Cuba Pudding Junior

Wiggedy wizzle. Back AGAIN. I was back again last week but now I’m truly back again. I got Salmonella poisoning, moved all my stuff to the new house, finally saw Batman and loads of other stuff in the past week. Salmonella makes your shit turn green. Frightened the life out of me. I have a story where my crap turned luminous orange too.

Here is something wonderful. We bought a suitcase full of kid’s things, books, clothes etc to Cuba to give to a local charity. This was on a packet of markers. A wizard dogging a happy little panda!

Cuba is a nutty place. Actually crumbling as you walk around. Physically falling apart on front you. Plus there’s the whole ‘end of an era’ vibe as Fidel concedes power to his brother. This photo I took while being held hostage by one of the many sponger/scammers we met typifies the general scruffiness of the place.

The moochers are rampant over there. Everyone gets a measly state salary so they all are looking for strokes. In the space of half an hour we were accosted 5 or 6 times; caricaturists, dudes with guitars, poets and old fashioned beggars who can’t think an angle other than to hold a new born puppy and dangle it on front of you. A big thing is getting commission for steering tourists into restaurants. We were in a CoCo Taxi on the way to a museum and next thing I know I’m being led into a lavish restaurant by the driver all confused.

A wonderful thing called a CoCo Taxi. Ridiculously funny way to travel

Another highlight was this little girl mauling a fokking snake, waving it around and mashing its head into the bars like it’s a doll.

I was amazed to see that every postcard preconception I had was right. Like if you were American and thought Ireland was full of cottages and Aran jumpers but you get here and see the swanky metropolis, every stereotypical image I expected to see, I saw. The big cars, dudes chomping cigars, everything. And none of it contrived or phoney. Well the fantastic Cuban bands playing in the bars are obviously the equivalent of my mates who make a living soullessly shouting rebel songs in the pubs in Temple Bar.

That pic was taken from the lobby our hotel. Delightfully scruffy. Loads of police over there though so you feel safe mostly. Plus every street has a little rat who sits on a deckchair who calls the real cops if there’s trouble.

But I’m now fascinated with seeing socialism in action. The disdainful and lazy workers, the open manhole covers on the street, no shops whatsoever but a weird sense that somebody else is going to take care of you, like a kind Mr Amperduke figure who looks after all your bills and housing and will give you pocket money if you pitch in and serve tourists ice cream or harvest sugar.

A fantastic towel sculpture by the grateful and well tipped cleaning lady. Hotel workers make more than doctors over there because of the gratuities

Definitely worth a visit. It can’t physically last another two decades as it is. I took hundreds of pics but mostly of old dilapidated buildings which gets sort of repetitive but I put a few up on Flickr.

I’ll scan the horrendous and decent caricatures I got as soon as my jaysis computer is fixed.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 6:43 pm and is filed under Illustrated Blogs, Silly stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.