. My friend twisting her ankle and her being sent to a shaman/witch doctor, rather than to a proper clinic.
10. Beautiful beaches that’s were almost empty.
11. Few Europeans, many of them wearing Che t-shirts.
12. Lovely and warm Cuban people.
13. Interestingly, we could watch VH1 from the hotel TV along with the Cuban Channels (only that one random American channel though).
You were in Cuba in 1998, during the terrible Special Period (1991-2001) that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. What you’re describing is consistent with those years of extreme deprivation and poverty as the result of Cuba’s loss of its nanny state. By the time I visited in 2011, the country had recovered significantly due to foreign investments in tourism. I also had the impression that a small amount of private enterprise was allowed. We visited an outdoor market in Havana where all kinds of fruits and vegetables were available for sale, apparently by private citizens (although prices were fixed).
I’m not a Cuba expert, but it seems that COVID dried up the tourism industry and Cubans are again suffering from hunger and shortages of everything. Cuba is a small but very fertile island and it surprised me to see how much of it remains undeveloped (we saw the entire length of the island from the plane).