Today I arrived in Cuba. Varadero was an imposter. If you ignore the antiquated cars (mostly lada 1600´s, Cadillacs and 1960 Fords), the empty supermarket shelves, the odd chicken in the road and the fact there are no Hilton Hotels overlooking stretches of golden sand and azul sea where you would normally expect to find a major US hotel chain, Varadero could be any holiday resort in any tourist destination in the world. Some of the pueblos on the way to Santa Clara are definitely not what Varadero look like.
There are many signs on the road there, with messages of encouragement for the Revolutionary cause such as ´Patria Es Humanidad´, ´Revolucion es Unidad´ and ´Revolucion 100%´. I notice that very few of them have been freshly painted in years.
The situation in Cuba is already starting to strike me as slightly hopeless. Do the locals not look at the modern, spacious, air-conditioned tourist coaches and wonder why they need to stand like sardines in delapidated 50 year old buses. Do they not see the adverts on the Latin American television and question why they can never buy these things? some of the younger people I have spoken to have told me ´para luchar´with little conviction when I ask them about their circumstances. There were certainly none of the younger generation standing in the queue at the Correos de Cuba kiosk the other day, waiting for Fidel´s reflections. Have the reasons for the Revolution started to be forgotten with the passing of time?
