Leaving Cuba

I still vividly remember the first time I arrived in Cuba in March 2008. Cuba looked and felt forlorn and remote. From the air, the landscape looked vast and empty, heightening the sense of anxiety I felt traveling into a world so vastly different from what I had been accustomed to up until that time. And now, I am leaving Cuba and the feeling is bittersweet. Read More ...

Friends and Enemies: The Philippines and Cuba during the Cold War

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the first bilateral document signed between the Philippines and Cuba, the Treaty of Friendship which was signed on 03 September 1952 in Washington D.C. by former Philippine Foreign Secretary Carlos P. Romulo and then-Ambassador of Cuba to the United States, Mr. Aurelio Concheso. However in just a little more than nine years after signing the Treaty, the two countries found themselves in competing camps during the Cold War. Read More ... 

Looking for Rancheros and Jineteras in Camagüey

Camagüey's plazas: (top left) Plaza San Juan de Dios, (top right) Parque Agramonte, (bottom left) Plaza Carmen, and (bottom right) Plaza de los Trabajadores.

Camagüey, Cuba's third largest city, has retained its reputation as the quaintest and least known of Cuba’s big cities. Camagüey barely registers on the average tourist’s itinerary. This is perhaps because it is located right in the middle of Cuba, right in tierra adentro, a good nine hours from Havana in the west, and another eight hours from Santiago de Cuba in the east. It also happens to be far enough from the all-inclusive resorts of the cays of Jardines del Rey, such as Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo. Read More ....

Summer of 2012: Off to the Land of Cervantes, and a Quick Respite in Samar

Top: Teeing off in Cuba's two extant golf courses, the scenic 18-hole Varadero Golf Course (left) and the challenging 9-hole Habana Golf Club (right). Center: Marching with anti-austerity protesters and joven comunistas at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid. Below: surfing at ABCD Beach in Calicoan, Eastern Samar, Philippines.

It was a summer experience like no other. From whacking golf balls in Cuba, to joining anti-austerity protests in Madrid and, finally testing the surf in my very own island of Samar. The Summer of 2012 was indeed like no other I have ever done before. The whole experience spanned three continents, whose common link is Spanish Colonialism. Read More ...

Whacking balls in Havana's Club de Golf

The dreaded Hole Number 1 in which I have lost an inordinately high number of wayward balls. (Source: eastep.photoshelter.com)

Ah the heat of summer beckons. It’s about time to get out of the rut. I finally had the temerity to sign up for a golf lesson at Havana's one and only golf course, the nine-hole Club de Golf de Habana, which I had been angling to do for the longest time. In my best imitation of reigning U.S. Masters champ and YouTube trickster Bubba Watson, I only spent, at most, half a day of lessons before deciding to learn my swing on my own, which is for the best, I think, as I did not seem to follow the instructions of my exasperated instructor, El Viejo Vega, to his immense consternation. Read More ...

What’s there for Filipinos to celebrate on 04 July ?

Source: mikerafael.multiply.com

Formerly celebrated as the Independence Day of the Republic of the Philippines, 4^th of July has been downgraded to Philippine-American Friendship Day when President Diosdado Macapagal amended the date of Philippine Independence to 12 June 1898 in 1962. The topic has since been a contentious one depending on which side one is taking. My own point of view is that 4^th of July should have never been celebrated as the actual Independence Day. Here’s why: Read More ...

Lost in Translation

Top: Sign found aboard a Cold War era Soviet-manufactured plane operated by Cuba's Aerocaribbean Airlines. Center: Road warning sign in Cayo Guillermo, Villa Clara province. Bottom: Airport announcement for Aerocaribbean Airlines Flight No. 7L 876.

In the realm of amusing signage, Cuba's lack of mastery with the English language (which is totally understandable, by the way), while not in the same category and magnitude as those in China (gotta love those funny Chinese signs), brings us some amusing stuff as well. Here are some funny signs I've seen so far (I should be looking for more): Read More ...

A Road Trip through the old Western Oriente

Images of Holguin: (Top, Left) Highrise residential towers in Reparto Plaza de la Revolucion. (Top, Center) Statue of Independence War hero Julio Grave de Peralta at Parque de las Flores. (Top, Right) Tomb of Independence War hero General Calixto Garcia at the Plaza de la Revolucion. (Center) Banner of the local baseball team, the Cachorros, los perros que muerden callao. (Below) The old Spanish cuartel, La Periquera, which became the Casino Español.

The western part of the old Oriente province, which is now divided into the provinces of Holguin, Granma and Las Tunas, has been a hotbed of dissent since Spanish colonial times. This was the region were the first call to arms for Cuban Independence from Spain was proclaimed at the Cry of Bayamo and where three generations of rebel leaders emerged, namely, Bayamo-native Carlos Manuel Cespedes (during the First Independence War), Holguin-native Calixto Garcia (during the Second Independence War) and, in the 20th century, Biran-natives Fidel and Raul Castro. Read more ...

My Top Ten Impressions on Pope Benedict XVI’s Cuba Visit

Il Papa says Ai Se Eu Te Pego!

Pope Benedict XVI came and went. No, he did not dance salsa nor chugged down a mojito (we don’t really know that), but he managed to momentarily rouse Cubans from the monotony of their vida cotidiana. He came and went so fast but managed to leave a few lasting impressions, Read More ...

The old, decadent Red Light Havana

Una Mujer para Todos promises one promotional flyer, inviting tourists to visit one of Old Havana's cabarets. (Source: Peter Moruzzi)

I was watching Robert Redford’s flick, Havana, which is a fictional yet enlightening portrayal of Havana’s socio-economic situation at the throes of the 1959 Revolution. In the movie, the two American lady tourists, clearly looking for sleazy fun, pleaded the fictional character Jack Weil (Redford) to show them the “real” Havana. Weil then proceeded to show them Havana’s risqué side, the decadent red light district. Read More ...

Rap and Censorship in Cuba: Rhyming at Alamar’s Winter Rap Festival

.

The Havana Times, that ever reliable information source on Cuba, alerted me on the holding of the Alamar Winter Rap Festival. Initially organized in 1995 as an underground music festival by Cubans who were influenced by the rap and hip-hop movement in the United States in the backdrop of the hardship of the so-called Periodo Especial, it has since become an officially-sanctioned event under the Cuban Ministry of Culture. Read More ...

In Memory of the Philippine-American War: Assimilating the Little Brown Brother

The American flag flies over captured Fort San Antonio de Abad in Manila in 1899.

On 04 February, few noticed the passing of the anniversary of the Philippine-American War (which is known as the Philippine Insurrection in the United States). By and large, the war has become a mere footnote in history, which is not really surprising as the Philippines has become one of America’s closest allies in the Asia Pacific region. Filipinos also like to emphasize their colonial links to the United States as a selling point to attract business process outsourcing (BPO) investments. If they were alive today, Theodore Roosevelt and William McKinley would be proud. Their theory of how the White Man would turn the Little Brown Brother into a Civilized Being through a policy called Benevolent Assimilation has just been validated. Read More ...

The First Pinoy in Baracoa (disclaimer: it can't be proven)

Baracoa as viewed from the lookout point in Maya Yaragua. The Boca de Miel River and the Playa Negra lie at the foreground while the El Yunque and Bella Durmiente Mountains frame the background.

Baracoa, Cuba’s La Primada, is the site of the first Spanish settlement where Christopher Columbus himself  landed in 1492. Established in 1511, the place is so remote that it was technically reachable only by sea route from the rest of Cuba until a road was constructed through the picturesque Sierra de Purial Mountains in the 1960s. It is one of those places wherein you can literally see, feel, smell and even taste its age. You can also notice the prominence of indigenous Taino or the Auracana features among its mixed race inhabitants, a rarity anywhere else in Cuba as the indigenous Indian population was ravaged by European-borne diseases and by massacres. Its most famous denizen, among others, was the old Taino Chief Hatuey, the first rebel in a country of revolutionaries whose face now emblazons a local beer brand. Read More ...