Started writing this yesterday, but didn't make the deadline. So I'm going to post it today, and it's pretty long, so I'll count it as two. Who knows I might post two short ones another day!
On our second last day in the country we had decided that we'd take the train from Pinar del Rio back to Havana, purely for the experience and because Anne-Sophie likes trains. We had been warned to that the trains were very unreliable and often didn't run, so we were prepared to be disappointed, so we weren't very surprised when, after waiting for twenty minutes or so in a fairly busy waiting area, someone came to announce that the train was running late. We had been expecting to hear it had been cancelled, so this was good news.
The train eventually arrived and we walked all the way to the carriages near the front, only to discover that we had assigned seating and that these seats were three cars from the back. This didn't matter to us as it gave us the opportunity to wander through the train and have a look around at the holes in the floor, missing windows and broken doors, many of which were left open so you could hang out of them while the train was moving. We seemed to be the only non-Cubans on board, which was refreshing as we had felt up to then that we'd just been keeping to the tourist trail. We arrived at our first-class (the only option we were given) seats to find that they were more or less identical in every way to the other seats on the train. Oh, except one of them had been covered in a faux leather. But apart from that they were the same. We found ourselves sitting across from two ladies who we chatted to a little bit during the journey, and one of whom, unbidden, bought us a toasted sandwich from the vendor who made regular passes up and down the train with various goodies. I was still benefiting from the cortisone injections earlier in the holiday and felt I could eat whatever came my way, so I could do the polite thing and accept. I bought them a bun later but they refused it, so we had to have it.
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| The view from the rear carriage. |
The train was not sound proofed in any way, the steel floor had holes in it here and there and so the noise of that filled the carriages as we made our way over the tracks was a roar that required us to shout to hear each other. I spent some time looking out the door standing on the second step as we hurtled along, until somebody told me that the seemingly sturdy door I was using to steady myself wasn't locked in position and could open. Eek. Not my brightest moment. What we noticed later was the dirt. Anne-Sophie's white top that had been left on the seat became grey with the fumes and dust that were present in the carriage, and my beige trousers were worse again.
We disposed of our rubbish in one of the few bins to be found on the train, beside the toilet. We couldn't bring ourselves to following everyone else's example and chucking cans and wrappers out the window. Awfully messy.
A few hours into the journey, having taken note of the various stops that the train had been making in tiny villages and farms, I decided that I was going to jump out at one of them once we got a bit closer to Havana. We were due to arrive at 15:00 originally, but given the delay I figured that we would be about an hour late. So I decided that I would disembark at 14:00 from whatever platform we happened to arrive at. Anne-Sophie would stay on the train in order to meet the driver that was supposed to meet us at the station in Havana and drive us to the Casa Particular that our host in our last Casa had organised for us.
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| Dodgy Butcher |
So at 13:55 I hopped out in a relatively large village (in comparison to others we'd stopped at) with dirt roads spreading in all directions. I asked a vendor pushing a small wagon of soft drinks the direction to Havana and he gave me a description that I kind of got the gist of - one kilometre that way, junction, left, main road, five kilometres, highway. So off I went, passing a butcher's, basically a house with various lumps of uncovered meat sitting outside in the shade, with a fan blowing over them, and bottles of some interesting looking liquid on the table beside it.
Further along the road, still on foot, I passed what seemed to be an abandoned military facility, complete with abandoned missile. I didn't want to stand around taking photos for too long, so I kept on moving.
I tried hitching for a few kilometres along the road, to no avail, until I eventually found a guy who was just finishing work and was also hitching in my direction just to get home. He flagged down a passing truck - one of the old style American trucks, I don't know what you call them, but it was vintage - and we both got in. Our driver was turning off in two kilometres, but it was a help. We thanked him and jumped out and walked the rest of the way into the next town and to 'junction, left, main road'. My new friend left me there at a bus stop telling me to wait for a taxi or a bus. I tried to explain my intention to hitchhike, but he just shook his head, before heading on his way.
I tried hitching for a while, but in the end a taxi pulled in, and although I initially refused several of the people at the bus stop urged me to go for it, so I did, along with two others. The system seemed to be that the taxi driver, accompanied by what appeared to be two of his friends in the front, would as far the person going the furthest, if that makes sense, and then pick other people up and drop them off along the way. I originally asked to go to the bus station in the next town, as he was going there anyway, but when he learned that I was planning on going to Havana he said that would be no problem and that he could do it for about 1€, I decided to go with it. I was accompanied by various passengers in the back seat during the 45 minute journey, including a girl in her late teens/early twenties, who I'm pretty sure was offering to have sex with me - so the simplified Spanish, sign-language and reactions from her friend and the guys in front would suggest. I played the clueless non-Spanish speaker. When she got out the driver turned to ask if I would go with her, but I said no. The guys all shrugged and we went on.
I arrived at the Casa at about 16:00. No sign of Anne-Sophie, although at the rate the train was going I imagined that she was probably just arriving at the station. I confused the hell out of our host who had been expecting two of us, so I had to try explain in very poor Spanish and mime why I had left my girlfriend on a train, while I jumped off in the middle of nowhere and hitched my way back alone. A very hard thing to do without sounding weird. I don't think I managed it.
17:00 rolled on, with still no sign of Anne-Sophie. We had made a long list of possible scenarios for meeting up again - as my phone didn't work, with meet up points at various parts of Havana at different times - at the hotel at 17:00, and if I'm not there, at the Malecon (the sea walk) at 18:00 for the sunset, and if not there somewhere else later again, even going so far as if I don't make it back by tomorrow morning, I'll meet you at the airport! But these had all been for if I was late, so that Anne-Sophie wouldn't feel like she had to wait for me at the hotel for the evening. We had, at no stage, considered the possibility that she'd be delayed. But she was.
She finally showed up at 17:30 after an adventure of her own. The train had started going very slowly not long after I had jumped off, before stopping in the middle of nowhere. An attendant came from carriage to carriage, announced something and people started getting off, so poor Anne-Sophie had to ask a policeman what the hell was happening. He very kindly explained that the train had broken down and that people would have to get a bus to Havana. He also cornered two rail staff who were heading the same way and told them that they were responsible for getting her back to Havana, and they did, bringing her with them to the bus stop by the airport and giving her money for the bus (about €0.10, but still). While she was waiting for the bus, who did she see whizzing by in a taxi only yours truly! What are the odds. She spent a long time waiting, and then made her way to the station in order to meet the guy that was sent to wait for us, but he had obviously heard the train was out of action, because he wasn't there. She went to a shop to ask for change for the payphone, but they couldn't exchange the tourist currency for the national currency (I'll explain more about that in another post), but the guy at the counter very nicely gave her the change she needed out of his own pocket (about €0.05, but still). She called the Casa to explain that she was on her way, and about the train, but for some reason that message wasn't passed on to me.
We were finally reunited and went out to watch the sunset on the Malecon.
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| Cuban missile |
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| If not THE truck I was in, something very similar... |
I tried hitching for a while, but in the end a taxi pulled in, and although I initially refused several of the people at the bus stop urged me to go for it, so I did, along with two others. The system seemed to be that the taxi driver, accompanied by what appeared to be two of his friends in the front, would as far the person going the furthest, if that makes sense, and then pick other people up and drop them off along the way. I originally asked to go to the bus station in the next town, as he was going there anyway, but when he learned that I was planning on going to Havana he said that would be no problem and that he could do it for about 1€, I decided to go with it. I was accompanied by various passengers in the back seat during the 45 minute journey, including a girl in her late teens/early twenties, who I'm pretty sure was offering to have sex with me - so the simplified Spanish, sign-language and reactions from her friend and the guys in front would suggest. I played the clueless non-Spanish speaker. When she got out the driver turned to ask if I would go with her, but I said no. The guys all shrugged and we went on.
I arrived at the Casa at about 16:00. No sign of Anne-Sophie, although at the rate the train was going I imagined that she was probably just arriving at the station. I confused the hell out of our host who had been expecting two of us, so I had to try explain in very poor Spanish and mime why I had left my girlfriend on a train, while I jumped off in the middle of nowhere and hitched my way back alone. A very hard thing to do without sounding weird. I don't think I managed it.
17:00 rolled on, with still no sign of Anne-Sophie. We had made a long list of possible scenarios for meeting up again - as my phone didn't work, with meet up points at various parts of Havana at different times - at the hotel at 17:00, and if I'm not there, at the Malecon (the sea walk) at 18:00 for the sunset, and if not there somewhere else later again, even going so far as if I don't make it back by tomorrow morning, I'll meet you at the airport! But these had all been for if I was late, so that Anne-Sophie wouldn't feel like she had to wait for me at the hotel for the evening. We had, at no stage, considered the possibility that she'd be delayed. But she was.
She finally showed up at 17:30 after an adventure of her own. The train had started going very slowly not long after I had jumped off, before stopping in the middle of nowhere. An attendant came from carriage to carriage, announced something and people started getting off, so poor Anne-Sophie had to ask a policeman what the hell was happening. He very kindly explained that the train had broken down and that people would have to get a bus to Havana. He also cornered two rail staff who were heading the same way and told them that they were responsible for getting her back to Havana, and they did, bringing her with them to the bus stop by the airport and giving her money for the bus (about €0.10, but still). While she was waiting for the bus, who did she see whizzing by in a taxi only yours truly! What are the odds. She spent a long time waiting, and then made her way to the station in order to meet the guy that was sent to wait for us, but he had obviously heard the train was out of action, because he wasn't there. She went to a shop to ask for change for the payphone, but they couldn't exchange the tourist currency for the national currency (I'll explain more about that in another post), but the guy at the counter very nicely gave her the change she needed out of his own pocket (about €0.05, but still). She called the Casa to explain that she was on her way, and about the train, but for some reason that message wasn't passed on to me.
We were finally reunited and went out to watch the sunset on the Malecon.
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