Postcard From a Journey (1) / Regina Coyula

Like Silvio, I think the people are screwed; unlike him, however, it didn’t take me so much time to realize it, but traveling outside Havana let me see it first hand.

The domestic terminal at Jose Marti Airport is the original airport building. After checking your luggage you have to go up an escalator.  “It’s almost always broken,” a regular traveler told me. Upstairs you  get in another line to pass through a little door in groups of five. Behind this is the x-ray control and then you enter a large area of souvenir shops, closed at five in the morning, with a snack bar at the end where there’s nobody, all of which leads to a large waiting room.

Neither the poster of Santa Lucia beach looking like paradise, nor the other two that you sit against, managed to overcome my claustrophobic impression of that room without even one window.

I discover another snack bar which, unlike the one at the entrance, sells in national currency. Bread with mayonnaise and mortadella or a hot dog (served cold), soft drinks on tap or in cans, and coffee.

I head to the bathroom which, although clean, smells dirty.

I return to the waiting room and, luckily, to divert your attention from such an ugly place, there are several televisions. I concentrate on an Animal Planet program until they call my flight.

Another little line between a plasterboard half wall facing an open door, but the employee still makes us wait fifteen minutes until we go through; we have to go down a staircase to the final boarding pass check and then, finally, walk to the plane.

A trouble-free trip and the Holguin airport, much more agreeable than Havana’s. At the exit of the building we’re accosted by many drivers, all trying to “fight” for fares to the city. So many options facilitates price haggling.

I’ve heard so much talk of Holguin as “the city of parks” that I assume from its name the Garden City neighborhood will be a garden. Mistake. It’s a suburb of little houses constructed by people’s own efforts with whatever resources they could come by. There are better and worse, but the architects didn’t come here; there are no sidewalks, well, there are barely streets, and there are no trees. This explains why men and women protect themselves from the sun with umbrellas.

Urban transport doesn’t seem bad, there are also a lot of biketaxis and carts pulled by horses. Unlike Havana, the “almendrones” (1950s American cars in use as shared taxis) are prohibitively expensive.

The center is more amicable, there are the parks that give the city its nickname, there’s a boulevard full of life, and at a local concentration businesses run by the self-employed I find the replacement part for my mixer that I’ve been seeking for months. When the seller tells me the price is 180 pesos I ask him if the mixer is included.

Instead, we eat at an air-conditioned restaurant with a decent menu, which costs a lot less than the part for the mixer. I ask my friend if satin is made there, because it’s the fabric of choice in the decor. Missing no details, the restaurant has red satin tablecloths and curtains, and the seats are white with red bows. After that Christmas decor, I enjoy the beer we have at “The Cave,” a local tribute to the Beatles.

The interprovincial bus terminal is a dark and dirty place. The loudspeaker voice is incomprehensible. I know the announcement is for my trip because there aren’t any others at that time.

Holguin reserved this ugly surprise as a goodbye; I prefer to think of the good impression made by all the people I had the chance to meet.

30 June 2014