detail from: KRK Art dizajn

IN CUBA 6 times

I stayed in Cuba on vacation six times (6 x), for the first time during June / July 1993, in the tourist resort of Varadero. My decision to go to Cuba for the first time was my long-standing commitment to Cuban boxers, who in my opinion were the best amateur boxers in the world.

Arriving in Cuba, we soon became convinced that the Cubans are an extremely peaceful people, and they treated tourists professionally and very humanely.

When our plane flew over Varadero, it made a turn over Matanzas, and then landed at the international airport, surrounded by tropical forests. According to the purchased arrangement, we were accommodated in the Atabey hotel, but the next day we moved to Quatro Palmas. The villa we were staying in was surrounded by banana trees, whose leaves touched our windows. The hotel was extraordinarily clean, the food varied, with lots of southern fruit, served according to the All Inclusive system. The beach on the waters of the Atlantic, 40 kilometers long, as we were told, sandy, without any debris. On the beach umbrellas, there were enough for each family.

On the first evening, we walked along the main street, where many people walked, both tourists and locals, everyone saluted everyone, with a gentle bow and greetings to Buenos. The scent of the sea wafted through the gentle breeze and mingled with the scents of various flowers next to each house. The sunset complemented the ambience with its orange spectacle.

In those days, near Matanzas, Jacques Cousteau explored the sea depths of the bay, and their ship was anchored not far from the shore. In Cuba, we have heard from the Cubans that they use the palm tree completely, every part of it: a leaf to cover houses, a tree as a building material, a root for extraction for pharmaceutical purposes, and a fruit for food. The so-called "Bread Tree" also grows in Cuba, whose fruits are the size of grapefruits and whose leaves are similar to palm trees.

We left for Havana with two minibuses, in the first, for English-speaking passengers, only four of us, my wife and I, and two other girls from England, and in the second, German-speaking passengers. In front of Havana is the beach "Yugoslavia", which was built by our companies, and just before the entrance to the city is a fortress. From there we drive underwater and enter the city of Havana. Many of the buildings are beautiful architecture, but almost all of them are dilapidated, they need renovation. There are no windows on many of them, and most Cubans, during the warm summer months, sit in front of buildings, socialize and enjoy. There are many museums and galleries in the city, worth visiting, if you have enough time. Cubans, it seems to me, all, like to mention Hemingway, as if he is their cousin.

On the way to Havana, the driver mentioned to us that we would visit the monument to Amalia, in the cemetery. It was not clear to us why we should go to the cemetery, but we accepted the plan without discussion.

According to the story of the driver, who was also our guide, Amalia died just before giving birth, and when she was buried from the grave, the cry of a child was heard. They dug up the grave and found that the child was born in a coffin, left the mother's breasts, but still died there, in the absence of oxygen. They buried them again, both of them. Later, the people collected donations and erected a magnificent monument to Amalia, a statue of a mother with a child in her arms. And after that, many women who could not give birth, for whatever reason, come to pray to Amalia, and the Cubans claim that she helped many.

After we visited the Havana cemetery, which, the driver told us, has about a million monuments, architecturally each different from each other, took us to a souvenir shop. And as soon as we stepped on the door of that store, I noticed that I was missing my wallet, with the money and all the documents. I went back and told the driver that, to which he reacted immediately, called two English women and we headed back, on the roads we came from. At one restaurant, where we stopped by, I tried to cancel all my credit cards in Toronto, but the call didn't work. And as soon as we got out and went to our minibus, we noticed the minibus in which German tourists were driving, to give us a sign to stop. And we are waiting for them, when one of those tourists comes out and gives me my wallet with all the documents and money. I wanted to pay him, and he didn't want anything, he just told me that he found my documents in the hotel, where we had lunch before them, on the 23rd floor. It fell to me when I was paying the waiter without feeling it. Then I remembered Amalia, who helps infertile women, so I thought that she might have helped me as well.

After that episode, we stopped at a restaurant, which, they say, Hemingway often stopped by. We were treated, we relaxed a bit there, and in the evening we headed back to Varadero.

Two years later, when Stasa graduated from the Faculty of Fashion at Ryerson University, and Maja finished her second year and enrolled in the third, Medical Bioengineering at the University of Toronto, I was still intensively looking for a job in engineering companies. I was almost regularly told that I was overqualified. That summer I traveled to Cuba alone, I decided on a place, also on the Atlantic coast, Santa Lucia. I flew to Kamagwei, and from there by bus, through the arable fields of Cuba, where I saw a lot of workers. The complex in Santa Lucia was completely new, all in an extraordinary layout, as well as the All Inclusive system. The beach is sandy, only in the sea there is algae, which the hosts take out with the help of buffaloes, which pull some rakes through the water with which they pull out the algae. Each guest was given a special villa, and we had live music in the restaurant, which mostly played Mexican and Cuban melodies. The nights here were pleasant for longer sittings, the sky was strewn with countless stars, and the breeze from the Atlantic brought freshness and the smell of the sea. On August 28, 1995, the sky in the west was darkened, and lightning flashed in the clouds, one after the other. Since that scene was very far away, it was nice to watch

For the next day, I paid for a boat trip on the open sea, on the so-called "Snorkeling". We set sail from the port of Boca Bay, at a distance of about 10 km, and there the ship anchored. All the passengers soon jumped into the sea and started diving, each in his own interest, looking at corals and the like. When I jumped, I noticed something red behind me, I turned around and realized that I had cut myself on a sharp rock and that blood was leaking from my leg. I immediately returned to the deck and received a lot of napkins from the cook, with which I stopped the blood. It took a while, when I realized that there was no more entering the water, and I stayed on deck to sunbathe all day.

On the ninth day of my stay in Santa Lucia, I took the star out of the sea, so I put it on the anthill, where the ants finished it off for the next few days, after which I could pack it in a suitcase.

And during the last day of my stay, I was lying on the sand, sunbathing and looking through a magazine, when two Cuban women came and one, a Moleskin woman, was lying near me. She greeted me in Spanish - Ola (hello), and I greeted her in English, - Hi.

- Hola, I said to her, too, in Spanish, which made her laugh.

- Hola (How are you), she asks me.

-Cómo está usted (How are you?)

- Soj kasado bueno, komo esto ustad? (I'm fine, how are you?), I answered her.

- Abla usted Espanol? (Do you speak Spanish), she asked me.

- No, Sólo habla un poco de Español (No, I don't speak Spanish well).

- Es usted Americano (Are you American?).

- No, SoyCanadiano (No, I'm Canadian).

Then she approached me and started her life story, in Spanish, which I could hardly follow, due to my poor knowledge of the language. I felt that she wanted to get as close to me as possible, she became nice to me.

- Como se llama (What's your name?), I asked her.

- Me llama Daisy (“Deisi), she replied, extending her hand to say hello. I think that our daisy flowers are called Daisy, and that we, as children, tore off her white flowers and said "I will, I will not". I look at her in the light and see that she has beautiful, white teeth and chestnut color eyes. Daisy would just talk, then continue:

- Es usted casado (Are you married?) She asked me.

- Si, estoy casado, tengo dos hijas. (Yes, I am married, have two daughters and live in Toronto).

I mentioned the Cuban boxer Theophilo Stevenson, the world and Olympic champion, and she jumped up, happy, and said that he was her neighbor in Kamagwei. All radiant, happy, she pulls my hand, let's go to the sea. I entered the water slowly, and she swam like a fish, and when I swam up to her, she hung around my neck, as a result of which we both drowned.

It was already evening, the sun was approaching to sunset, surrounded by blush, and the gentle waves of the Atlantic were pouring on the sand, where we had been lying until then. It was my last night in Santa Lucia, nature wished me a happy return, and Daisy held out both hands to me and still wanted to hug me. Her friend, with whom she came, was lying on the sand all the time and looking at my magazine, pretending not to look at us. I knew that I would never see Daisy again, it will only remain in my memories.

When I spent the third summer in Cuba, I was in the south, in Playa Giron. From Varadero to that place you go by van, and in the resort each guest gets a special villa. It was midnight when I entered my villa, and as soon as I turned on the light on the wall, I saw crabs, thinking they were scorpions. I went back to the reception, asked for help and the clerk came to take them outside. I was scared, and that is common here, there are thousands of crabs and they are crawling everywhere.

In the complex, I met the singer Kristina Odalis, who studied in Odessa and knew Russian, and the director of the complex was Vjekoslav, whose father is Czech. The secretary was a Cuban woman who studied in Sofia, Bulgaria. That's how everyone spoke Slavic languages. Giron Beach is protected by a wall, behind which an island could be seen in the distance, the private residence of Fidel Castro.

I bathed on a rocky beach, where the water was clear as a tear, transparent to who knows what depth. No one else came here except me. The sun was blazing relentlessly and I got a wonderful copper color.

After six years, I found myself in Varadero again, in a hotel with many flowers on all sides and many palm trees around. And the food is good, the sea and the beach are clean, all according to Cuban standards. And certainly, as before, every night walks in the faces along the coast, and from private restaurants come the smells of food and pleasant sounds of music. Numerous walkers along First Avenue, who, as usual, all salute each other. Cubans are a truly benevolent and well-meaning people. In private restaurants, I concluded that their standard of living is significantly improving. Better car models are also driven, although Cubans still complain that their lives are difficult. It is noticeable that there is no violence in Cuba, there is no graffiti on the walls, and their police officers ride bicycles, they are in shorts, and they are actually protecting tourists from their citizens.

Bosa and I stayed in Varadero in 2008, when she was left with a suitcase at the airport, with insulin and all the medicines, so we had to take a taxi at night to find it. And to make matters worse, she fell in the bathroom and broke one rib, so the rest of the stay she spent in the hotel and in the ambulance. And once again we were together in Cayo Coco, which has a very shallow beach, which is crazy.

Fortress at the entry of Havana

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