I don’t even drink, but I’ll take Havana for 1000, Alex.
That’s an interesting take. I can tell you the Special Period, or “Periodo Especial”, was certainly no picnic. The localized organic farming you mention was a dismal failure that caused more problems than it solved. There were parks in Havana where trees were cut down to plant fruits and vegetables, unfortunately no arragements were made for irrigation so very little grew. The little that grew caused its own problems, these parks became buffets for every kind of rat and vermin imaginable.
Cubans survived by making daily treks to the countryside to trade farmers for foods, the government took this opportunity to legalize limiter farmer’s markets in the cities.
Castro & friends. As stated, Batista is long, long, gone.
(Now where is that other post I wanted to reply to?)
So the idea is to keep the Cubans out of the tourism business so that backpackers can have an idealized tropical resort? I doubt the Cubans would want to stay poor and pure.
Hey, if you wanna visit a carribean island not overrun by drunk college students, Haiti is just a few miles further in. If you want to visit a place unspoiled by commercialism, that is.
Interesting: yes SOCIALISM OR DEATH! 9or as cubans say “and death”). Yeah, the social engineers of cuba keep coming up with boneheaded ideas…like the ‘restaurant initiative’. basically, the gpvernment realized that tourism could provide some jobs, so they allowed people to start small restaurants in their houses. You got a license, which allowed you to operate a small restaurant, and accept hard currency 9whih you HAVE to turn over top the governemnt. Anyway, a few entrepreneurs did very well-they wanted to expand, but their expansion would threaten the government-owned hotel restaurant 9which was terrible, and nobody would eat there). So the government lifted their license-result; no jobs, and government-owned restaurant cheerfully sports EMPTY tables, and throws away uneaten food! Socialism REALLY works!
Interesting. This kind of information on actual results is critically-important, just the kind of what we need to know. So if no arrangements for irrigation or pest-proofing of the new urban gardens were made, that implies organizational or design problems.
Were you in Cuba during that time, are you in Cuba now?
Here’s Permaculture Activist itself. They talk a lot about “energy descent pathways”, designing ways to help communities function more efficiently as energy becomes more expensive and/or scarcer.
Here’s a report from Energy Bulletin on Lessons for California and the USA from the Cuban experience. It mentions that
This was well after the “Special Period” was it not?
Ah. Here’s the original article, also from Energy Bulletin:
What are things like now?
How did the international resorts fare? I am now envisioning walled compounds.
Is that socialism, or incompetent ideology-driven central planning? Or a social organism fighting back dirtily?
You get the same kind of boondoggles in any large centrally-planned organization, like a corporation, don’t you? The problem is first-of-all the size, then the political and emotion-driven actions of some people outside the rules, then maybe ideology.
If the whole country of Cuba in centrally-planned, or at least centrally-controlled (with no clear demarcation of responsibilty for local problems into local councils, etc), then that could be a major problem.
The same sort of thing happens in chips, skyscrapers, and bureaucracies: the larger the organisation is, the greater percentage of internal resources have to be devoted to internal communications, signalling, and control, and the less is available for its actual function, whatever that may be. Chips end up with interconnecting wires crowding out their logic gates, skyscrapers end up being mostly elevator shafts, and bureaucracies end up slaves to their own internal paperwork.
You’re right, I haven’t. I’ve just gone to the places between Havana and Varadero. I thought the Canadians made spring break illegal.
No, they get business all the same. But if the spring break stays in Varadero, I have no problem.
I do admit that making Cuba a Disneyland for backpackers would keep backpackers the heck out of my way. But that is just me being self-serving. Better Cuba goes the full-blown tourist route.
Of course that is up to them to decide when their country is returned to them.
:eek: Who backpacks through Saudi Arabia?!
Maybe not, but it’s what I lived.
I was in Cuba during the special period, but I’ve left since then. You’re right about the organizational and design problems. Things in Cuba happen more or less at the whim of Castro, if one day he wakes up and decides that the answer to Cuba’s problems is to give an electric rice cooker to every Cuban it gets done. No research, no planning, just his word. The same was the case with these plots.
Technically the special period has not ended. It reached its peak, or bottom, in 1994 with the “maleconazo”. Some background on that, for months there had been less food than usual and power in Havana was available on an 8 hour on-8 hour off basis. The press reported the usual BS along the lines of “a power station broke when another was down for maintenance, blah, blah”.
Just imagine, middle of summer in Cuba, people are hungry, hot, and tired because who can sleep when it’s 90 degrees indoors and you can’t even run a fan. I don’t know how it started all I know is that at work I started hearing about a riot by the malecon. I didn’t get to see what had actually happened until a few years later when I left Cuba, but apparently some people decided they had had enough and started raising hell. The Rapid Response brigades, basically government undercover thougs broke a few skulls, and there was an uneasy peace. That’s when Castro said that he had instructed the coast guard to stop guarding the ports of exit. That was the start of the raft exodus of 94.
Something else that came out of that was the suddenly Havana had power pretty much 'round the clock, although the countryside did not improve as much. Some more openings were made, along the lines of legalizing dollars, direct sales from farmers, and so on.
International resorts have their own supply lines, and they have always been more or less restricted to Cubans.
What’s it like now?
It’s better than the mid 90’s but not by much. How well off you are basically depends on how much help you get from overseas. However with dollars, once again, being illegal in Cuba the help I send home helps less than it used to. Dollars are converted to “chavitos” or convertible currency at the rate of $1 to .80.
You mean that Cubans are restricted from going there. That’s kind of what I thought. I never thought that a package tour to Varadero Beach would give me a true view of what Cuba is like. And I was always a bit hesitant about taking one–would I be helping or hurting the Cubans by doing so?
Thanks, bayonet!
You’re not going to be hurting anyone if you go, and if you tip you’ll be helping a few. I’ve met many people who went to Cuba on a package tour and basically left and did things on their own. It’s easy, but expensive, for tourists to rent a car and drive around the island. If you speak a little spanish things will be easier for you, but you’ll get by even if you don’t.
I knew a woman from Canada who would do the all inclusive bit, and order straight rum drinks. She would then pour the drinks into a water bottle until she had a couple of full bottles, then leave the resort and party with Cubans she had met in previous trips basically for free.
However if you just want to stay in the resort and enjoy your vacation you’ll have a great time too, just that, like anywhere else, that is not the “real” Cuba.
Rent a car and drive by yourself? I though that in these situations, the tourist typically paid for a car and also got a driver, who was also a guide, and responsible to the authorities to present the Official Version of events.
So this is why my German-Canadian friend, who goes to Cuba about every other year, is learning Spanish… 
Not anymore, that was the way of things back before tourism really opened up. Right now tourists can move around pretty much on their own, although renting a car with a driver is not a bad option either. These are typically regulated but you can find some independent operators in Havana, I don’t think you’ll find these in Varadero.
I have to warn you though, if you’re black or darker skinned you might get hassled going in and out of the hotels and resorts until you can prove you’re not Cuban.
My advice just talk to the hotel staff when you get there, be friendly and see if they can hook you up, everyone has a “cousin” with a car who will drive you around relatively cheaply.