Fall Break in Cuba

This past week I went on vacation, Cuban style. Most of the hotels don’t allow Cubans to rent a room, but there are vacation spots called “campismos” that are almost exclusively for Cuban guests. They are all over the countryside and consist of a bunch of little cabanas with 2 bunk beds and a small bathroom, a pool with no water, a cafeteria, and a TV room. Unfortunately we went to the shittiest campismo possible because the pool didn’t work (though I have yet to see a Cuban pool with water in it) and the beach was about 40 minutes away, but the other option was taken by the “batalla de ideas (battle of ideas)” group. I’m not sure what they do because when I asked a Cuban, he said they have parties and eat shit. Probably not a totally accurate description. Anyway, this vacation was probably the least relaxing vacation I’ve ever taken, a real test of tolerance. First of all, the cabanas were totally infested with ants, they got EVERYWHERE: in the bed, in our food, in our bags, in our clothes…and I hate ants more than a lot of things. Also, as you can see from the photo, the cabana is a pretty tight squeeze, especially since we slept 5 people in our room. And it smelled horrible. I can’t even describe how bad it smelled, it was like shit, b.o., and stale-building smell all rolled into one. Luckily, you kind of forgot the smell after staying in the building for more than 10 minutes. On top of that, the food was terrible. The cafeteria basically sells bread with eggs for breakfast and rice with something for dinner and lunch, so we would buy a bunch of rice and then we got canned meat, about the same quality as cat food. It was disgusting. This one night our rice was made with “pork” which was actually pig skin that still had bristly hair on it. I hope you can imagine how gross that is. But despite of all that, we had a pretty good time. The water was lovely, and there was this spot with huge rocks that we could jump off (pictured above). Also, about 19 of us went, so it was kind of like a big party with a bunch of our friends for 3 days. The campismo plays music all night and we brought plenty of rum. We also played a huge amount of dominos, which is really popular here. I’m planning on bringing back in style in the U.S., it’s really fun. Also, it was a really eye opening experience. I mean, how many of you would choose the campismo for your vacation? I certainly wouldn’t if I hadn’t any other option, but that’s the point. There isn’t another option for vacation here. If you can’t stay in a hotel, even if you had the money, what are you going to do? Already, I’ve been to more cities in Cuba than most Cubans have in their whole life. To me, this is totally unfair. As a Cuban, you don’t have access to outside information, you can’t travel to other countries, and you can hardly even travel in your own country. The campismo is it. So what I just said in this description, I would never say to any of the Cubans we were with. And despite all the negative things I said, I really did have fun and I’m glad I went. After all, it’s the company you’re with that is important, not where you are.

I'm not 100% sure that the pictures are going to appear on the blog for this entry, so if they aren't there stay tuned.