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EDITOR´S LETTER CUBAN PEOPLE

When people visit Cuba they are struck by its very beautiful beaches; the beauty of its colonial cities; hills and rivers; the spectacular seabed along its coasts; and yes, of course, the old cars and the strange “exotic” mystic of living in revolution; but undoubtedly, what’s extraordinary PRESIDENT HUGO CANCIO about Cuba is its people. [email protected] Behind, in the middle, at the side, over, holding everything, are the peo- ple, with their lives, their joys, their loves, their miseries, their rhythm, their sorrow, their fears, their certainties. EDITORIAL DIRECTOR TAHIMI ARBOLEYA

I don’t believe we Cubans are “special” beings; we share much of the [email protected] Caribbean spirit; of the Spanish traditions and soul; of the African es- sence; neither are we a compact mass, all Cubans don’t know how to dance, all of them don’t like rum, not all of them play dominoes or EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ARIEL MACHADO speak loudly, we are not all blacks or whites and, although we have the [email protected] most “unanimous” Parliament in the world, nothing is more difficult than getting two Cubans to come to an agreement. SALES DIRECTOR But it is true that when visiting Cuba one finds something that’s ex- JORGE RUIZ traordinary in its people. Many say that it is the way of “sharing” the [email protected] much and the little there is; others say that Cubans really know how to laugh and have fun (we also know how to cry and suffer); others have told me how close the people feel; others of the culture and the educa- DESIGN & LAYOUT PATRICIO HERRERA VEGA tion they didn’t expect to find. I still don’t know what it is, but something extraordinary happens to PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR JORGE LUIS BORGES those who visit Cuba and interact with the Cubans, no one remains in- different, intact. Things move, they shake. COPYEDITING CHARO GUERRA There’s something else beyond governments, ideologies, life’s bureau- cracy. I unquestionably and openly invite you to Cuba. Go with open eyes, ready to be moved, to listen, to observe and feel. TRANSLATION MERCEDES GUILLOT

WEB EDITOR CUBA MÓNICA RIVERO [email protected]

ON THE COVER: Cuban People / Patricio Herrera Vega

Articles may be reproduced, in whole or in part, as long as the source is cited. Reproduction of photographs without the editor’s permission is prohibited. Any views or opinions expressed are those of the articles’ authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of OnCuba. Tahimi Arboleya Editorial Director > OnCuba and the OnCuba logo are registered® trademarks of Fuego Enterprises, Inc., its subsidiaries or divisions. > OnCuba Travel is a trademark™ of Fuego Enterprises, Inc., its subsidiaries or divisions. > Oncuba Travel a publication of Fuego Media Group, a division of Fuego Enterprises, Inc., a publicly traded company (FUGI). > OnCuba © 2012 by Fuego Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved. CONONCUBATENTS TRAVEL MAGAZINE

CUBAN TIPS INTERVIEW Brief Tour of Havana Tosco and Cortés JORGE JAVIER MIRANDA MÓNICA RIVERO All cities have their twists and turns, not all the charms are in plain view. José Luis Cortés concentrates a powerful mixture of musical genius If you come to Havana, you have to see these places I recommend to and a personal shrillness. That authentic way of being turns him into a really “have been” here. character. There’s a powerful testimony in him. 47 22 26

CUBA WITH CHRISTOPHER BAKER ECONOMY & BUSINESS PHOTO FEATURE ART & CULTURE (Not) A Moveable Feast Cruise Tourism to Cuba: the Alocubano The Houses Hermes Mallea

Actor/director David Soul’s effort to restore Ernest Hemingway’s 1955 Sweet and the Sour The Cuba My Eyes See Discovers in Havana Chrysler New Yorker in Cuba has begun to resemble the agonizing battle with a giant marlin of Santiago, the seasoned fisherman displaying RAFAEL BETANCOURT KERSTIN HERNÁNDEZ ERIC CARABALLOSO relentless resolve in The Old Man and the Sea. When in 2015 the Obama government lifted the restrictions that forbid Taking pictures of the ingenious, absurd, fun-loving, enigmatic and color- Havana’s architecture is not only the big colonial works and the colossal ships that stopped in Cuba from putting in at U.S. ports, the cruise trips ful Cuba is a passionate entertainment in my everyday life. edifications of the first years of the Revolution. Cuban-American architect 12 to the “Pearl of the Caribbean” shot up. Since in life nothing is black or Hermes Maella “discovers” houses in Havana that tell their own stories. white, I recommend this analysis of the advantages and disadvantages 32 the cruise trips represent for the island. 38 18 SPORTS MADE IN CUBA ONCUBA RECOMMENDS PERSPECTIVE Juan Miguel Echevarría’s Long A Great Museum Two in El Vedado Azutecnia: Innovations in Jumps for a Great Rum CECILIA CRESPO Cuban Sugar Agribusiness Two restaurants in Havana that leave a bit of the city on your lips. ALIET ARZOLA LIMA CECILIA CRESPO EDUARDO GONZÁLEZ MARTÍNEZ From way down in La Guernica, Juan Miguel Echevarría jumped to fame, There are persons who can’t place the island of Cuba in the Caribbean 64 Together with productivity, innovation and ingenuity are the keys for the but he continues being a young man with many dreams and goals. His Sea that guards it, but they do know that the world’s best rum is made in country to recover its former splendor in the cultivation of sugarcane. ambition is discovered in each ruling. Cuba. Aren’t you intrigued to find out how and why? That is the raison d’etre of Azutecnia, one of the enterprises that is mov- ing Cuba toward the modernization of the sugar agribusiness. 44 50 66

BETWEEN SUNSET & SUNRISE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS El Mesón de la Flota, Passion “There Will Always be Stories Is Always True to be Told” ONCUBA TRAVEL MAGAZINE ÁNGEL MARQUÉS DOLZ ESTRELLA DÍAZ The Mesón de la Flota, just a few steps away from the bay of Havana, Every artist has a universe from where their work emerges. NUR’s eye entraps any traveler. On the one hand, a good wine with fragrant seafood. focuses on the intimacy, on self-reflection. The mask – like an icon – con- On the other, music and flamenco dancing. There’s nothing you can do venes us to think about who we really are and toward where and up to where but give up. Passions order. Enjoy! we want to get in the brief blink of an eye that life is. CONTENTS 54 58 47 CONTRIBUTORS KERSTIN HERNÁNDEZ ERIC CARABALLOSO ALIET ARZOLA LIMA CECILIA CRESPO I was born in Leningrad and have always lived Talking of baseball (or of soccer). Eating (Cuban) Life led me to become a journalist and I enjoy There are times when I talk nonstop, although I in Cuba. I studied ballet and later cybernetics. I tamales. Listening to Sting or Habana Abierta. it to my heart’s content, but I will always have also listen. My silent aspect is only seen when shuffle my life looking for time to do the things Enjoying Blade Runner (the original one) or the spirit of an athlete. Every day I bat 50 balls I cling to my keyboard. I have a passion for my I like. Modern Family. And reading, and writing, and and pitch the same amount from an imaginary family and for a long time for Cuban culture reading. I ask for no more. mound; at times I do it alone when at home, at and a delicious book I am writing to distribute Alocubano times in the middle of the street. among my friends: Practical and Exotic Cooking The Cuba My Eyes See The Houses Hermes Mallea Handbook. PAG. 32 Discovers in Havana Juan Miguel Echevarría’s Long Jumps PAG. 38 PAG. 44 A Great Museum for a Great Rum PAG. 50 OnCuba Recommends Two in El Vedado PAG. 64

CHRISTOPHER BAKER RAFAEL BETANCOURT JORGE MIRANDA MÓNICA RIVERO ÁNGEL MARQUÉS DOLZ ESTRELLA DÍAZ EDUARDO GONZÁLEZ Travel journalist, photographer, author, adventure Doctor in Economic Sciences I write, go deep sea fishing, read, I eat anywhere I like to watch and tell the story about what I see. I spend my time asking and asking and in My great-grandfather was a lighthouse keeper MARTÍNEZ motorcyclist, tour leader, romantic (and single). At dawn I place my laptop in my backpack and that smells good, I appreciate the beauty that Sharing as a form of relaxation. exchange I get scarce, and if not confusing in the Morro, my mother was born in a wooden Cuba—exotic, eccentric, and enigmatic—feeds doesn’t damage the environment, I sleep at answers. So as consolation for the uncertainty house with a red roof built at the foot of the I am a lover of literature, of blank pages and walk to the park closest to my home that has of finished works. I believe in journalism as my insatiable curiosity and passion. I feel like I’m Wi-Fi to receive and send my emails, which I noon to dream, I drink beer with my friends, I like Tosco and Cortés I choose the words of the poet: “Breathing, lighthouse; I’ve always thought La Giraldilla Cuban in my heart and soul. odd numbers, at the end of the day I ask myself PAG. 26 breathing, the biggest adventure.” And that can enigmatic and beautiful…I feel very linked another form of literature, as an artistic way of sign, with a bit of irony, Sent from my Office in portraying life. the Park. When I at last get the yearned for Nauta if I’ve learned something and I feed my cat be sufficient until the next morning when I again to Havana and I believe it is because of my (Not) A Moveable Feast Hogar at home, I will work more comfortably and Materia, and later…later I exist. startasking. relation with the sea: could it be because I am a Actor/director David Soul’s effort to restore daughter of Yemayá? Azutecnia: more efficiently, but no doubt I will miss those Innovations in Cuban Sugar Agribusiness Ernest Hemingway’s 1955 Chrysler New Yorker walks to the park, which I repeat five or six times Brief Tour of Havana El Mesón de la Flota in Cuba is a tale fit for a Hollywood drama during the day and night. PAG. 22 Passion Is Always True “There Will Always be Stories to be Told” PAG. 66 PAG. 54 PAG. 58 PAG. 12 Cruise Tourism to Cuba the Sweet and the Sour PAG. 18 12

CUBA WITH CHRISTOPHER BAKER

(Not) A Moveable Feast Actor/director David Soul’s effort to restore Ernest Hemingway’s 1955 Chrysler New Yorker in Cuba is a tale fit for a Hollywood drama

Ernest Hemingway was a hazard on Cu- After receiving his 1954 Nobel Prize, After Hemingway’s suicide on July 2, ba’s roads. “It was noon and I was cold so- Hemingway rewarded himself with a 1961, the Castro government seized the ber,” he once wrote to his editor, Maxwell long, low-slung Chrysler New Yorker De- property, Finca Vigía—“donated to the Perkins, admitting: “Fourth bad smash in luxe convertible, made to order in two- people of Cuba” is the euphemism—de- a year.” No wonder, with all that alcohol tone Navajo Orange and Desert Sand, for spite the author having willed it to Mary swilling around in his veins! So no sur- $3,924. One of only fifty-nine New Yorkers Welsh, his widow. The Chrysler he willed prise that in March 2011, when I first saw built for export that year, its 331 cubic inch to his doctor, José Luis Herrera Sotolongo. Hemingway’s 1955 Chrysler in Havana, V-8 FirePower engine with four-barrel The car eventually passed to Sotolongo’s it was a bit of a wreck… although, as it carbs produced an impressive 250 ponies. son then through various family hands turned out, not because of Papa’s predi- “It was a fast, racy, powerful, macho car until sold in 1982 to a Cuban policeman, lection for accidents. for a powerful, racy, macho kind of guy,” Agustín Núñez Gutiérrez. says Chrysler aficionado, Chris Paquin.

David Soul and Pedro Pino with Hemingway’s 1955 Chrysler New Yorker, December 2012 13 Visitors to Finca Vigía today will see a painting—‘The Farm’—by Joan Miró hanging in the dining room, surround- ed by heads of African game that Hemingway shot on safa- ri. On my first visit to the finca in 1996, decades of grime sol- dered by tropical heat marked the space where the painting had hung before being loaned in 1959 to New York’s Mu- seum of Modern Art. It never returned to Cuba. Then, in 2008, David Soul visited and was told the story. Back home in London, the celebrated actor/director (best known for his role as Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson, co-star of the popular ‘70s TV cop show Starsky & Hutch) had a canvas replica made.

Then, in November 2012, Soul calls me. He’s read my book, Cuba Classics: A Celebration of Vintage American Auto- mobiles, and wants to meet. So I fly to London, where we schmooze over beers at a pub in Swiss Cottage. He’s just returned from Finca Vigía, drawn by his insatiable affection for Cuba.

A Beverly Hills billionaire car enthusiast has purchased a 1955 New Yorker and begun shipping it in pieces to Cuba. But the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign As- sets Control (OFAC), which enforces the embargo, has shut him down.

“Here you have an American author whose car has been found and there’s a blockade in place that won’t allow peo- ple to send the parts to fix the car,” says Soul.

Ada Rosa adores Soul for having conjured a print of ‘The Farm.’ So, she’s asked him to help source the parts. He’s clueless about car restoration. But Soul is a social activist Interior of Hemingway’s 1955 Chrysler New Yorker, at Finca Vigia, showing Dodge dash and Russian gauges, April 2011 who believes the embargo is well past its used date. So be- cause it’s the right thing to do, and because it’s his literary hero’s car, he says yes. After all, he’s now English. Living in London. The U.S. embargo can’t touch him. When, in 1994, Gutiérrez hopped on a raft So I drove out to Finca Vigía, now the Finally Ada Rosa peeled back the tarp. for Miami, the car vanished. Museo Ernest Hemingway, maintained “David Soul, un norteamericano con pasaporte inglés, me lo as if the great writer still lived there. As I gasped. The wretched relic was far from mandó del cielo!” exclaims Ada Rosa, her green-blue eyes Legends arose. Gutiérrez had buried the I strolled up the long sloping driveway, I a moveable feast. It looked like it had shining. David Soul… North American... English passport… A car. No, others claimed, he had secreted passed what I sensed was the infamous come from Aleppo. The convertible top gift from Heaven! the car out of Cuba. vehicle perched atop cement blocks, elu- and interior leather were gone, eaten sive still beneath a tarp. away by mold. The gauges were from “There’s a real story here and it’s got to be recorded on film,” Its whereabouts remained a mystery for a Russian GAZ jeep and Lada. The dash Soul tells me. He’s partnered with London-based Red Earth two decades. Then, in March 2011, Bill Ada Rosa Alfonso, the fiery yet amiable di- from a Dodge. Not even the cracked Studio to produce a cinematic documentary—Cuban Soul. Greffin, of the Ernest Hemingway Foun- rector, appeared, files in hand. “We knew windshield belonged to this Franken- dation, in Oak Park, Illinois, contacted me you were coming,” she said enigmatically stein’s monster. And the floor had rotted Back in England, Danny Hopkins—editor of Practical Clas- with news that the Cuban government before showing me the Chrysler’s VIN away completely. I peered down at as- sics—leaps at Soul’s invitation to help source the parts. His had located the car. “Do you know any- placa (plate) with the chassis and en- phalt beneath the car. magazine spreads the word. Donations trickle in: Fabric to thing about it?” he asked. gine numbers; the insurance policy that retrim the interior… Original 15-inch whitewall tires… Cus- Hemingway took out, with the vehicle’s Unfazed, Ada Rosa told me of her plan to tom-matched Navajo Orange and Desert Sand paint… A “Yes,” I replied. Two years before, Eduardo registration number; plus documents restore the treasured trash-heap to run- hand-made six-volt battery powerful enough to crank the Mesejo Maestre, director of Havana’s car from Cuba’s National Registry of Vehicles ning condition. This would be an all-Cuban V-8 lump... And, eventually, a gas tank hand-made to spec. museum (Depósito del Automóvil), had showing a long list of owners, beginning effort. I listened to her, aware of the skill Plus, Hopkins recommends a warehouse in Massachusetts said to me: “The car is hidden, but it is still with Sotolongo (oddly, Hemingway never and ingenuity of the Cuban magician me- that’s a veritable Aladdin’s Cave of antique Chrysler mis- in the country, and restorable.” registered the car in Cuba) and threading chanics, but aware that the restoration of cellany. By coincidence, the owner—Chris Paquin—is read- to Leopoldo Nuñez Gutiérrez (Agustín ‘s a unique model and the impossibility im- ing Hemingway’s Boat when Soul calls. He’s in! “I hope I “Just so happens I’ll be visiting Cuba in uncle), in whose leaky and humid garage posed by the U.S. embargo of importing don’t get into trouble by trying to do something good,” he two weeks,” I told Bill, salivating to pick the vehicle was eventually found. parts to Cuba was a huge challenge. Kadir Lopez Nieva art as a present for President & Michelle Obama, says, prophetically. up the scent. Museum Ernest Hemingway

14 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 15 Things, however, haven’t gone according supplied. Then… Hallelujah! Customs Then Pedro, the chapista (panel-beater) to script. releases the parts. But few can be used. has a stroke. He’s paralyzed down his First, other parts are needed that have right side and can barely talk. When I vis- “Like kids at Christmas, anticipation was still to be sourced. ited him shortly thereafter, he grins like in the air. We couldn’t wait to open our a Cheshire Cat. Testament to Cubans’ in- gifts and present them to our wizard Eighteen months have passed. The Chrys- defatigable patience, resilience, and good panel beater and wonder mechanic,” ler shell sits in limbo. humor. “It’s partly that spirit that drives Soul reflects, as the crew pursues the first me,” says Soul. “Hemingway speaks so shipment from Massachusetts to the UK Then Soul comes into OFAC’s crosshairs. much about the warmth and kindness and on to Cuba. Ten weeks have passed Uncle Sam wants to see all receipts. of the Cuban people. Well, that’s what since it arrived in Havana. But the crates makes this embargo, this blockade, such are still with Customs and can’t be re- British citizen since 2004 (and Londoner an idiotic thing.” Soul sees the restoration trieved. Days pass as Soul & Co. pursue a since 1995) be damned: Uncle Sam is of Hemingway’s Chrysler as an example Sisyphean task against invisible and im- none-too-sympathetic. Soul’s righteous of cultural diplomacy that can help suture movable forces. Soul has signed a Letter endeavor is afoul of the 1917 Trading with U.S.-Cuba relations. “This project is some- of Understanding with Cuba’s Consejo the Enemy Act. “The export of U.S. origin thing that has to be done. And it’s gonna Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural—its Na- goods, car parts or anything else to Cuba, pay off. It’s gonna be for a good reason.” tional Heritage Council—giving exclu- would be a violation of the OFAC sanc- sive access to the car in exchange for tions,” Washington-based attorney Wynn Unfortunately, Soul’s health, too, has taken supplying the parts. Yet Cuba’s lethargic Segall informs Soul. He and Paquin are on a nosedive. ‘Hutch,’ the blue-eyed blond bureaucracy is unyielding. Eight differ- the hook for fines of up to $250,000 per seventies heartthrob is now in a wheel- ent ministries need to sign off before the transaction… plus a possible stint in jail. chair. Still, in January, 2016, the film crew— parts are released. Ada Rosa bursts into Since Soul never renounced U.S. birth- accompanied by Hopkins and Paquin on tears as Soul’s temper flares. rights, even his trips to Cuba are illegal. their first visit—returns to Havana, Soul breathing through an oxygen concentrator. “You’ve got people trying to help you, for The thaw in the decades-long freeze with God’s sake!” Soul stammers. “We’re trying Cuba initiated by President Barack Obama The aging actor hobbles with the aid of to help the museum. Trying to help Cuba!” on December 17, 2014, is blessed relief. a cane, Hopkins gripping his arm, as the Travel for journalistic activity and humani- crew descends the sloping driveway to Pe- Months pass. A second and third ship- tarian projects is eased. And exports for dro’s home. Pedro, in his mechanic’s over- ment are sucked into Cuba’s bureaucratic use in historical preservation in Cuba will alls, awaits by the gate, right arm stiff at black hole. Meanwhile, the list of original be permitted. In late 2015, OFAC finally his side. “We’re the same. El mismo!” Soul parts required for restoration is like a Hy- clears Soul and Paquin to ship parts. says softly as they embrace, tears stream- dra, multiplying with every part that’s ing. Watching on, we’re all crying too. Interior of Hemingway’s 1955 Chrysler New Yorker, at Finca Vigia, April 2011

David Soul with Joan Miro’s ‘The Farm,’ Finca Vigia, Cuba, December 2012

Afternoon sunlight slants between the to communicate with Soul sits on the palms, casting shadows along the Chrys- news for four months more. Desperate ler’s grey-primed hulk. New brightwork requests for updates go unanswered. is in place: Bat-wing grill. Twin-Tower tail-lamps. Art Deco eagle streaking over With every visit I become more disheart- the hood. Humberto, the mechanic, has ened. The new brakes are now oxidized. rebuilt the transmission and V-8 Hemi. The body so lovingly restored by Pedro is All that the engine awaits are a new dy- rusting badly. And the new chrome sent namo, starter motor, and water pump. six years ago is peeling away like scrofu- But the list of required parts continues lous skin in the tropical mire. to grow. The paint, and several dozen me- chanical parts, sent three years ago are “If I was of sound mind and body, well, still in their cartons: Unusable until other sound mind anyway, I probably wouldn’t parts can be found or shipped. have ventured to do this,” Soul guffaws. Though now gaunt and weakened, he As 2016 ticks away, Paquin whittles away isn’t about to give up. He’s inspired by at the list until finally, in August 2017, Soul Santiago, the seasoned fisherman in The solicits the Patrimonio for permission to Old Man and the Sea, engaged in an epic ship a more-or-less complete inventory and agonizing battle with a giant mar- to Cuba. But Ada Rosa Alfonso—champi- lin far out in the Gulf Stream, displaying on of the car’s restoration in Cuba—has relentless resolve, even as his hard-won been fired. Six months pass before ap- marlin is devoured by sharks before he proval is given… and a secretary tasked can bring it to shore.

16 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 17 18 ECONOMY & BUSINESS Cruise tourism to Cuba is at its peak: the country has bet on the the Barack Obama government which in 2015 started relaxing benefits of cruises as part of a tourist industry that has catapult- travel to Cuba restrictions for Americans. The growth rate of in- ed the damaged national economy; the cruise lines have a new ternational visitors in the last three years has been between 14 market in the Caribbean in their keenness to have an unlimited and 17 percent, some of the highest in the Caribbean, and in 2017 growth of passengers, ships and profits, and both have escaped it reached the 4.690 million tourists. “Trump’s rage,” the U.S. president’s measures announced in Cruise Tourism June 2017 to rollback relations with Cuba which, opportunely, As part of this growth, the arrivals of cruise passengers has shot exonerated the cruise and airline companies. up since 2015, when the Obama government lifted the restric- tions that banned ships that stopped in Cuba from calling at International tourism to Cuba has witnessed a sustained U.S. ports, thus making it easier for U.S. cruise lines to include TO CUBA growth in the last five years, partly thanks to the measures of Cuba on their itineraries. THE SWEET AND THE SOUR Rafael Betancourt Photo: Otmaro Rodríguez

On Friday, April 27, the book Por el Mar de las Antillas: 50 años de turismo de cru- ceros en el Caribe, by Martha Honey, Jan- nelle Wilkins, José Luis Perelló and Rafael Betancourt, was presented in Havana. Brought out by the Temas publishing house and available in electronic format on www.responsibletravel.org, it is con- sidered the first comprehensive study of cruise tourism, the leisure industry’s sector with the fastest growth.

Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 19 Cruise tourism also causes impacts on his- 2016-2017 toric cities, unique and authentic inhab- INTERNATIONAL INCOMES FOR THE CUBAN STATERUN ENTERPRISES ited spaces, with a cultural legacy highly FOR INTERNATIONAL TOURISM valued by the cruise industry, which turns VISITORS IN CUBA 4.690.000 them into a competitive factor. In Cuba, this is especially the case of Havana, San- TOTAL INCOMES tiago de Cuba, Trinidad and Cienfuegos. On the one hand, cruise tourism gener- $3 billion ates direct economic benefits for the patrimonial city. However, urban plan- ners have pointed out the threats tour- INCOMES FOR ism poses for the built heritage and the 3% urban infrastructure through the con- CRUISE gestion it generates given their limited charge capacity, pressure on the demand OPERATIONS for resources such as water, food and electricity, as well as the generation of $8.6 million solid wastes. But this occurs with cruise as well as stay tourism, and is concerning because of its rapid growth on a par with cruise tourism leaves the country much Moreover, the cruises’ “ecological footprint” the backwardness in adapting the infra- less incomes per passenger than the stay is strong and far-reaching, especially in structures to accommodate it. tourism. However, the economic potential the Caribbean, the destination of 35.5 per- of cruise tourism for Cuba is unquestion- cent of all the world’s cruise ships. Firstly, With a view to maximizing benefits and able, because of its contribution and the there are the environmental impacts on minimizing costs and threats of cruise tour- fast growth rate, which doesn’t depend on the seas and oceans. An average cruise ism, Cuba needs to take into account the the availability of accommodations. ship transports 2,200 passengers and 800 lessons learned from cruise tourism in the crew members. Each day it issues into the Caribbean and other destinations. While But cruise tourism isn’t a piece of pie, it atmosphere more sulfur dioxide (SO2) than Cuba’s bet on cruise tourism is correct on also has its crust. 13 million automobiles and more soot than a long term because of its rapid growth a million. Each week, a cruise ship gener- potential, it should be as a complement of Passengers’ main spending goes to the ates 8 million tons of solid wastes, 210,000 stay tourism, which in the Caribbean leaves 2015 2016 2017 cruise lines, in terms of what they pay for gallons of sewage and 25,000 gallons of an average of 12 times more incomes per the package as well as the extras on board, waters contaminated with hydrocarbons, visitor than the cruise passenger. which is significant. According to a Flor- most of which is spilled into the open sea.6 Between 2015 and 2017 the number of cruise passengers to some $8.6 million,2 which represents less than three percent of ida-Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA) Also, it’s worth promoting the local partici- Cuba increased fifteen fold, to reach 437,000. In the first quarter the total of incomes for international tourism of approximately study in 2010, cruise passengers spend an In Cuba’s case, the cruise ship operations pation in the design and implementation of 2018 a total of 136,138 cruise passengers arrived, representing $3 billion in that period.3 average of $1,770 per person each week in national parks and other sensitive of the cruise tourism activity. To maximize a 28.6% growth in relation to the same period in 2017. Out of for their trip, including spending on board zones of importance for biodiversity are the economic contribution on land of them, 25,040 did so from the United States, double the amount But…the numbers can be deceptive. Academic analysts have and on land,4 but the spending on land av- particularly worrisome. passengers and crew members, the offer of January-March 2017.1 This despite a 7% drop in the total num- pointed out that the total of incomes associated to tourism eraged only $103.83 per passenger visit in of excursions, merchandise and quality ber of foreign visitors, and 43% of Americans, in the first three are incomplete and deficient and do not reflect their real per- the 35 Caribbean destinations.5 Concern about the impact of cruise tour- services in each stopover must be guar- months of 2018. formance. They do not collect, for example, what the visitors ism on the reefs led the Cuban Ministry anteed, by the state-run as well as the pri- consume in non-state establishments like restaurants and caf- On the other hand, despite the cruise of Science, Technology and Environment vate sector, which is linked to the previous However, the number of cruise passengers is still small com- eterias, nor the purchase of crafts, private transportation or ac- lines’ affirmations, the cruise passen- (CITMA) to issue on July 28, 2016 the en- point of strengthening the destinations. pared to the stay tourists, although it is growing: from less than commodations in private homes. It is estimated that 34 percent gers rarely return to the country. While vironmental Regulations for ship op- one percent until 2015 it reached 11 percent of the total of inter- of the international stay tourists are guests in private homes the destinations help to sell cruises, very erations in the Protected Marine Areas. Lastly, Cuba must work with other Carib- national visitors in 2017. and eat in private restaurants, which is why the figures for the few passengers returned as stay tourists. These include the requirement that the bean states to develop common tourism total of tourist incomes is underestimated in at least a billion. They are two different market segments. cruise operators request the relevant En- policies and collective bargaining with Cuba’s income from cruise tourism comes from four principal vironmental Permit and that the small the powerful cruise lines. Cuba’s leading sources: the passenger tax, or head tax, paid at each port, port In the case of cruise tourism, these inaccuracies in the figures are and medium-size vessels have zones with position in the Association of Caribbean services, passengers and crew members’ spending on land, and serious because the statistics come from different sources that mooring buoys for their location, and in States, its united position in the negotia- 4 Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association. (2011): the jobs generated on board as well as on land. According to Ar- do not include the same data nor agree among themselves. Even “Cruise Industry Overview, 2011. State of the no case to drop anchor. And that “the ar- tion with the cruise lines and its prestige ies Transporte S.A., the Cuban company in charge of the cruise with the shortage of trustworthy figures it can be affirmed that Cruise Industry.” http://www.f-cca.com/ rival of cruise ships as a general rule will as a fair arbiter would facilitate it. operations in Cuba, the total incomes for the Cuban state-run downloads/2011-overview-book_Cruise%20 NOT be promoted in the protected areas.” Industry%20Overview%20and%20Statistics. enterprises during the 2016-2017 cruise season amounted to 2 Aries Transportes S.A. (2017): Temporada de cruceros 2016-2017; Tarifas pdf. Cruise tourism can generate considerable Públicas de Aries S.A. 2017. benefits for Cuba, depending on how it is 5 BREA (October 2015): Economic Contribution 6 Friends of the Earth (2016): “2016 Cruise 1 https://www.excelenciascuba.com/noticia/turismo-de-cruceros-en- 3 ONEI (2016): Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2015, chap. 15: “Turismo, y of Cruise Tourism to the Destination Ship Report Card.” http://www.foe.org/cruise- managed and used. el-caribe-%C2%BFoportunidades-o-amenazas-para-cuba%3F cálculos de los autores”. Economies, vol. 1, p. 45. report-card.

20 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 21 22 CUBAN TIPS

Brief Tour of HAVANA

Jorge Javier Miranda Photos: Jorge Luis Borges

In Havana solutions have been sought so of its immensity. Hidden in Old Havana Since time goes by so fast, its Cathedral, that the oldest things continue functioning. there are small bars, each one with a very its Templete, its Parque Central must be From beautiful patrimonial constructions personal style, where it’s worthwhile visited. Afterwards, if you wish to get to cars from the 1950s imported from the having a good shot of rum, that beverage to know a more modern part you have United States. It is, as many opine: a city that invented in Cuba. to go to El Vedado or Miramar districts, has stopped in time and, at the same time, is whose architectures conserve permanent advancing. Each day it looks more beautiful. Walking along Obispo Street looking for a memories of the sugar aristocracy and souvenir is too classical, better images are the mafia of yesteryear and an exquisite With a climate that averages almost 30 ºC waiting for you along the parallel streets. influence of art deco. throughout the year, the Cuban capital is It will always be moving to enter the Plaza grateful to its embrace with the sea. It is not Vieja, listen to that traditional sound of The Fábrica de Arte Cubano is another of strange for a group of young friends to dive music and of doves flapping their wings. It the places that shouldn’t be missed. All into the water from that Malecón seafront resembles the scene from a 1950s movie. the art manifestations by young talent wall, that “sofa” where so many lovers have are present there: expositions, concerts declared themselves, where innumerable Close to the Capitol building, a very and a variety of cocktails guarantee a old songs have been heard. improved copy of the American one, the wonderful night. Alicia Alonso Grand Theater of Havana, The city has so many faces that at least a eclecticism in pursuit of beauty, especially Then, after this brief tour, you can really say: week would be needed to have an idea attracts attention. “I was in Havana.”

Havana’s Malecon seaside drive. In the background, theTres Reyes del Morro Castle El Gran Teatro de La Habana “Alicia Alonso” It is, as many opine: a city that has stopped in time and, at the same time, is advancing. Each day it looks more beautiful.

Calle Bernaza and Teniente Rey, Old Havana Capitolio de La Habana

24 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 25 26 INTERVIEW

Mónica Rivero Photos: Claudio Pelaez Sordo “My curriculum is not on the Internet,” says a José Luis Cortés TOSCO who presents himself as unreachable, inaccessible, who warns not to look for him like others. and CORTÉS They’re not going to find him there.

26 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 27 A bucket, a reed flute and a guitar missing strings. That was the format of the first group of José Luis Cortés, el Tosco, founder “IN THE SCHOOL WE of NG la Banda, an Irakere and Los Van Van veteran, one of the most brilliant and prolific Cuban musicians, who in addition is a USED TO MOVE A showbiz character. LOT IN THE SPHERE “My curriculum is not on the Internet,” says a José Luis Cortés who presents himself as unreachable, inaccessible, who warns not to OF POPULAR MUSIC, look for him like others. They’re not going to find him there. He was born on October 5, 1951 in El Condado, Santa Clara, a WHICH AT THE TIME barrio “totally artistic from the musical point of view,” he says. “That place was full of rumba, of Santeria drum beats, of the WAS TABOO IN Yoruba religion…a great many things that in the end have to do with popular dance music.” A neighbor, Antonio Ríos, more or less played the guitar, and taught him to sol-fa a bit. “That’s THE ART SCHOOLS. where my link to music began,” that is, his link with what would THEY WANTED be everything for him. The father played the timpani in a circus band. The mother EVERYONE TO wanted to be a singer but his grandfather “was adamantly against it because of the concepts that existed at that time that if you worked in cabarets you were a prostitute. And you know PLAY BEETHOVEN, how the old people used to get before, they were intense,” he MOZART, HAYDN, BUT says dragging out the final “s”. In the end his mother sang…at home, while she was doing the dishes, for example. “And she did it quite well. I know all those NO ONE WANTED songs she sang.”

TO PLAY ANTONIO Through one of the “Revolution’s plans from that time” he ap- plied for the fishing and the national art schools. He filled out MARÍA ROMEU’S the two forms “because what was important was to get out of there. To leave that environment because it was terrible, if I stayed I was going to be a good criminal, a good drunkard, a MUSIC, NOT EVEN good tough guy.”

CATURLA’S! IT By chance he first got the form for the National Art School. “When I got there I wanted to study violin on and on, because in the bar- WAS ‘OUT, OUT, rio there were some TV sets and we used to see that in the bands the violinists had a very different flair.” But he didn’t have the con- ditions, “and that’s it, they left me with my tail between my legs DAMN SPOT’ WITH because I didn’t want to study anything else.” Until….

WHOEVER WAS Antonio Pacheco was studying the flute at an advanced level How did you assimilate the rigor of the academy? After that I went through a stage with Los Van Van, and later and told him: “Hey, go do the test for the flute. You know that I got to like it. I already saw myself wearing tails, a bow tie, and Irakere. Afterwards came NG la Banda that is now celebrating CAUGHT PLAYING the flute is the instrument of the gods.” playing in a Mozart concert. I played him, as well as Haydn, dif- 30 years, which despite all the hurdles, the music groups, the ficult pieces for flute. I just thought of myself only playing in a besmirching, all those words that are super negative words… “He talked me into it and I accepted. I did the test, and I passed.” concert – not a symphony orchestra, I never liked being a music watch out: is more valuable because it has known how to stay THAT MUSIC. stand kind of person but rather a soloist. Until I had problems on the charts. At the beginning he didn’t like too much the instrument that and I was kicked out of school. And I had to go out and wear YOU WOULD BE has been his mainstay for 47 years. “Now, from the spiritual as out some shoes. Now I’m compiling things. The group was born on April 4 not well as material point of view, it is wonderful for me.” because I wanted it that day, but rather by chance. They told me REPORTED, YOUR I had to get out there, I wanted to sing with Santa Clara’s they would donate the instruments if I played at a party and I “In the school we used to move a lot in the sphere of popular mu- Aliamén band, but then Ritmo Oriental came along and they played. It wasn’t like “let’s do it because its the youth and pio- sic, which at the time was taboo in the art schools. They wanted told me: “We’re going to Havana.” And I came. They had al- neers’ day.” PASS WOULD BE everyone to play Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, but no one wanted ready taken me to the rehearsals of Los Van Van, but my dad to play Antonio María Romeu’s music, not even Caturla’s! It was didn’t want me to play popular music, he wanted me to be a I want to organize a party. Open bar for the people. Let’s see if I can TAKEN AWAY.” ‘out, out, damn spot’ with whoever was caught playing that mu- classical musician. In any case I started playing with Los Van get the cash for two cistern trucks of beer and that the people drink sic. You would be reported, your pass would be taken away.” Van…until comrade Compulsory Military Service came along. them, give away bottles of rum. And perhaps after that I’ll retire.

28 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 29 Why El Tosco? “He was the one who brought everyone together and did the Cu- Because of a pair of boots. When I was in school, during a pro- ban timba.” Adalberto [Alvarez] says the same. Everybody says ductive work stint, I overslept and was not present when the the same. They say it, I don’t say it. What I did was music. Just that. work clothes were given out and the only thing there was were one of those ugly hairy Russian boots. They were size 12 and I And I had the opportunity of playing with Irakere and having used a 7. played with Los Van Van and I say that music is a hybrid. The or- ange cut in half, grabbed one way or the other, is still an orange. But I’ve always been a clown, in the sense that nothing daunts me. Clown in the sense that nothing gives me a complex. “That’s It is said that “NG la Banda is what made everybody dance to what there is?” Well, I put them on. And since I was going to the in the 1990s and early 2000.” That’s what the people say, don’t canteen, which in the school was where the girls and boys en- look at me. It’s up to them. gaged in social graces, and in jokes, they named me “the man with the rough [tosco] boots.” It was Calixto Manzaneros, who What has the flute represented in these 47 years? was studying to be a music arranger. The flute is part of my soul, it is my heart, it is through which I can really express the music I do. I play the piano a bit, a bit of Of course, in Cuba everything becomes smaller, and I was left bass, but my thing is really the flute and it makes me transmit with El Tosco. But I have nothing to do with that. My surname what I have here inside of me. The flute without me…rather, I am is Cortés [courteous]! I’m the antithesis: there’s a long stretch nothing without the flute. between Tosco and Cortés. How many do you have? I don’t like rough things, except for boxing which I do like. I’m Thirteen. None of them are my favorite, the favorite one was sto- not into everything else, although I have nothing to do with len; someone changed it for a porn movie. The flute cost 10,000 flowers or birds. There’s a very big confusion with that, because dollars, the film 15 euros. During a tour an Italian couldn’t find they say that Libras have a lot in common with those things. his film, and it seems that he saw the flute and said: “I’ll throw Just check the famous Libras so you can see none of them have this away.” It was completely made of silver. It probably still has nothing in common with me. a pedigree, if someone finds it they have to give it back to me. Murakami bought it for me. He said I had to have the best flute Do you consider yourself the founder of the timba? in the world and he bought it for me. Well, I don’t know, let them fight it out. That has been said by Juan Formell, Chucho Valdés…although Chucho says: “He al- What are your routines? ready played timba when he was in Irakere.” Wow, I can’t explain it to you…. The night. If you don’t live at night you miss the truth. And you miss the glamour, showbiz, the things There’s a concept there to discuss it, but I’m not going to argue that are important in this environment to be able to live. with the greats. They are the ones who know. El Tosco did do the timba, but the timba was already played by Irakere. Formell said: I go out every night, whether I have work or not. Photo: Kaloian (Jorge Luis Cortés and Los Van Van Orquestra)

Is the timba in crisis? minican Republic. The people, the youth, prefers that. They let You have to explain to children the whys. If you censure children go of things and everybody aspires to have what’s good. People and tell them: “Look here, don’t take that camera, if it breaks used to tell me: “Hey, but you have a Mercedes Benz!” And I used and it costs 3,000 dollars,” and you let them touch it and show to tell them: “Come on, if Fidel has a Mercedes Benz, why can’t I it to them, it’s not the same as they go and touch it and you tell have one? That must be the best car because if he uses it…. And them: “Hey, don’t touch the camera, damn it!” And they touch I bought it with my money. Work, struggle, save money and buy it. It’s the same with music. Everyone played reguetón, it was whatever you want.” Anyway, in the end I had to sell it…. eliminated, they started talking against it. What music do you listen to? But there are private bars where the owners play what they want. I like Brazilian music. It kills me. And I’m especially listening to You also have to visit the bars to know what is happening with Ella Fitzgerald, who isn’t Brazilian but sings many things from music. I bet you won’t hear anything from the Aragón band. Brazil. She sang all that samba. Elis Regina, Milton Nascimento, Djavan, and Jobim, the king of Brazilian music, one of the ones In the Package [a weekly package of music, series, films, docu- who invented the bossa nova. Those are the most beautiful mentaries, etc.] and in the bars there’s reguetón 24x7. Now Alex- themes in the world. ander Abreu has caught on and the people have called him “the oxygen of Cuban music,” playing the same thing, a copy of what I listen to that and once in a while to classical music. I love Tchai- NG la Banda has always played. kovsky, I like Brahms, which people don’t like, but Brahms’ orches- tration, watch out! Get into the music. You have to feel the coun- The genre, the dance, the group that makes video clips came in. terpoints he has, the string…he’s the best. Chopin, Schubert, who Because it’s not the same to hear than to watch. Now everybody is another monster. Liszt, another monster. The neo-romanticism, wants to live the way the Americans do, all the cars are imitat- the impressionism…it’s what I most like to listen to. Because as ing the cars of the reguetón musicians from Puerto Rico and Do- you know the baroques are something else, for the studios.

30 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 31 32 PHOTO FEATURE

THE CUBA MY EYES SEE Kerstin Hernández I’ve been posting photos on Facebook since 2010. The idea of opening an album in my profile and that it be called Alocu- bano appeared when I started having photos I liked and that weren’t the usual ones – with friends, at the beach, in my daily life circumstances – but rather of natural landscapes, architec- ture, buildings, posters, strange situations…. I realized that all of them had something in common: they were a story about Cuba. I published the album thinking of the friends who don’t live on the island and miss her; it was my way of approaching them to Cuba and to myself. I’ve never set out to take (seek) photos for Alocubano, it was rather they which found me, they come out when I’m walking around, they are a stroll by some- one who goes “looking.”

A started taking pictures of funny, witty and peculiar phrases and posters; the incredible bad spelling; the old and decadent aesthetics; creative, humorous situations or scenes. All those things that catch my eye and which I would comment with the friend at my side. This is perhaps why the album has been filled with these images, it’s my way of continuing to share with my friends. I continued taking pictures of beautiful images of Cuba, but I no longer include all of them in the Alocubano album.

Except for the first, shot with a small camera, I take the rest with my cell phone. At times from a car, a bus, very fast…. I suf- fer when I see an interesting image and I don’t have the time to take a photo of it. Several persons tell me that I should use a good camera, but this is how it’s comfortable for me: cell phone in hand. I like my photos to come out in an intuitive, spontane- ous, improvised way.

What I see when I take a picture is, at times, a pretty composi- tion of forms and/or colors; others, the typical Cuban aesthetics, the occurrence, the absurd, the witty, those are the things that catch my attention.

I hadn’t uploaded the photos in any media until OnCuba became interested in them. The photos are in my personal Facebook pro- file (www.facebook/kerstin.cuba), in the albums called Alocuba- no. I want to start publishing them on Instagram and on another FB space, on pages that I have already created

www.facebook.com/kerstin.alocubano www.instagram.com/kerstin.alocubano

“I don’t lend tools, don’t disturb, thank you”

36 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 37 38 ART & CULTURE THE HOUSES HERMES MALLEA DISCOVERS IN HAVANA Eric Caraballoso Photos: Courtesy of Hermes Mallea

Even though he has built a successful career in the United States and still prefers English to communicate with others, Hermes Mallea feels increasingly more linked to Cuba. Fourteen years ago he experienced a return to the roots, to the origins, thanks to the profession to which he has devoted his life: architecture.

Mallea lived in Santiago de Cuba until he was five years old, but he grew up and carried out higher studies in Miami. In Columbia University, in New York, he did a master’s in the preservation of history and later, after a few years in Boston, he established himself in NYC. Owners Nora Belanzauran & Otto Hermos found the 1950s Baroque style table and en-suite chairs in a house decorated before the Revolution – it works beautifully in their mid-century home designed by modern master Frank Martinez. Wood louvers & colorful stained glass are hallmarks of the Tropical Modern style architecture. Photo: Alain Gutiérrez. Description: In the Vedado Dining Room of painter Damian Aquiles & his wife, Pamela Ruiz, a work by Damian presides over the Dining Room. Chandeliers are a Havana signature & here a 1950s fixture is an update of the more traditional lights found throughout the city. Photo: Adrián Fernández. THE FIRST TIME I RETURNED TO CUBA AND I WAS CAPTIVATED NOT JUST BY THE VALUES OF COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE, BUT ALSO BY THAT OF THE LATE 19TH AND THE 20TH CENTURIES Pepe lounges in the recently completed porch addition that has become a popular spot for entertaining at the Norwegian Great Houses… covers a century, ever since the photographic Ambassador’s Residence. Photo: Adrián Fernández. camera showed in 1860 the interior of Cuban houses – taken by U.S. George Barnard’s lens -, up to 1960, at the height of a A study of the architecture of interiors shared with his couple, Revolution that brought a change to the architectural panorama interior designer Carey Maloney, has been his work and passion of the island. for more than three decades. “With this book I learned to connect architecture and history, “We have been very lucky,” he says to OnCuba, “and what’s been to provide readers with the context for these magnificent the most important have been the clients, very special persons Havana works, presenting the families that lived in them, and with which we have maintained a relationship of loyalty showing the houses in their relationship with the environment, throughout time.” with their neighborhood and their period. It was a challenging and encouraging research, a work for an architect but also for Some years ago, a Design Biennial in Havana opened an a historian and sociologist to understand the culture that gave unexpected door to him: “It was the first time I returned to Cuba life to these edifices.” and I was captivated not just by the values of colonial architecture, but also by that of the late 19th and the 20th centuries. I was After that book would come the one dedicated to the Caribbean: greatly impressed and I started taking pictures, to collect images Escape: The Heyday of Caribbean Glamour, an analysis of the and information still without a project in mind,” he recalls. resorts in which it presents Cuba in the context of the region’s tourist industry. After that he has returned over and over again and, as testimony, The Nuevo Vedado Bedroom of preservation architect, Ayleen Robainas. there are three beautiful books: Great Houses of Havana (with The master Bedroom is an airy box of louvers & glass, surrounded four editions), Escape: The Heyday of Caribbean Glamour, and by tropical vegetation, a beautiful example of authentic Cuban style Havana Living Today. designed by architect Jaime Canaves in 1958. Photo: Alain Gutiérrez.

40 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 41 Artists like singer Cucú Diamante and visual artists Wilfredo Prieto and Damian Aquile, even private and foreign leasers IT’S NOT JUST residing in Cuba are responsible for this discovery, a group Mallea recognizes as “a very special minority” in the current Cuban context. THE PRETTY

Little by little he started getting to know them and their houses, PICTURES, BUT many times introduced by previous interviewees, until he gathered the necessary information for the book. For almost two years he combined that research with his work in New York, RATHER THAT but the effort was worthwhile. THEY HAVE AN “I’m very happy with the book, because of how it presents the personality of those who have created these interiors and the style INTERESTING of their designs. It’s not just the pretty pictures, but rather that they have an interesting story to tell and also their cultural, aesthetic and even economic value, thinking, for example, about tourism. STORY TO TELL “Those who rent rooms in Cuba should know that that style AND ALSO THEIR is attractive for the tourists, because it is based on its own “Crop Fernandez Horta”. Cuban artwork dominates the cultural autochthonous elements, instead of trying to create a space copied empresario Pepe Horta’s dining room with its 1920s classical style from abroad that could exist anywhere, they should realize the CULTURAL, furniture. Works by Servando Cabrera Moreno & Humberto Castro update the traditional style architecture & furniture values they have at hand and that they can take advantage of.” Photo: Alain Gutiérrez. AESTHETIC AND Havana Living Today is sold online and its author is promoting Hermes Mallea would not take long in dedicating new pages it in the United States, but Mallea is already thinking – and “AS A CUBAN to Havana. Viewing the grandeurs of the past, he discovered working – on new projects. The impact of interior design in Cuba EVEN ECONOMIC the present. His finding was inevitable, natural, and not less in private work and the buying and selling of homes, arouse I AM VERY surprising because of this. his interest. In addition, he is editing short videos dedicated VALUE, to Cuban independent designers and is working on another “There are many rumors and misconceptions about Cuba, and possible book. THINKING, FOR PROUD OF based on that information I always thought that the houses with personality had disappeared from Havana after the Definitely, and for the good of readers, Cuba will continue Revolution. However, when I was working on my previous books present in the work and life of Hermes Mallea. EXAMPLE, WHAT MY I realized that it wasn’t completely that way. There did exist many houses with style, personalized, and as a designer that Cuban Homestyle Now in the intimately scaled Living Room of ABOUT interested me a lot. That is what I try to show in Havana Living Katharina Voss & Enrique Arias – mid-century Cuban armchairs frame a PEOPLE HAVE Today,” he explains painting by Alejandro Campins. Photo: Carlos Otero TOURISM. Brought out by the prestigious Rizzoli publishing house, and CREATED, with excellent photos by Adrián Fernández, Havana Living Today shows around 40 of today’s Havana houses in which their EVEN designs and designers have known how to leave their unique mark and, at the same time, a collective imprint from the period. WORKING “I admire those houses not just because in my opinion they are very beautiful, but also because of the way in which they reveal the personality of those who lived in them, and because seen WITH as a whole they show a very authentic Cuban style that I didn’t know existed.”

LIMITATIONS. Historic elements like the tiled floors, furniture from the republican period, screens and stained glass are combined with more current and recycled elements and Cuban contemporary IT’S ANOTHER artworks, in a scenario born of inventiveness and need “to WAY OF creatively use what’s at hand.” “Discovering that style was the most important part of my research. As a Cuban I am very proud of what my people have created, even DESIGNING.” working with limitations. It’s another way of designing.”

42 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 43 44 SPORTS Juan Miguel Echevarría’s Long Jumps

Aliet Arzola Lima Photos: Ricardo López Hevia

44 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 45 In the early morning hours of September 28, 2000, in La Guer- Tall and slim, vivacious and fast, Echevarría grew up as a hap- nica, a “trouble-making barrio” in the north zone of the city of py, daring, terse and very active child. “That is my way, I won’t Camagüey, a few fanatics were awake, cursing the luck of a change it, I get it from my barrio, from my upbringing. I have hairy Australian. Jay Taurima, an electric and unknown jumper, been like that since I was a child and I will continue being like was stealing Ivan Pedroso’s Olympic glory. There was silence that,” he says, on a time machine that transports him to his be- in the narrow streets of Camagüey, but in just a few seconds a ginnings in track and field. roar was heard. “A professor came to my school, Ernesto Lucas Ruiz, and he did “Ever since I have knowledge of sports I know what happened in several tests during the recess. I came out OK, and right at that Sydney. The last attempt, the tension, the record…it was a hard- very moment I decided to run. I was fast, I like sports and that fought competition full of pressure, and I have realized that the world enticed me even more when I won three gold medals and only one who could have won like that was Pedroso. For me he a silver medal in my first junior tournament,” he recalls. will always be the best jumper in history, I feel represented with him,” affirms Juan Miguel Echevarría, who was only 25 months That was in 2008, only a decade ago, precisely what Juan Miguel old when the Cuban Grasshopper immortalized his name in the needed to take off from La Guernica to the Birmingham Sta- Olympic books. dium, where he became the indoor world champion at 19 and in 203 days. “Time flies, but the road has been long and hard. Eighteen years after that dizzying night, the analogies and com- I remember how bad I was in launchings and resistance when parisons between Pedroso and Juan Miguel are the order of the I started…terrible, and I had to do it all as is demanded in the day, since the then baby from Camagüey jumped from anonym- junior categories. Luckily, afterwards I stayed in the jumps. That ity to fame and became the all-time youngest indoor world changed my life.” champion, which no one in La Guernica imagined. THE THEN BABY FROM CAMAGÜEY JUMPED FROM ANONYMITY TO FAME AND BECAME THE ALL- TIME YOUNGEST INDOOR WORLD CHAMPION

46 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 47 In 2018, winter in Europe robed spring of a lot of days. Juan Miguel Echevarría walked the streets of Germany wearing a HOW OLD WERE THE ALL TIME JUMPERS woolen cap and gloves like a perfect stranger. Those who went WHEN THEY WERE JUAN MIGUEL ECHEVARRÍA’S AGE by him only saw a black guy out of his natural environment, without imagining that they were in front of a future world IVÁN PEDROSO DWIGHT PHILLIPS champion. (Olympic champion and four-time world champion) (Olympic champion and four-time world champion) He jumped 8.41 meters at 19 and in 143 days At 20, his best record was 7.24 meters. There, the young man talked all the time with Daniel Osorio, his He didn’t jump more than 8.40 until he was 26 “coach, physiotherapist, physician, friend and father,” mainly CARL LEWIS IRVING SALADINO looking for the tools to maintain his concentration in a large (Olympic champion four times in a row) (Olympic champion) He jumped 8.62 meters at 19 and in 345 days stadium. “We talked about many details, and that exchange At 20, his best record was 7.39 meters. He didn’t jump more than 8.40 until he was 23 was the best preparation for the World Championship. I learned MIKE POWELL and understood that if you have all the conditions and are not (world record holder) BOB BEAMON At 20, his best record was 8.06 meters. focused, things will never come out as you had thought.” (Olympic record holder) He didn’t jump more than 8.40 until he was 24 At 21, his best record was 7.93 meters. He didn’t jump more than 8.40 until he was 24, And precisely that way, fully convinced that he could be better precisely when he won the Olympic gold medal in Mexico 1968 than the rest, Juan Miguel stretched in Birmingham up to 8.46 meters, the universal summit. He made his mind go blank, only concentrating in the running start and in his sequence of steps to reach the board, and he left an endless amount of specialists speechless, all of them aware that that was just a demonstra- tion of his huge arsenal.

“My goal is perfection and that represents a great deal of work. I have the tools, I’m fast, tall, strong, powerful and I make an effort to polish the movements, strengthen the muscles and achieve greater synchronization,” he affirms in a tone that seems to come from an acclaimed athlete.

His jump, beyond placing him as a prodigy and one of the big- gest promises worldwide, is proof that Cuban track and field is breathing and has talented and young standard bearers to stand up for a sports movement that, in general, generates more doubts than confidence.

“We are working to sweep to victory in the Barranquilla Cen- JUAN MIGUEL ECHEVARRÍA tral American Games and also thinking of the 2020 Olympics. His best record (outdoor): 8.40 meters (at 19 and in 217 days) We want to demonstrate to the people that they can continue trusting Cuban track and field,” he underlined.

Juan Miguel Echevarría has assimilated fame naturally, not fear- farsighted is not bad,” he specifies, although he frowns when I I HAVE ACHIEVED THE RESULTS CALMLY, ing the limelights, basically because he is certain that they can- remind him that the Olympic title slipped through Ivan Pedro- not overshadow him. “I’m going to the competitions to have so’s hands until he was 28. EVERYTHING CAN BE ATTAINED LITTLE BY fun. I’m not concerned about the public’s pressure, on the con- trary, I enjoy it when people stand up when I jump, some to sup- “Athletes have to know how to win and lose. I’m going to win, port me and others to see me lose. I have achieved the results but I am aware that I won’t always be able to do so, because LITTLE. I WON A WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WHEN calmly, everything can be attained little by little. I won a World anyone can have a bad day or because the rivals have prepared Championship when I was 19 and that’s something important, very strongly and have all the possibilities. But you can be sure I WAS 19 AND THAT’S SOMETHING IMPORTANT, it’s true, but that won’t last during all my career, now I have to that when it’s my time to lose I’ll only look for my mistakes and stabilize and keep boosting my reputation,” says Echevarría, will interpret them to rectify them, without fighting with any- who doesn’t seem to have any obsession, except for a detail: the one, because in the end one is always the most responsible.” IT’S TRUE, BUT THAT WON’T LAST DURING ALL Olympic Games.

When asked about Tokyo, he bites his lip, knowing that the sum- MY CAREER, NOW I HAVE TO STABILIZE AND mer concert is the most important for any athlete. “I’m going to get there when I’m 22, very young, with more strength, faster, KEEP BOOSTING MY REPUTATION,” more competitive maturity and I want to achieve a result. Being

48 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 49 50 MADE IN CUBA A GREAT MUSEUM FOR A GREAT RUM

Cecilia Crespo Photos: Gabriel Guerra Bianchini

Havana Club rum is undoubtedly one of the best worldwide. Its origins and the universe of its barrels, tastings, pairings, aromas, mixtures and essences make up a very attractive philosophy of drinking linked to enjoyment.

Many are the persons who come to Cuba looking for it, avid to get to know its history, its elaboration process, its secrets.

To reveal those mysteries and approach the history of the elixir, the Havana Club Rum Museum was created (March 31, 2000), a marketing tool to complement the Havana Club International S.A. company’s sales strategy and to promote the good taste for a product linked to Cuban culture, a tie that is part of the brand’s image in the world.

Established in an elegant 18th century colonial mansion in the heart of Old Havana, the installation tells (and documents) the origins of Cuban rum from when Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, something very few people know. Through a guided tour, and in different languages, in this insti- museum through different ways, some recommend the visit Together with the history and explanation of the diverse prod- tution visitors are shown each step of the production process to their friends and they themselves repeat the visit, oth- ucts of the Havana Club portfolio, the museum provides the of the prized beverage – from an original distillery and its aging ers through Internet on Facebook, or through another social public with other added value services like cocktail making and section, to the tasting of the “Cuban Rum: Havana Club,” in a media. Or they follow the recommendations of Trip Advisor, the tastings and combinations, with the aim of showing how traditional bar from the 1930s. which considers it one of the most attractive places in Ha- rum can be appreciated in a different way, getting to know it in vana, and they decide to not let the opportunity go by to feel depth and thus meet the fundamental objective of the project: Visitors live the rum experience in a singular and personalized Cuba in the Havana Club way. to be the showcase of the Havana Club brand, which is used in way, since in the crowded museum they learn, in addition to the the world’s bars. production process in its halls, to prepare a good mojito with re- The building has several floors and is never empty. It is possible nowned bartenders, dance to the rhythm of Cuban music in the to find through its corridors people from diverse parts of the If you’re passing through the Historic Center of Old Havana and Bar-Restaurant, appreciate the fruit of Havana Culture in the Art planet, for whom the tour is usually included in the packages come across the Havana Club Museum, you can make a brief vis- Gallery, choose their favorite souvenir in the specialized shop, as created to get to know Havana. It is very much in demand by the it. In the interior patio you can make your own mojito, or ask for well as the Habano and Havana Rum combination they want. travel agencies and individual tourists, and it especially seems the house’s emblematic drink: Guarabana: Havana Club Añejo to be liked by the French and Germans. Among the Latin Ameri- 3 Years, plus sugarcane juice (guarapo) and orange juice. In any For 18 years the museum has been receiving visitors from all cans, one can especially mention the tourists from Argentina, case, you will have enjoyed, up to here, a good swig of history over the world and makes each one of them an ambassador Chile and Mexico, countries with a greater tradition of consum- and culture. of Cuban culture and, of course, of the brand. Almost three ing alcoholic beverages and from where the brand’s best sales million persons have visited the place. They have found the are reported.

52 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 53 54 BETWEEN SUNSET & SUNRISE It is necessary to agree with Federico Gar- cía Lorca. “There is no map or exercise to search for magic.”

Described in Andalusia as a mysterious El Mesón and ineffable charm, the magic ran away to America more than five centuries ago in Columbus’ expeditions and right now de la we detect it, very much alive, in the musi- cians and dancers that liven up the eve- nings and nights at El Mesón de la Flota.

Do they fan the guitar? / Yes. / And they Flota play the string guitar? / Also, and without capo. / And do they sing without music? / Well, sometimes. / And the cante jondo? / That’s always present. Soleares, seguiriyas or tonás, whatever you want. / With jaleo or without jaleo? / With a lot of jaleo. / And the dancers? / The magic is always with them.

That could well be the imaginary dia- logue between a connoisseur of flamen- co music and the group performing a sea- son at El Mesón de la Flota flamenco bar.

Located at 257 Mercaderes Street, on the first floor of the small hostel (bearing the same name) with five spacious rooms, the Mesón evokes the traditional Spanish inn that proliferated in the accesses to the port of the township of San Cristóbal de La Habana during the first centuries of the colony, where the Atlantic fleets of the Spanish empire stopped for supplies.

The atmosphere is seafaring, Of course. Replicas of old ships, flags of the sign codes, nets, astrolabes, telescopes, wheels, notifications about transatlantic steam ships, cargo and passengers making a stopover in Caribbean ports, and barrels and ropes and sails collected in yards.

And clients, no matter where they come from and no matter for how long, while listening to flamenco can taste exquisite dishes – always featuring seafood – to- gether with Spanish tapas and an inter- Passion national wine cellar, in addition to Cuban and Spanish desserts. And afterwards, rounding it off by deifying the most de- Is Always True manding palate: a cup of hot Cuban cof- fee, cultivated in the humid and arbores- cent eastern mountains.

“We’ll keep you company with our music, Ángel Marqués Dolz even when there’s only one table with Photos: Otmaro Rodríguez clients,” says Eduardo Betancourt, percus- sionist and flamenco singer of the group The vocalist had the privilege of setting (or intruder) in this type of music that De Rocío, one of the many that cultivate foot in Amor de Dios, one of the Madrid emerged, as we know, in the 18th century. flamenco and alternate with others in schools for the teaching of flamenco. the Mesón, like Ecos, the company that There, as a listener during the lessons, he A graduate from diverse musical acad- represents the Andalusian genre with the met María Juncal, who has been in Cuba emies, Aylen Mendoza knows how to play most orthodoxy and talent. through the Compás Flamenco commu- Bach, Beethoven and Paganini, as well as nity project. salsa, but she preferred flamenco, a genre Eduardo is an affable young man. He con- that assimilates “very well the creativity fidently tells about his encounter with “I am thankful to that company for ev- the instrument can offer.” flamenco. It was empirical. He used to erything I now know,” says the artist, who sing different genres, “traditional Cuban afterwards has tried singing other genres “You have to add a bit of yourself to the music,” he says, until he saw a video and and “that flamenco lilt has always re- classical themes of the genre, always heard the duet of El Cigala and Cuban mained with me.” respecting the folkloric base of each fla- pianist Bebo Valdés. menco palo,” Mendoza explains. The genre is demanding every day. “The Electrifying? “Well, of course. After that I melisma, so varied, are very difficult,” he “All the optional instruments have been could do nothing else and here I am.” admits, while he tries to create his own adapted to flamenco based on fusions. style, far from El Cigala or Camarón. And For example, we play jazz. Everything is Eduardo takes advantage of a halt in the let’s not mention the vocal demands. possible here,” affirms Eduardo Betan- music to talk with me. As a percussionist, “You have to brutally crack your voice.” court, without a hint of boasting. he comes from the ranks of traditional Cuban music, the one with which Buena The De Rocío Company presents a par- Slight, quiet, discreet, it seems impossible Vista Social Club created a musical Arca- ticular format. A guitarist, three women that a 22-year-old girl like Marina Tremearde dia, where publics that were in the antip- dancers, the lead singer and percussion- has significant strength in her legs as a odes shook hands, be they neoliberals or ist, and a female violinist, whose instru- dancer. Her stamping on the flamenco stage communists, Jews or Muslims. ment acquires the category of exotic speaks of an unsuspected energy.

She started off in Spanish dance when she was four years old, with no family tradition, Although she speaks highly of the qual- except for a mother who wanted to please ity of the Cuban flamenco musicians, for her small daughter and keep her busy. Marina “the roots are the roots,” alluding Visited by to the Spanish exponents who, however, “I’ve always liked Spanish dance, no as Eduardo bears witness to, say that giants of the other,” she affirms without a shadow of some Cuban musicians are the same or a doubt. She has been a dancer with De better than the Spanish ones in terms of Rocío for a year and she confesses that flamenco music. genre like the command of the castanets has taken her almost a lifetime. “You have to prac- “They are amazed when they see us here, tice with them every day.” in the Mesón, because they can’t con- Paco de Lucía, ceive that such a quality cante can exist Marina affirms that “while she has the in Cuba. I can say that without thinking strength, will and health” she will contin- twice,” and he adds a phrase that even if Antonio Gades ue dancing, and she specifies that of all it is a set one is not less authentic: “It’s in the instruments, the cajón is the one that our blood.” makes her vibrate with the most inten- and Cristina sity. “My ear pays attention to the cajón,” Eduardo gets ready for another palo. He she reiterates. will include the classical Lágrimas negras, by Cuban Miguel Matamoros, with a Hoyos, Cuba Visited by giants of the genre like Paco de flamenco rhythm, of course; some tradi- Lucía, Antonio Gades and Cristina Hoyos, tional Andalusian song by Jeréz, and he’s Cuba is a sanctuary for thousands of fans thinking about a contemporary touch is a sanctuary of the genre. with Corazón partío, by Sanz. Festivals like the Imprint of Spain or pro- “The rest is up to what the public asks for,” for thousands fessional companies like Lizt Alfonso the flamenco singer affirms, looking at the Dance and the Ballet Español de Cuba, hardwood stage where the stamping of among others, and musicians like Raynier feet has almost sunk some of the boards, of fans of the Mariño, keep alive the flamenco scene like beautiful scars. It’s the passion that in the middle of a Caribbean glazed by doesn’t know how to pretend, anyone rhythms from all parts of the world. would say, including Lorca, of course! genre.

56 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 57 58 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS “THERE WILL ALWAYS BE STORIES TO BE TOLD” Estrella Díaz Photos: Otmaro Rodrígez María Stefania Diez Moreno (Havana, 1978). Daughter of renowned craft artists, her home was also the site where visual artists, musicians, poets, craftspeople and theater people frequently gathered: “ever since I was a child I felt the need to paint. I was only interested in that…. My parents took me to the Visual Arts Elementary School.” That was the seed that contributed to NUR’s cultivating a personal and very feminine work that invokes reflection, analysis and the visual enjoyment of beauty. NUR ALTHOUGH SHE PAINTS ON CANVAS OR DRAWS ON BRISTOL BOARD, HER “FAVORITE” IS WOOD, A SUPPORT THAT HAS A VERY PARTICULAR MAGIC, ESPECIALLY IF IT HAS FORMED PART OF A PIECE OF FURNITURE, OF A WINDOW, A ROCKING CHAIR OR A DOOR, BECAUSE IT BEARS IMPLICIT THE EMOTIONAL CHARGE OF THAT STORY. En retrospectiva / 35 x 26,5 cm / Acrylic on canvas and wood

When NUR got to the San Alejandro Art Academy she came with dilemmas of life. Because life has a great deal of theater. All of “important tools,” learned in the Havana Visual Arts Elementary us, in certain circumstances, become actors and represent what School – which unfortunately no longer exists. There, she affirms: we really are not,” she categorically says. “there was staff of excellent professors who taught you the first steps,” the secrets of drawing, engraving or sculpture. But that NUR is beginning her creative trial and errors. She tried sculpture school enlightened, opened at a very early age a wide range of and engraving, a specialty that to her “seemed very interesting, knowledge, it put the students into contact with Cuban art and but slow and difficult.” She became aware that drawing and with the maestros of universal art. painting came easier for her and she started with brushstrokes and, later on, to using acrylic paint as a fundamental element: All that knowledge enabled her to make her dream come true “there’s something that happens to me and perhaps it has to of entering the Academy. Ever since she set foot there she felt do with the milieu in which I was born and grew up. For me it sheltered and enveloped by a magical and oneiric world: “It is easy to achieve a three-dimensional appearance in the two wasn’t a shock, because everything went very smoothly,” she dimensions, that is, on paper, on canvas or on wood.” notes in a conversation with OnCuba. Although she paints on canvas or draws on bristol board, her In 1997 she graduated from San Alejandro in the specialty “favorite” is wood, a support that has a very particular magic, of painting and, to the surprise of many, she did so with a especially if it has formed part of a piece of furniture, of a performance she conceived with the backing of a young actor window, a rocking chair or a door, because it bears implicit the (Oscar Ascencio): “It was the story of a mask, which is the symbol emotional charge of that story. with which I still work. That mask was a human being telling his experiences since his birth as an individual in a society full of stereotypes, up to the awakening of his interior conscience which drove him, in a fierce struggle with himself, to come out of the farce but keeping the mask, semi-hidden, to face the En mi jardín / 115 x 84 cm/ Acrylic on canvas and wood

60 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 El extraño encuentro / 121 x 52 cm/ Acrylic on wood

Figuration has allowed her to express herself very freely from comments that her imagery is close to that of Remedios Varo her own perspective and life experience, based on a clean stroke (1908-1963), a Spanish painter established in Mexico, and that and the total use of the palette, although she greatly restricted she admires the Cubans Eduardo Abela, Ernesto Rancaño, Ángel THE DELICATE EROTICISM AND THE color in her first stages. What has remained intact – although Ramírez and Carlos Guzmán – closer in terms of generation. She in permanent evolution – is the central theme of her work that finds points of contact and also numerous differences between has to do with her interior vision and introspection: “loneliness, the aesthetics of these artists and the one she cultivates. SUBTLE SENSITIVITY OF MANY OF reflection, how we use the masks in front of the world and ourselves; dreams, intimate relations, desires, what we hide. NUR’s work exhibits a very interesting characteristic: the My work is riddled with symbols, but my intention is that they importance and weight she grants to the backgrounds. It could HER PIECES ARE STRENGTHENED BY be easy to recognize, that people can appreciate and enjoy be that the story is being told by a character who appears in the the story I want to tell and even that they can frequently feel foreground, but behind there is a numerous group of elements identified with it.” that are giving shape or rounding off ideas and, above all, intentions. On the other hand, the delicate eroticism and the COLORFUL PLANES THAT REFER US She recognizes that she has “a great deal of influences” and one subtle sensitivity of many of her pieces are strengthened by of them comes from Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Apparently colorful planes that refer us to certain design codes. she has nothing to do with it, but “Frida was my first inspiration TO CERTAIN DESIGN CODES. because she worked profusely the self-portrait and her work The dwelling she represents – backed by an intelligent and very focuses on self-reflection.” She also recognizes – and is grateful well-thought-out perspective of space -, combines with that of to – what painter Rocío García contributed to her as a professor, the wardrobe design, an essential element that gives beauty because “she broadened the concept I had of art, opening my and transmits additional information to the spectator. mind and my creativity to new roads.” However, she leaves a margin for a trained eye to delve beyond LOCALIZATION: Later on NUR approached gothic art and byzantine painting: what is presented at first sight. As NUR says: “it’s necessary to NurArt.Gallery Studio: Calle B, no. 21, entre 1ra. y 3ra., apto 4, El Vedado, Havana, Cuba “the medieval world entrapped me because of how the canvases continue working because there will always be stories to be Email: [email protected] and pigments were used, and that made me change the way told.” And many of them are still hidden. Tel.: 78300772 / 53028648 of focusing the themes as well as the way of painting.” She Facebook: @Nur.Art.Pure

62 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 63 64

ONCUBA RECOMMENDS TWO IN EL VEDADO Cecilia Crespo

Café Mediterráneo Laurent Havana With the city at your feet, you can enjoy one of the most Located in the very center of El Vedado and a pioneer in the recommended author cuisines in Cuba. This restaurant, located platform From Farm to Table. The Vista Hermosa farm supplies on a high floor of a building from the 1950s, is like a homage the products of its healthy and nutritious table. Out of the to vintage Havana, from the elevator to every detail of its restaurants that provide this service, Mediterráneo Havana is meticulous interior design. It stands out for its elegance, good one of the few that invites you to discover the experience in a taste and exotic flavors. Sitting at its terrace as the sun goes genuine, integrating, complete way. It offers organic and very down, tasting one of its sophisticated cocktails and taking fresh products, all made under the Sardinian expertise of Luigi pleasure with the view of El Vedado will be a matchless sensorial Fiori, exquisite recipes in which this chef fuses flavors and smells experience for you. from the Mediterranean and from Havana. Photos: Claudio Pelaez Sordo Photos: Jorge Luis Borges

Our terrace is the ideal spot to pair a magnificent habano with our best quality rums 66 PERSPECTIVE

The AZT 6000 machine, designed and built in Cuba and cur- able in the cultivation and processing of sugarcane. It manufac- rently being used in the preparation of the country’s sugarcane tures and repairs machinery and provides technical assistance fields, guarantees a fast sowing, with greater efficiency and less to ensure a quality service in the production and cutting of sug- use of human resources. arcane, specified Danais Sandoval Nodarse, director of research and development. Azutecnia This sugarcane sowing machine is the crown of the Sugar In- dustry Exporting Enterprise (Azutecnia) – under the umbrella of The institution has a competent movement of innovators and Innovations in the AzCuba Sugar Business Group -, a young and vigorous entity rationalizers who, concentrated in the modernization of the cul- comprising workers with high professionalism and specializa- tivation of the crop, saves the country thousands of dollars. Each tion in the Cuban traditional productive sector. idea developed by them, each improved machinery, generates a CUBAN SUGAR considerable benefit. The AZT 6000 sugarcane sowing machine AZT 6000 humanizes cultivation, boosting sugarcane produc- is an example of the creativity in the mechanization of work and tion on the island and transforming its methods in order to in- the substitution of imports in hard currency. AGRIBUSINESS crease the presence of sugar in the domestic market and guar- antee its standing in the world. The idea comes from the experience of producing countries that Eduardo González Martínez use similar machines. The current model, now generalized, was Photos: Courtesy of Azutecnia Azutecnia provides services in workshops, foundering, engi- designed from an initial prototype of Camagüey sugar workers. neering works, irrigation and soil preparation, communications It enables improvements in the sowing of sugarcane and tries workshops and assistance to the new technologies and air con- for it to not be manual but rather mechanized. It increases the ditioning. Its machines, located across all of Cuba, are irreplace- levels of productivity, says Sandoval Nodarse.

66 OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2018 Jun.-Jul. 2018 oncubamagazine.com 67 Because the AZT 6000 is a multifunctional tool, built according to ing stations. Its staff also assembles and repairs irrigation sys- international standards, but with a Cuban design that takes into tems, but its work doesn’t stop there. account the characteristics of our soils and other important factors. “We work in the preparation of soils. When the areas are freed It can be used to plant, plow, sow, cover and compact the cane we come in to prepare the ground. Afterwards comes the sow- deposited in the furrow and apply the necessary fertilizer for ing, manual or with our combines. We always have work,” af- this type of crop. Its speed is impressive: one hectare per hour. firms Sandoval Nodarse.

“This type of machine has always been used, but to a lesser de- But the sugar industry isn’t the only one that requires and uses gree. Now, with our combine harvester, this use has become in- its services. Other sectors of Cuban agriculture can request tensive,” explains Sandoval Nodarse, and she specifies that doz- them. Their machinery, like the silo harvesters, are ideal to guar- ens of combine harvesters are already being used in the country. antee the fodder in cattle raising. Moreover, they have worked jointly with the island’s provincial governments in the repair of The Azutecnia workshops’ services are fundamental to maintain the tractors of the Garbage Collecting Services. other machineries. They are designed to manufacture, recover and give maintenance to engines and spare parts. The parts in a The assistance to new technologies and air conditioning is one bad state are replaced, always with a significant saving, taking of its great assets. Azutecnia manufactures 34 lines of KTP-10 into account the value of these parts in the world market. and CASE combine harvesters, without which it would be al- most impossible to raise the levels of production. The variety is incalculable. It would be impossible to speak of har- vest in Cuba today without considering these services: rectification There are mobile workshops distributed throughout the country of crankshafts, alignment and covering of blocks and polishing of and they provide technical services to the machines in the fields linings for internal combustion engines. In addition, a varied as- and the sugar factories. The engineers receive training in Cuba as sortment of iron, rubber and plastic components are melted. well as abroad about the agribusiness’ new technologies.

With ambitious objectives, Azutecnia offers very varied and At present, when the country is oriented at the modernization quality services in the very heart of the plantations. It is involved of the agribusiness, Azutecnia is one its most important pillars. in many engineering works, from the recovery of soils for the cultivation of sugarcane, to building conduits with their pump-

Edificio AZCUBA: Calle 23 no. 171 entre N y O, Plaza de la Revolución, La Habana Phone: +53 7 8369749 Email: [email protected]

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