Nuestra Habana Photos p. 4

Well, in the first draft of our photo gallery, this page was entitled The People of Havana. Well, if it wasn't for this photo, I'd change the title to The People Tourists Will Most Likely See. Here is a father and child in the park.

Ahh, this is more like it! These jovial chaps serenaded us to the outskirts of the police infested Habana Vieja. They asked me for five bucks for the songs they played, and I thought "yeah right". I think someone in our group gave it to them though, so the guys knew the right gringos to hit up for cash!

Dr. Trumbull decided that we'd skip the planned trip to Varadero Beach, and hit a local beach on the outskirts of Havana instead. We got to sun with the Cubans! The special police, to my surprise, were right out there on the beach with the rest of us, casting bitter glares in every direction. A group of them took a very unprofessional interest in a game of net-less beach volleyball that broke out next to us. They made sure to throw in a few more scowls to make sure no one thought they were watching for fun. We all got trashed and made the band in the cabana encore Guantanamera twice… typical of us ugly Americans, huh? Well, the band added a verse to acknowledge their friends from los Estados Unidos, and we all danced together and forgot that we were all mortal enemies, if just for a second.

After I got home, I was looking through my Lonely Planet and noticed that a photo of this same man is in their 1997 Cuba guide. I believe he said he had been rolling cigars for about 35 years! He had a demo table set up in the lobby of the Hotel Habana Libre.

This photogenic man was sitting in front of a residence in Havana Vieja. It seemed that he was freelancing as a photo model for tourists. I was still a little shy about my Spanish, but now I wish I'd asked him what he did for a living. I took the shot with his permission, and tipped him for his troubles… money well spent.

Door-to-door knife sharpening! This man was a perfect example of the growth of "free-er" enterprise. His grinding stone was pedal-powered, and a true masterpiece of Cuban ingenuity. My father said they used similar machines when he was a kid in Costa Rica in the 1930s. I was charged about twenty cents for my pocket knife, which was what he charged the Cuban woman in front of me for her kitchen knife. Most Cubans I met wouldn't even think of overcharging foreigners. It seemed they were just too decent to do something like that. I would have been willing to pay more, but it was nice that I didn't have to.