Here is a slice from a week ago that I couldn’t post because
Cuba’s access to the Internet is so unreliable.
My daughter
and I were on the second day of our people-to-people tour in Cuba.
“People-to-people” means the tour group is out from 9 to at least 5 every day,
with guides, walking tours, educational talks, and generally a surfeit of
information.
Tuesday
morning an architect met our group of 26 in the Plaza de Armas, in Havana, where in 1519
monks celebrated the first mass on the island under a huge tree. A church was
built there some years later. We then walked through a little park and past a
statue of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, who declared independence from Spain in
1868, which didn’t finally come until 1898. As we then approached an imposing
building, which the architect explained had originally been a governor’s palace and now city offices, I saw a man selling
maps. A map enthusiast, I hadn’t been able to get one before.
I stopped
and asked how much. Three CUCs (the Cuban convertible peso used by tourists),
he said. I’d been carrying my smartphone, for taking photos, a notebook and
pen, for taking notes, and our group’s itinerary, and put all of these down on
a nearby empty table. Took out my wallet, paid for the map, and
picked up all my stuff to join the group.
You’ve
already guessed what happened. A few minutes later I reached for my phone to
take a photo of the decorative columns on the front of the governor’s palace –
and it wasn’t in my pocket. It wasn’t with my notebook. It was gone.
I went back
to the table where I’d put everything down, and it was now covered with tourist
magazines and brochures. No phone in sight. “I’ve lost my phone,” I said
loudly, now searching through my pockets again, and in my purse. No luck. Our tour director had me empty everything out of
my purse and my backpack. No phone. The local tour guide asked the woman if she
had a seen a phone, but of course she hadn’t.
In my
panic, I couldn’t even remember what the map seller looked like, and felt
doubly embarrassed, first for being so careless, second for being such a
“typical American tourist” and not even noticing the local vender I was buying
from.
For the
next 20 minutes, I beat myself up: how could I be so stupid? how could I be so
careless? how could I not notice what I was doing, or who I was buying the map
from? But basic optimism came to my rescue. I’d traded my
phone for a city and country map that I really wanted. The phone was
replaceable. Fortunately, it was only a few months old, so there wasn’t much on
it, and I can afford the replacement. The pictures of Havana’s famous classic
cars were lost, but I was able to get more shots of those in our remaining time
in Havana.
As
for Cuba, it is well worth the trip. If you can manage to go, I strongly
recommend you do it. Go Ahead Tours would be an excellent way to start.
