Story: Five Days in Cuba, 1947

At two o'clock in the morning, four other brave souls and I took off in a DC-3, destination New Orleans. We had a smooth, uneventful trip arriving about half an hour late. A DC-4 was waiting for us and we headed for Havana at 10:00 a.m. The flight over the Delta country was quite interesting. There are tiny clusters of houses on water completely isolated apparently. I assume those were the homes of the Bayou people who make their living by fishing. We flew at 9500 feet most of the way to take advantage of winds and because it is a little rough at the lower altitudes. There were fifteen people on the ship, about half of whom were Cubans. The stewardesses spoke both English and Spanish and the "No Smoking" and "Fasten Seat Belt" signs were in both languages. After a good lunch, we landed in Havana at 2:30 Eastern time.

While waiting to go through the customs, the House of Bacardi served free daiquiris to all who wanted them. The customs officers just skimmed through the baggage to see that we weren't bringing in too many cigarettes and asked no questions of me at all. I had talked with a woman on the plane and she told me not to declare any jewelry, but I had nothing of value with me anyway.

My first sample of Cuban driving prepared me for the traffic in Havana. They all drove like maniacs. My cab driver was the silent type. I told him the name of my hotel and he didn't speak another word until he asked for the fare. I found out later that he took me by a devious route through the old city and overcharged me outrageously. Coming in by air, I noticed that many of the farm houses had thatched roofs and they seemed quite frail. On the ground, they proved to be adequate shelters but poor in appearance. They were a great contrast to the large, beautiful homes of the rich Cubans. I had been told that there was no color line in Cuba, but the Blacks seemed to be doing all the labor and they definitely did not patronize the restaurants and stores of the middle and upper classes. Whether or not there was a section of homes for the Blacks, I don't know, but there was a theater for them.

After unpacking and freshening up a bit, I went out to learn the city. First I must tell you about my room. It had a marble floor, as did most of the buildings there, and there was a balcony with shuttered doors opening on to it. The plumbing left something to be desired. The hot water was never hot and the cold water never cold. And it took ages to empty the bathtub or washbowl. Since I spent so little time in my room, I was satisfied though. The hotel was only two blocks from the main square, Central Park, so I was sure I couldn't get lost. I took a walk along some of the narrow streets and wound up on the square where I found a tour agency. A Mr. Gonzales was very pleasant and suggested that I come back at 9:30 the next morning to make a tour of the city. I took note that the office was on a street with a wide sidewalk and pillars next to the street supporting a roof. This is to make it possible to get from place to place during the rainy season without being drenched. The next morning when I began to look for the tour office, I realized that practically all the streets in the downtown section had wide sidewalks and pillars. So I had to go back to the hotel and get directions.

The first evening I had asked directions to La Florida, one of the nicer restaurants, and the Cuban on the desk told me to go two blocks down that way and I would come to a big white building. I walked the two blocks and saw at least five big white buildings, but after hunting a bit, I found La Florida and had one of the best meals of my stay.

Most of the people in Havana spoke some English so it was no problem to find your way around. They had a corps of Tourist Police who were very nice about directing you. In all my stay, I saw only one street sign painted on the side of a building, so it is uesless to try to find anything by streets. You merely identify the position in relation to something else.

On the morning tour, we were taken first to the Capitol building which was very much like our own in outside design. Inside were all marble floors and great vaulted ceilings with a different design in gold leaf on each one. The furniture was massive and made of Cuban mahogany. There was a huge bronze statue in the central hall representing Cuban liberty and it was set on a base of black Egyptian marble. In all there were 67 varieties of marble in the building - floors, pillars, etc. They were quite proud of their democracy but not too pleased with San Martin, the President. In one hall, there were paintings of some of the past presidents of Cuba and one of Roosevelt. In Cuba no one is re-elected - they serve four years and are replaced. So they can spend their time legislating instead of campaigning for re-election. They can really be proud of their capitol - it is a beautiful building.

From there we were taken on a drive through the old city and Chinatown. I was interested to learn that Chinese women are not allowed in Cuba. The Chinese men marry Blacks if they marry at all. The streets in that section are so narrow that we had to go over a curb to turn one corner. We were taken into our Lady of Mercy church which is over 400 years old. The altar was lighted so that we might take pictures and the guide told us something of the building of the church and the materials used. They had a wax figure of a Cuban girl who became a saint in ceturies past and there were beautiful rings on her fingers and what looked like real pearls around her neck. It was probalby a synthetic display for the tourist trade, but it was lovely to see. On one side of the church was a garden and I took pictures there. It was rather dark but I hoped they would turn out all right.

Then we went to the Havana Club which is the largest distillery of rum in the world. They served all a frozen daiquiri and then gave us samples of about five kinds of liqueurs which were all good. The idea is to sell you as much as you can carry home. Since I didn't go down with that idea, the sales talk was lost on me. The Club is in Cathedral Square and the Church of Christopher Columbus was there. I got a shot of it from the balcony of the Club. We also visited a store featuring alligator bags but again I wasn't too interested.

After that we were taken on a tour of the suburbs and saw many beautiful homes. Then to the cemetery. In Cuba a family buys a plot about the size of two of our graves. Then all the members of the family are buried there, one on top of another. Most of the monuments are of pure white marble, and there are flowers growing everywhere. It is really a lovely place.

I had lunch at Mario's, a plush restaurant near my hotel and tried one of the chicken and rice dishes. It was very good, but the coffee was horrible as I found everywhere. Cuban coffee is too strong for my taste and American coffee is always just warm. After lunch I had a siesta for a few hours, just like the natives do. The weather was so pleasant that sleeping was easy at any hour of the day or night. It was about 75 most of the time with a light breeze blowing.

Saturday night I took the nightclub tour with two girls from Chicago and two from Miami. We went first to the jai a lai games which were new to me. Our driver tried to explain the game to us, but his English was limited and we had to figure it out for ourselves. Bets are taken all the time even while the game is going on. The "bookies" stand in front of the stands and if you wish to bet, they toss you a little ball in which you put your money and your bet. I didn't find out where you went to collect if you won. It was more fun watching the people than the game, although it appears to take a lot of skill to scoop up the little ball in the curved baskets the players wear on their right hands.

Next we went to the Casino Nacional, where gambling is legalized. In one large room you can find any type of gambling game that interests you. Then in a smaller room are the Keno games. We saw the floor show there - mostly Cuban entertainers, and I was quite surprised when Betty Reilly was introduced and she broke into "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah". The Casino was very much like our flossy nightclubs except that the grounds around it were beautifully landscaped and there was a white marble fountain just in front with some delicate sculpture work. As soon as the floor show was over, we motored to the Tropicana, an outdoor nightclub. Palm trees grew right through the glass floor and bouganvillea brightened the walled garden. The trees are softly lighted and it was a most romantic place. The floor show there was all Cuban, but the m.c. announced the numbers in English too for the benefit of us tourists. I was there again Monday night with a Canadian I met later.

After the beauty of the other two clubs, we were taken to a waterfront dive called "Fararon". My Spanish, being a little rusty, I couldn't understand much of what was going on, but I gathered that one of the entertainers was a comedian. After the floor show, my driver of the morning tour appeared and asked me to dance. It was quite an experience dancing the rhumba with a native. He was good at it and I was able to follow well enough. We would have danced more but it was time to go home.

Sunday I slept late and breakfasted late. I found a little sidewalk care the first day and ate there every morning. There I had cafe con leche instead of American coffee. It amounts to a tall glass of hot milk with about a tablesponful of Cuban coffee added. That, orange juice and a plate of their buttered toast was ample. The toast was made of a kind of bread I had never tasted before. It looked like Italian bread but was much finer in texture, and it had a sweet taste - very good.

In the afternoon I took a trip to Morro Castle, the ancient fortress guarding the entrance to Havana Harbor. We were taken across the harbor in a small launch and turned over to a guide about half way up the bluff leading to the Castle. The guide amused me so with his dramatic way of telling the story of the fortress and how it was taken by the Spanish and the English. It was built of petrified coral which was brought up from the shore by slave labor. The walls were 20 ft. thick and the buildings are quite high. The guide let us go down in the solitary confinement cell which was 10 x 15 ft. and about 7 ft. high. There was no air in the place and it was used by the Spaniards to get rid of troublesome prisoners. They usually lasted about three days and then were cut up in little pieces and thrown into the "shark's nest", a hole through the cliff which goes directly to the water. The view of Havana from the lighthouse was magnificent and I took several pictures from there. I had color film in the camera and hoped the pictures turned out well. The combination of bright blue sky and deeper blue water should show up nicely I thought. It was a beautiful day, as were all of them while I was there, and it was very pleasant to walk over the old fort. It was then used as a jail for the whole country and as an Army base. There were neat little houses for the officers and their families and all kinds of stores so that they need never leave the base.

After a day in the sea air and a good dinner of lobster tails at the Miami Restaurant, I went to bed early to be ready for an early start to Varadero Beach on Monday. When I sallied forth at 6:45 there were no cabs and no restaurants open. So I walked the mile to the airport terminal and made for the airport. There was a forty-five minute wait until plane time, so I had breakfast out there. But the waiter didn't speak English and I had to dredge up some Spanish to get eggs, bacon and coffee. He finally understood me and served a complete breakfast for fifty cents.

We took off at 8:15 and flew along the coast of Cuba to Varadero which was about 130 miles from Havana. On this trip you got a good idea of the size of the sugar and tobacco plantations. It took only half an hour from Havana and I was pleased to find that the Cuban pilots flew just as well as our own. There were three Cuban airlines and they all seemed to do a rushing business. Mr. Gonzales of the tour agency had given me a letter of introduction to the lady manager of the Dos Mares Hotel so I went there first. No one spoke English in the town except Mrs. Rodriguez's niece. Mrs. Rodriguez greeted me and then called Maria to interpret. They gave me a clean little room where I could change to my bathing suit and I went right to the beach. It was the most beautiful I had ever seen. Five miles of white sand with the ocean rolling in in varying shades of blue and green. It isn't possible to describe the beauty of it. I spent about three hours down there and acquired quite a sunburn. Maria was waiting for me when I got back and introduced me to some of the other guests with whom I lunched. Their menus were printed in English, but since the waiters neither spoke nor read it, you pointed to what you wanted and they counted down and brought you that number. It worked very well except for the ice cream. I couldn't think of the Spanish word for ice cream but finally thought I had made the waiter understand what I wanted. I got chocoate pudding and ate it without another word. In the afternoon I sat in the sun in the patio and dozed for awhile. Then Maria took me for a walk through the town and introduced me to some of her friends. She took me in the stores, the bowling alley and their little nightclub and we had a pleasant time just strolling around and talking. She had learned all her English from the tourists and did very well. I enjoyed talking to her because she had such an interest in everything and everybody. She had introduced me to Mr. John Turnbull, Canadian, who was also travelling alone. He was scheduled to go back to Havana on my flight that evening but decided to go back by car instead. I still wanted to fly so we agreed to meet at nine at La Florida. I was back in Havana by 7:30 and had plenty of time to bathe and change clothes. But he barely made it in time to throw his bags in the hotel and dash over. We went to the Pan American Club for dinner because they were famous for steaks. They didn't say what kind and mine could have doubled very well for shoe leather. It must have been the way they cooked them - I've heard a number of people say that the steaks were always tough down there. After dinner, we went out to Tropicana and danced and then found a little place near my hotel where they played nothing but Cuban music and stayed there until they closed.

Next morning I packed and checked out of the hotel and met John for breakfast. We did some shopping until the stores closed at noon - you know, everything but the restaurants close from 12 to 2. I found two lovely silk slips with lots of handiwork and much more reasonably priced than in the States. We were allowed to bring back $100.00 of merchandise free of duty. I didn't spend much, but the things I found were nice. We went out to the Hotel Nacional then to look at the things in their gift shop. They had nicer things than downtown but the prices were too fancy for my pocketbook. The hotel was a gorgeous place though and well worth seeing. We sat out on the lawn looking out over the harbor for about an hour and John almost persuaded me to stay. We finally tore ourselves away and he went with me to the airport. After I got through the customs, we had a farewell drink in their attractive little bar and I was off for Chicago at 3:50.

About half an hour out of Havana the Captain came back and told us to be on the lookout for a ship in distress. This was quite an order as we were again flying at 9000 feet. But I spotted a ship shortly after and reported it. They put the glasses on it and saw that it was under way, so we resumed the watch. I had a burned spot on my forehead which I think came from staying at the window so long. I got to go up to the cockpit for about half an hour and the Captain let me push the buttons on the automatic pilot to make the ship go up and down. He explained the navigation chart to me and let me listen in when he took his radio fixes and called New Orleans to report. He had planned to fly us down Canal St. to see the Mardi Gras parade but we had gone off course to hunt for the ship and came into New Orleans from the West. We were late too, so he didn't take us. We had to go through the customs there again. You make out your declaration on the plane and then wait your turn to be called in the terminal. Oh yes, we were served coconut ice cream in a half coconut shell on the trip back. It was delicious.

At New Orleans we picked up a full load on the DC-4 and I had to sit way up front by the engines. My seat partner turned out to be a pilot for Chicago & Southern. He knew a lot of my flying friends so we had a good chat all the way back. He took me up front again which isn't usually allowed. We had coffee and sandwiches with the stewardesses and pilots while the rest of the prople slept. We got into Chicago right on schedule at 1:00 a.m. and that cold wind made me wish I had stayed in Havana. It was 86 degrees when we took off and 9 above zero when we landed.

It was a short trip but I had a wonderful time and wouldn't have missed it for the world.