We awoke in New Orleans at 4:30 am and arrived at our Casa Particular at 11:30 pm, flying to Washington, DC, Cancun, then Havana. There will be much of the same plane-hopping for Nicaragua and our return to Minneapolis – a combined result of squeezing the most out of United miles. and flying between Central American capitals.
Having film hand-inspected at airports is like jamming a crowbar in the spokes of the post 9/11 security wheel. Passengers behind you get frustrated, you get treated with double the usual suspicion, and you even inconvenience yourself. But I refuse to have the emulsion of my near-extinct Agfa Scala violated by x-rays, even if it is only destined for my holga.
This was very much a problem arriving in Cancun, despite the fact we were only in transit…
Our accomodation is very central in Old Havana. If you could cross Rhodes’ old town with the more decrepid parts of Athens, this is roughly what you’d get.
My iphone played a song by Αρλέτα (Arleta) aloud in our room today. The music sounded very much at home floating out a 3rd floor window over Havana rooftops. And I wondered: why is it that Cuban music is always upbeat, joyous, infectious, after all they’ve been through? Why is there no similar genre to Greek rebetika, expressing sorrow and loss? Are we not to sympathise with Cuba for her difficulties? I can only surmise that either Cuba’s experience was not nearly as devastating as four centuries of Ottoman rule (an issue which is largely forgotten by the world when considering Greece); Greeks are just as great at feeling sorry for themselves as they are at rejoicing with shotguns, smashing plates and feasting; or perhaps as a tourist my ears are subjected only to the Buena Vista scene, while somewhere in a basement in the outskirts of Havana quite possibly there are some down-and-outers singing the blues and smoking a hookah…
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