Hecho En Cuba

This post was made in Cuba. As is an ever-increasing amount of stuff onboard NOMAD. Coffee – what might be the best in the world (or at least that I’ve tried so far) is onboard, made in Cuba. A good, and reasonably priced aged rum is onboard, made in Cuba. And cigars. Good God.   We have all the best cigars, hecho en Cuba.

Our first day we vowed to spend watching movies and eating and not working and not moving and not preparing. Our literal vow was “we won’t do shit.” Writing that sentence makes it seem badly worded and more profane – but that was our vow. And we kept it. Of course, it was an easy vow to keep as we were both exhausted and slightly hungover – a product of the combination of our passage and our night at the marina bar.

Then it was time to explore. Jacko and Crystelle came by and took me into town to meet their friend Lili. Lili runs a Casa Particular (like a hostel) and she can make arrangements for inland travel simply and economically. She’s a good woman to know.

Then we stopped in for a beer ($1 Presidente, ice cold, with a fabulous view). Then it was on to the cigar guy. This being my first time in Cuba and having only a passing interest in cigars previously – this was a treat that I didn’t understand the value of. But as I tried a few cigars with a good sipping rum, and priced the high-end, handrolled Cuban cigars we were getting against the actual street value of these cigars – I realized how important it is to know the cigar guy. The cigar guy is important.

Because we know the cigar guy, our stash went from this:

The beginning

To this:

Ever-growing

And some of those cigar boxes contain 25 cigars that are sold here for $30 per cigar. Stateside? More. You can do the math, but, basically, we have a very nice collection of cigars. And it cost us a tiny fraction of what the average person pays on the street. So if you’re a cigar type and you bump into me out there and want to smoke a genuine Cohiba Maduro… Well, you should say so. Maybe you prefer a Cohiba Esplindido (Castro’s favorite). Maybe a Romeo Y Julieta (my favorite, and Churchill’s). Cohiba Robusto? Montechristo number 2? Montechristo Master? Hemmingway liked the Montechristos.

Believe it or not, the coffee was harder to get our hands on than the cigars. The (good) coffee really isn’t available to the average Cuban. One of our new Cuban friends told me something I remember hearing in Colombia. Our Cuban friend said: “All of our best things are for export, in Cuba we’re left in prison with the rejects.” In Colombia, another friend told me all of the best cocaine and the best women were exported. Patterns, for better or for worse.

We finally found the coffee in a hotel catering to gringos.

Drummer!!

Drummer was here. We met them in San Blas, and they introduced us to Jacko and Crystelle – so when the Drummer crew returned to their boat – a party seemed inevitable. It all started when Amber rowed up to our boat. She told us about her travels inland. She told us about Cuba. She told us they were leaving soon.

And that night Amber convinced us to go out. We walked and drank and talked. The next night there was a party, a dinner, on NOMAD. Jacko and Crystelle and the Drummer crew and another young Southern gringo and his girlfriend (who was Australian).   Beer and wine and good food dominated early, but later in the night high-quality sipping rum and cigars got the upper hand. Then everyone was trying to figure out how to get home before the sun rose without interrupting the flow of the party.   The party-veterans began sipping water.

Then we explored Cienfuegos a bit more and took this picture.  It’s so meta.

Picture of a picture of a Nomad

Then it was time to go to Trinidad, Cuba. We needed to get a cab, get a Casa Particular, and needed to get our shit together to leave the boat for a couple of days. We needed to pack clothes and cigars and rum and electronics. We needed to empty the fridge. We needed to get things off the deck. We needed to lock the boat.

But that night, there was something that took precedence. When one lands in a place where it is cheap to procure a specific thing – say cigars, or rum. One must take the time to pick the right thing, and then buy as much as one can store (or afford) to either sell, give, or use along the way. And so, the night before our trip to Trinidad, Cuba – we had a rum tasting. So that we could all be sure of what the best rum for the best price is, so that we could then buy copious amounts of it so that we could have a large supply of good and reasonably priced rum.

Understanding that we needed to be productive in preparation for our trip to Trinidad, that we needed to be up early for said trip, and that we wanted to feel good for said trip – it may not make sense to have a rum-tasting the night before said trip. But life is short and you are dead for a very long time.

Carpe that f***ing Diem.

So we had a rum-tasting.

And so began our land-travels into Socialist Cuba.

Hecho En Cuba