I'm used to the One With the Common Sense nodding away like Red Rum in her sleep during bus journeys, so it took me by surprise when she leaped to her feet and shunted me out of the way.
Moments later, a wild-eyed driver had pulled over at the side of Cuba's Autopista Nacional and watched as she noisily emptied the contents of her stomach into the roadside bushes.
Fellow passengers stood up to get a better view of the impromptu sideshow, with audible "ooohs" and "eeuurghs" accompanying each fresh hurl.
It was typical. This was our 75th - and last - inter-urban bus trip and we had survived the previous 74 without any such emergencies, despite our being ill during a number of them.
Meanwhile, I was in a dilemma. I could feel the eyes of the onlookers burning into me, no doubt querying why I hadn't rushed to her aid.
However, with any travelling partner, it's good to have a fair idea of what they'll need in a crisis.
And I have learned that The One With Common Sense rarely appreciates sympathy. My attempts at providing comfort over a stubbed toe more usually land me in hot water than earn brownie points.
So, feeling slightly useless, I busied myself by preparing a hankie and a carton drink to help wash the taste away.
After she climbed back aboard, red-faced and uttering apologies, several chivalrous Latino men enquired as to her wellbeing.
I swear they shot me looks of disdain.
Later, the One With the Common Sense claimed she wouldn't have shouted at me for offering assistance.
I have my doubts but sometimes you just can't win.
The One With the Common Sense blamed one too many mojitos but I reckon it was the 30p-a-glass beer that did it.
To round off our time in Cuba, we had spent two very pleasant days in the laid-back city of Cienfuegos.
Founded by the French in 1819, the city's wide avenues are home to many handsome buildings and in parts it feels like a much cleaner, less-decayed version of Havana.
Both evenings we strolled along the malecon, or promenade, which was where we discovered a little bar selling drinks in national pesos.
One of the more intriguing - and confusing - aspects of visiting Cuba is its dual currency system.
As a tourist, you spend most of your cash in convertible Cuban pesos (CUCs) which are roughly pegged to the dollar and divided into centavos.
However, most workers are paid in Cuban national pesos (CUPs) and it takes 24 of them to make one CUC.
So, with cans usually costing between 1 and 2 CUC, it doesn't take Carol Vorderman to work out that getting the same quantity on tap for just 6 CUP is pretty good value.
It tasted pretty good, too. Too good, some might suggest.
Nonetheless it was great to sit among the locals, listening to music thumping from an outdoor stage next door and watching couples and families sit and soak up the waterfront atmosphere (and the rum).
With our funds running low, we had tended to buy our lunch in national pesos.
Occasionally this involved some dubious sandwiches but more likely it would be simple "pan con pasta" - bread roll with delicious garlic paste - followed by a 12p ice cream cornet.
Our favourite, however, had to be the pizzas.
Evidently, supply shortages meant the little shops at the front of people's homes could not make proper pizza bases.
But they improvised splendidly to create something akin to a large crumpet, before slathering it with strong-tasting cheese, chorizo and tomatoes, and serving it folded in half.
They can't be good for you - but for 40p, who cares?
It is when you hear that Cuba's renowned doctors - like most state employees - can earn as little as 10 CUC a month, you realise the power of the tourist buck.
That sort of monthly income would buy a main meal and a can of beer in a state-run restaurant.
Of course that is not the full picture. Food staples are doled out as part of the rationing system, while we understand housing, water and power costs are relatively low but it's obvious that most Cubans don't have a lot.
So it's unsurprising that hundreds of people lucky enough to have the best homes - and some are beautiful - are clamouring to rent rooms to tourists.
Success is not guaranteed from this private enterprise - the taxes are heavy and must be paid regardless of whether visitors turn up or not - but the advantages are clear.
It will be interesting to see how this affects Cuban society in the future.
The state clearly relies on taxes brought in through the tourist trade but it seems inevitable to me that the profits available via this fledgling private enterprise will create a new tier in society and undermine the ruling party's philosophy.
Part of it seems to come down to the lottery of which home you live in.
We never got to the bottom of how homes are allocated.
While it's illegal to sell houses for profit, there's nothing to stop people swapping homes with others (no doubt with a bit of cash changing hands on the side).
Every Sunday in Havana, hundreds of people gather on the Prado where people offer home exchanges, with each's house's features listed on a bit of card.
We spoke to one guy who said he and his girlfriend wanted to swap their two apartments for a larger house.
There may not be much money to be made on Cuba's housing ladder but the system can't be much worse than the ridiculous runaway market we have at home.
Perhaps inevitably, we left Cuba with more questions than answers about the way its society works.
We were careful not to ask anything that would put people in a difficult situation - who knows what the repercussions of careless talk might be, we thought.
Yet we found people surprisingly open.
One casa owner talked freely about the pitfalls of communism, saying it clearly couldn't work in its purest form.
Yet he seemed happy enough with the current regime and suggested it had the backing of 80% of the population.
I can't help feeling that the US embargo in some ways strengthens the regime by encouraging solidarity among Cubans in the face of a common foe.
The most impressive propaganda posters certainly concerned "El Bloqueo".
There weren't quite as many of these Party billboards around as I expected but the ones we saw did little to portray the regime as forward-looking.
Che Guevara's face - and quotes - remain a common sight for Havana's commuters, despite him having left the country in 1965.
And the continued reference to the regime as "La Revolucion", half a century after the actual revolution took place, means it retains something of a temporary air.
Society may be opening up, as its ageing leaders look for ways to prop up the economy, but it still difficult to see what will happen next for Cuba.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, we saw no great stirrings of upheaval.
But neither was there a suggestion of a downtrodden people - the abiding image of Eastern European communism.
In fact, the overall impression was of a fun-loving nation making the most of life.
If happiness could be objectively measured, I'd love to know where the Cuban people would stand in the world rankings compared to us Europeans or US citizens.
(Mind you, you'd need to take into account the fact us Brits are never happy unless we're moaning... and the Scandinavians would inevitably come out on top regardless.)
One British expat we met talked about just how poor some children were in rural areas, with some surviving on sugar water and rice, but we saw little of the abject poverty we had seen elsewhere.
The shortages are noticable. Fresh milk is available only to mothers with young children, while everyone else gets powder, and beef or lamb are pretty much unavailable to anyone other than tourists.
However, no-one seemed to be without a home or truly going hungry.
The few beggars we saw were invariably well-dressed and healthy-looking, unlike those starving and grubby street children of south-east Asia or Bolivia's heartbreakingly thin pensioners.
The great irony is that 50 years of hard-line socialism has bred a nation of entrepreneurs.
Everyone is willing to sell a service - finding tourists rooms, offering them a tour or acting as a taxi driver - or else has a little sideline in buying and selling something.
Casa owners get around the high taxes by encouraging - or, in some cases, forcing - guests to buy breakfast or evening meals, without telling the taxman.
And while Cuba's advanced health system is undoubtedly one of La Revolucion's most significant achievements, in some areas doctors have started illegally charging to let people jump the queue.
According to one Cuban we met, the state is fully aware of all this Del Trotter-esque wheeling and dealing going on under its nose but won't act against people who are only trying to make life a bit better.
(Though it's a different story with opulence, he reckons.)
It's funny that there was only place we visited where we experience more cunning or heavy-handed sales techniques...
Communist Vietnam.
No comments:
Post a Comment