One Night in Cuba

So I meet this Canadian guy that looks more like a Viking then a regular person. He has blue eyes and long blond hair, and no doubt, pulls way more girls than I do. We catch a collectivo to the Capital and stroll off into The Hotel Ingleterra to relax and grab a drink. We sit for a while, the talk gets deep and the beers are flowing nicely. We take a walk down the famous strip that is Havana Vieja and find a few more bars to chill in. So this is what I remember doing that night.

Bar 2. A pretty hot Cuban broad sits down. She is medium build, great eyes, full breasts and curvy hips. She is sassy. She wears a tight red dress that shows the beauty of her body nicely. She definitely has attitude and she doesn’t seem to keen on talking to me. I buy her a drink and I am ready to cut her loose, but she throws me a hand grenade when she tells me that I can fuck her for 60 CUC’s. Even though she has beauty, I do not really dig her vibe, so I said thanks honey, perhaps manaña and she got up and walked out of the bar. When we entered this dusty bar it was super quiet, with not really much happening and the place looked pretty open, however, a few hours later I take a look around and I see that the joint has filled out nicely. It is an interesting place. Timber bar with, rustic tables and chairs. Simple mirrors but decorated timber cornices and unpolished hardwood floor.

We start talking to a girl from Spain. She is a lawyer, well spoken, light build, with brown hair and then the mojitos came out to play. Talking Spanish, keeping her entertained. My Viking mate was like ‘keep throwing mojitos at her, grab her by the waist and you will be slamming her in no time’ he laughed as we clicked beers together and kept the liquor flowing. She had to leave so I went all in and pushed for a kiss and got one on the cheek. Ah how life can withhold these delicious treats. Oh how sweet is the smell of a woman and oh how women make me feel alive.

We leave there and go to a bar called La Lluvia de Oro. The place is rife with salsa music and Cuban charm. The old guy at first didn’t want to let us in. I swore loudly and walked away, the rum drinking unleashing the beast of my barbaric nature that I prefer to keep concealed. I turn around and give it another try and the old grumpy bastard let us in. There is some loud music and Cuban people dancing. The drinks are really flowing at this place. I remember this old bar as a bunch of moving energy. Laughing, dancing, drinking and the smell of the Caribbean coast that greets you warmly.

We sit down at the bar and there are some more Cuban girls talking quietly. I introduce myself in Spanish and get talking. Within two minutes I find out they also are hookers but this time it excites me. I borrow a cheeky $60 CUCs of my old mate and I tell him to keep himself occupied for 20 mins.

The girl and I walk hand in hand, like a long term lovers through the dusty streets of Cuba. She takes me an old house and I find myself in a neat but small bedroom. I don’t remember all of the sex that we had, but I have some flashbacks of me putting her on all fours on the bed, me literately chewing on her box and tasting her and loving it. I also remember fucking her gently, slow, then pulling her hair and finishing hard.

I get back to the bar, and we pretty much leave. While on the walk out in the street. I meet two girls walking the same direction has us. We get talking and I convince them to come to the Floridita Bar and grab a dacarie. I take some selfies and look at the pictures with Hemmingway and Fidel Castro and do a Bukowski while I feel up this other girl’s leg under the table. They tell is they have hired a car and I ask if we can join for the weekend. They accept and tell us to be ready tomorrow morning. One round in we call it a day, stumble back to the square, grab a taxi and head back to the hostel. It is 2am. The night is over.

Cuba; The world's most beautiful prison

Havana Cuba is a cluster fuck of dirt, grime, black smoke. It is the massive deterioration of buildings and balconies contrasting with exquisite Spanish architecture, and the smiles of children wandering the street. Cuban music vibrates into your soul, abstract art is alluring; ham and cheese sandwiches are as ubiquitous as the 1950’s American cars that flood the streets. Both lack real depth, and exist only from need. Old Havana is a city of dust and dirt, pollution and rust. The real Havana, is raw, complicated, grimy. This is my experience.

It is late at night. The smell of urine under magnificently crafted stone, arched walls confronts you with disgust, contempt, malice. The sound of chatter floats over the warm Caribbean air, high pitched laughter befriends you while bars overflow out into the streets. Smoke, dense black heavy fumes, fills your lungs with a sweet chemical cocktail that tastes of metal and lead. Cuban women walk the streets, tight, well-shaped figures move with the grace of the moon; nature encompassed in a woman’s body; leering eyes, the sexualisation of femininity complete. Hustling, false friendships, deceit swimming through a wave of desperation, fuelled by the will to survive. Integrity and honesty disregarded; meaningless in a game of manipulation, deceit and lies.

Chugging cars rattle and barge through narrow streets. The old American clunkers splatter over potholed pavement bent with cracked, faded paint and glass. The disease of rust patiently summoning the ancient machine back into the dirt, the source of creation demanding its inevitable return. Full bodied tanks swollen, a symbolic representation of indulgence that is American culture. Excess, abundance, dominance contrasted by jarring angles that once represented success and elegance now plod through the streets, heavy with thick steel, dull, loud uncouth. The machines resist under permanent slavery. They rattle, shudder and groan in protest, as they are forced to propelled forward with replaced mechanical hearts that pump fresh black blood and force rubber limbs turn in a never-ending cycle of punishment and pain.

Black creased faces, fading smiles, impatience, apathy, dead eyes and sharp vocal barks of request. A man asks for a piece of cheap bread with some ham. There is simply not enough. He grunts and he walks away. Dreary streets void of colour, class and appeal. Peeling paint and sagging buildings crushed with defeat. Old Havana is like a tired burnt out, broken old man, full of neglect, lost dreams, unfulfilled potential, youth constricted, castrated, confined and controlled.

I walk through the dusty streets of Havana in awe, looking at a city that has aged, fallen from grace like a queen brought to her knees, I soak up the energy of this place that is a city captured in time. As I dodge the perennial pot holes, the dirty puddles, I see young children playing football on the street. Old women walk slowly, held upright by the hands of youth, clothes faded like the brightness of their lives now lost. I see people sitting on the road, their feet dangling in the street and their eyes on the movement of others. Watching, speaking quietly to old neighbours, some shouting out to their friends, some dancing, and some perhaps waiting for someone, albeit foreigner or family to ease the longing of desire.

The human heart in chains. Clamps of steel, unbending, unrelenting and apathetic. No internet to lubricate curiosity, creativity, expression, ideas. No visa to leave and fly, a dull Caribbean island surrounded by water, it citizens trapped. A prison of rock, water isolation. An illusion of freedom, romanticised, glorified yet masks truth hidden in shadows, a government perpetuates, the elite float, effortlessly in a world of privilege. Revolution, change, a world made in haste. Cuba, a prison frozen in time. Nothing changes. #