Cuba can be an intoxicating place

January 23rd, 2008

Cuba can be an intoxicating place at times, and it isn’t merely the island’s seemingly endless supply of rum. The Republic of Cuba is the largest of the Caribbean tropical holiday islands, and its warm people, culture and customs draw from various sources. Tourism recently surpassed sugar as the country’s main source of income, and today the island attracts a staggering bouquet of people, from a lot more countries than you might think.

Thanks to a political grudge match that is now decades old, the island is still bereft of Americans, which in some small way puts everyone there at ease. It makes the island rather special, as if its visitors share a common bond. People who travel to Cuba go there to make friends, and some of those friendships can last for years. They use words like please, thank you, hello, good night, beer and tomorrow a lot; which gives everyone a sense that, if you stick to that short list, tomorrow can be a better day.

Probably the prettiest Cuban girl I met was Dixandra; the one with the engaging smile and sparkling black eyes, who opened up The Beer Corner each evening. She was the most fun to talk to as well, but no one ever sat too long at Beer Corner. It was just a stop at the crossroads, where people met on the way to someplace else. A little man from Falkirk was one of her best customers, and he liked to sit in her shade, listen to the radio, and read his book. He agreed with me entirely that Keith Moon was the greatest of all the rock drummers, and more than a little mad, as he put it. I decided he knew what he was talking about, after someone pulled the happy Scot from the pool during one of his nightly stumbles back to his room. The guy who moved the most water out of the pool was an intimidating and gentle natured hulk from Colchester, who was there to escape the fog so common to his English home. You picked up his hame immediately, after spotting the tattoo “Tubby” sprawled across his ample back. Particularly intriguing was the auctioneer from Calgary, who started every one of his conversations with a magic trick, moved on to hockey, then to golf, and finally launched into betty’s bitter brick of butter. It was as if he was using his visit to Cuba as a dress rehearsal for something. It was fun trying to talk with a woman who was taking a break from her grocery store in the hills near Labrador; where she makes her own soups, stews, salads and sauces. I was instantly aware of just how much high school French I had forgotten; but I didn’t feel too bad, because the folks from France couldn’t understand her either.

There were people there from near where you live, and people from where you used to live too. When they all get talking, you realize we are more connected than we think. The food and drink is just as diverse, and the staff gets in a hurry for no one; likely due to the heat, which does tend to relax a person. If you venture from town to town on the island, you can find a lot of different people, at a lot of different beer corners, each with their own charm. Cuba’s laid back paces, friendly faces and bare-bones lifestyle is indeed intoxicating—and yes, so is all that rum.