Now I had been to Cuba at first as a teenager, multiple times, the whole all-inclusive package business w/ parents. You stay in a hotel, eat and drink all you want in a nice little cultural bubble with other Canadians and Europeans who can travel there freely, and nice Cuban bartenders that speak English. This was far removed from the reality of what Cuba is like, and until my most recent visit, my experience of the “real” Cuba was largely limited to day trips, and what I saw on the air-conditioned bus to/from the airport.. In my late teenage years, I felt like my perspective on Cuba needed an honest readjustment. I was in love with Cuba’s musical and dance scene and with the many great films created there. I studied Spanish actively, and I was reading books on the history of the country, but I lacked a genuine firsthand perspective.

I was working in a supermarket putting fruits on shelves, my first job out of high school. As soon as I had some money saved up I knew I needed to do something with it. Something that I would remember for a time to come. So I bought a plane ticket to Cuba, in cash, and convinced my girlfriend to come with me. I didn’t reserve a place to stay. The travel agent looked at me with great concern when I mentioned how I planned to travel. I booked my reservations through a German company (I don’t remember the name, this was before Airbnb was a thing and well before Airbnb was legal under Cuba’s regime, but a similar idea). Basically, we stayed with locals. We ate in restaurants and drank in bars meant for locals. We went to the beaches the locals visited. We got some weird looks.

For those who aren’t familiar with Cuba, it has separate establishments for locals and for tourists, and tourist establishments accept a different form of “tourist” currency which is rarely available to Cubans, called the Convertible Peso, or CUC. The prices, of course, differ vastly, so does selection and quality. We travelled throughout the western half of the country extensively this way on our very tight budget. We visited Havana, Pinar Del Rio, Viñales, Cienfuegos, Jagüey Grande, Santa Clara, Matanzas, Varadero, and a bunch of smaller places in between. Yes, we came with more money than the average Cuban can ever afford to spend in two weeks, if not in half a year, but seeing how much they valued every peso they earned, and the outlook on life resulting from their conditions, was a humbling experience. I came back to Canada with a very different perspective on both the country I live in and on the one I visited, and to this day I cite it as one of my most important decisions as a teenager. Travel is a great educational tool.

I wrote an extended poem regarding my trip shortly after coming back. I later put this poem to a beat, recorded it and posted it to Youtube recently to share the experience I had. This is it.