Bruxelles and Back

Very productive LabourStart retreat.  Happy to say I wound-up on the Executive Committee.  Unhappy I couldn't take a few more days off and spend some time in the city afterwards.  Left Tuesday night, returned Monday.  Had an hour or three (and an equal number of luscious beers) with an old friend the day I arrived and a few hours walking and talking with him and another after our meeting was over.


The Hotel Chelten was a very nice little tourist hotel.  Oddly dim breakfast room but the buffet breakfast quite pleasant.  Wonderful terrace on the roof.  Nice neighbourhood.  Some pleasant reasonably-priced restaurants nearby.  Five minutes at most to the nearest Metro station.  Some interesting neighbourhoods within 20 minutes walk in several directions.  30 minutes walk to the old centre of the city.

Great rail connections all over Europe.

City walkable,  Great beer.  And by that I mean GREAT beer.  Problem is, they have a great many really high-alcohol beers.  Which don't taste like other 13%+ beers (i.e. like a light beer with rubbing alcohol added), but are actually quite tasty.  Till now the high-alc winner in my little contest was a Sri Lankan stout at, I think, 12%). Found a touristy-funky little bar in the old city centre that served flights of beer.  Wonderful little beer shops all over the place.

And an all-Tin-tin book and everything else Tin-tin shop.

Photos of the non-LabourStart bits of the trip HERE.  Photos of the LabourStart bits HERE and an account of the retreat itself can be found HERE.

Planning for Belgium

I was to have been in Tunisia for a meeting this spring but it had to be pushed back to September. In the process of losing the date we lost our venue too, so with the new date comes a trip to Brussels.

Anyone any advice? If Geri joins me at the end of my 3 days of meeting(s)...

We're (OK, OK, I am... ) as usual starting with a more ambitious list of spots we'd like to spend at least a few days in: Brussels, Lille, Bruges, Ghent, Maastricht, Antwerp, Amsterdam. Then if we use Icelandair again, a few days in Reykjavik on the way home.

We'd be training it and as we'll be spending days in each a small hotel or B&B will be a better fit than an apartment.

The best we can recall of Brussels we zipped through it on a train.

So, any suggestions or advice?

Late Arriving Postcard From Cuba

This got stuck somewhere in cyberspace and only just appeared in my inbox.

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Bit of an update and additions as I escape the sun for a bit and enjoy a cigar.  I'm thinking that for anyone trying to make sense of these 'reports'/postcards it's a bad thing that I Geri has her iPad and that the hotel has wifi.  When I had to make notes and then write something up when I got home I was forced to think things through and be a bit more measured and a lot more organized.  So apologies for the free-form, stream-of-consciousness approach, but I can't resist. As any of my Facebook 'friends' will know.☺️

1.  The shared gym and spa facility is well-maintained, though the free weights can be in short supply when the gym is busy.  Pick your time.  Still way better than most of the hotel gyms I am used to. 

2.  The shops as always.  Depending on what you're looking for you might want to hit all within reach before giving up.  The Melia CSM the best for cigars, the Sol for clothing, rum, wine and coffee, Las Dunas for souvenirs.

3.  The artisans market near the spa OK I guess but for us old timers the trashy souvenirs pale when compared with the stuff, real art, you could get years ago. 

4.  Osbiel, the bartender at the pool bar, can make a fine Bloody Caesar if supplied with clamato juice.  He has managed a supply of celery salt. A few regulars bring jugs of the juice and he can also also manage a 'bank' of cans if you buy at the shops and leave them on deposit with him.

5.  Geri's back doing well thanks to regular massages by Luis Wong.  The spa also a nice spot to go for a quiet swim after some gym time.  I've tried out my limited Cantonese on him.  Much fun as his as limited (if I understood his Spanish, his family first arrived in Havana in 1890 or so).

6.  Made the mistake of reading a foodie mystery.  Got some menu ideas and recipes but the effect is to bias my evaluation of the food here. 😜

7.  I wonder if our butcher can get me some beef hearts on a regular basis.  Haven't had one in years and I now have a Peruvian recipe that sounds fab.

8.  General: the resort is as it has always been.  Well maintained for sure.  A serious renovation coming but not really needed yet.  Lots of return guests a telling and good sign.  The place's weakness remains the uneven food.  The beach and pool grills good, the French a la carte too.  The Japanese OK.  The Italian gets universally bad reviews and given our experience there last time we're not inclined to give it another go for the sake of a review.  Great beach.  Staff that stay for years and seem happy.  GREAT coffee if you avoid the Americano.  Reasonable pricing that makes the food not so big a deal.

9.  Bit of background that might place my opinions in context: I spend a lot of time in hotels.  A lot.  In 2014 I was one of Delta Hotels top 100 customers and that was just for that chain.  Last year I spent something like 200 nights in hotels of one sort or another.  From Deltas to my current least favourite, the Timmins ON Travel Lodge (where the big question on check-in is whether you get a room with cigarette burns on the edge of the tub, on the toilet seat, or on both). I'm a little picky about some things and tolerant about others.

10. The Melia is a place we'll come back to over and over.  I (Geri may not feel the same way) am more attached to the Sol next door. But I'm happy enough here.  Over all I think the Sol a better hotel but as it has more limited options, especially food_ wise, for a longer stay the Melia  better choice for most.

11. Argentine guests with their mate cups a hoot.  High-tech caffeine addiction.

12. The only countries we visit where I have to sign printed credit card receipts are the US and Cuba. Ironic.

13. The PR staff are GREAT. But under used.  Want something or need to figure out how to do something?  Ask them.  If only to save me from having to tell people complaining about or wondering about stuff to contact the rather than interfere with my bar still reading time.

14.  BIG NEWS: Noemi who used to work at the Rancheon at the Melia has opened a hostale in Remedios.  We plan on visiting on Tuesday and will send more details.  We are already talking about visiting for a few days in April. 

15. More Sol news. The bathroom panoramic windows are now frosted on the ground floors.  Takes all the fun out of showering.  We were over there for the weekly pig BBQ to which we were invited as long-time return guests at the Sol. Excellent food, bit of extra party fun for the guests, then we raided the shop for all their clamato juice and headed to the Melia's lobby bar and had the bartenders make us a couple of Caesars before we toddled off to bed.

16. The seafood at the Rancheon great. The HVAC in the Mediterranean restaurant incredibly noisy and aside from the aforementioned appetizer the food ok but not great. 

17. The cravings have really set in now that we're halfway through week 2. I dreamt last night of an Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam I haven't eaten at in 30 years.  On the flip side, the under-the-palms breakfasts here...

18.  Great time next door at the Sol tonight. Baby pig on a spit.if you're at the Melia talk to PR about an invite on the off chance that you might visit at some point.  They have a roast once a week.

Cuba: Think before you gift

Copied here as I think this covers all the bases really well, even if I don't agree on every point.

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            This article is designed to help you to understand the damage that random gift giving is doing.  It is based on the knowledge and experience of several travellers who have made multiple trips to Cuba, often for extended periods of time.

            The article is NOT intended to be a commentary on charitable donations, or the idea of giving gifts to family or friends.  It is about the disruptive practice of tourists visiting a country and randomly handing out relatively useless gifts and trinkets to Cubans they do not know, or worse, handing out expensive presents at random -  or to resort workers, who are already among the wealthiest of Cubans.

Basic misconceptions

            This practice of random gifting is based on the two main misconceptions about Cuba:

1. Most people seem to think that Cubans are poorer than they are (and have little idea who is poor and who is not in Cuba). 

2. Cuba is a socialist country that does not conform to the international conception of a democracy (even though - contrary to popular belief - it does have its own version of elections)

            These two things combined lead many tourists to act the way they do. Mostly out of misconceptions as to the Cuban reality. Few to none out of any desire to do harm. Many because they think they are doing good because they have personally seen the smile on the maid's or child's face.

            Getting back to points 1 and 2: The thing is that Cuba is not the poorest country on earth and Cubans, while definitely poor by North American and Western European standards, are not the poorest in the world. This is not just in comparison with poor African countries, but also compared to many - if not most - of its immediately comparable neighbors. But Cuba is not located between Canada and USA or in the Alps squeezed in between Switzerland and Austria. It is located in one of the world's traditionally poorest regions. Apart from colonies that are heavily subsidized by USA, France, UK, Holland or Spain, what countries in that region are traditionally blessed with a flourishing economy? And when was Cuba? The poorest 5-10% of the population in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua are much poorer than the poorest 5-10% Cubans.

            Without getting into too much detail none of these countries provide its citizens with the following:

1. A basic rationing system that provides every single citizen with enough food to survive on (but admittedly not enough to feast or get fat on).

2. Heavily subsidized basic living expenses such as cheap to almost free: Housing, electricity, water.

3. Free health care and free education.

This is all provided in Cuba.

            If severe poverty is measured on factors like hunger, lack of housing and basic health care, Cuba cannot be considered a poor country.

            Have a look at OECD ranking of countries based on per capita BNI, showing that Cuba is ranked as being somewhere between the 109th and 152nd poorest country on Earth. That is out of 196 countries (or expressed another way, between the 44th and 87th richest).  (http://www.oecd.org /dataoecd/32/40/43540882.pdf)

            By way of another indicator, the World Bank ranks these 196 countries based on GNI.  Based on rankings from highest to lowest, Cuba falls at 73rd, placing it slightly below the center of the "upper middle income" group.

 Way of life - costs of living

            Many gift-givers use the low Cuban wages as the prime argument for bringing gifts. The average wage for a Cuban is indeed 12-25 dollars monthly, and yes, that does sound ridiculous. So the next thought is "who can live off that?" and the answer that many come up with is "nobody can", because it’s tempting and obvious to compare that money with the daily lives of the tourist and nobody in Canada or Europe can live off 20 dollars for just a week, let alone a few days. But Cuba is not Canada or Europe.  The difference is that the house of the visitor to Cuba is not free, and it is not possible to go to the local market in Canada or England and pick up basic food (libreta) supplies for a week for a few dollars - and water and electricity costs a fortune, not to mention cost of kindergarten and putting a kid through college. A Cuban can pay all his monthly bills with 2-4 dollars.

            Apart from the extremely low living costs many Cubans have other “enterprises” outside their regular job, and thus make additional money, sometimes earning more than they do from their government wage.  The economy in Cuba is much different than that which the average tourist is used to.  In a sense, many of the first-worlders are as strapped in their own economy as what some Cubans are in theirs (in these crisis times even more).  There are probably many tourists who – after all expenses are paid – do not have much more to spend on chocolate, parties and rum than what Cubans have. And some that have less.

            Another argument for gifting is the one of “there are many things that the Cubans can’t get.”  Like in any other country there may be a lack of supply of certain items at certain times.  Often these shortages are temporary, and within a matter of days, the shortage disappears altogether.  Or there may in fact never have been a shortage in the first place.  Sometimes the reports of shortages come from the reports of misinformed tourists who are basing their understanding of a whole country on some off-hand comment by a resort worker.

Resorts and 'smiling faces'

            Most visitors to Cuba come back and praise the kindness of Cubans. That is so true. But it used to be truer. It is undeniably harder to make friends in Cuba than it used to be. Of course, not all Cubans have been turned into beggars and scam-artists whose whole lives are based on getting money from tourists, but it seems the average tourist is making sure that more are created every day.  An example is the growing business in a few towns that the jeep tours go through ... kids line the road, tourists toss dollar store “gifts”, and the kids turn all their stuff over to the organizer. (Oh, but the smiles on the face of the kids bring tears of joy to the eye of the giver!)

            On to the good old maid here. Nobody in Cuba receives more gifts from tourists. The crazy thing about this trend of spreading  western wealth in resorts is that by far the most of good-natured, private tourist aid in Cuba goes to the same people: The maids and bartenders and workers at the resorts. On a number of occasions people post that they leave 20 CUC for the resort-maid weekly. So let’s try and do an impossible but fairly qualified low-down on her income and spending money: Assume that 15 CUC is the average (because there are likely people who ‘only’ tip 10 CUC weekly or one a day) then she is taking home 150 CUC weekly if she does just 10 rooms. That’s 600 CUC monthly. Now she is getting the same amount of food as any other Cuban for (basically) free so she will be using her 17 CUC monthly government salary to take care of bills and will still have something left. That comes to 600 CUC monthly to spend. A chicken costs 1 or 2 CUC, a pack of cigarettes cost 0.20 CUC. So that is definitely more than many of the people that leave the tips and gifts for her have to spend after all expenses are paid.  Is this estimating on the high side?  Perhaps, but many people mention tipping as much as 5 CUC per day.  No doubt there are some that do not tip at all.  But even allowing for the extremes, if the average tip is 1 CUC per day, or slightly less, the maid is collecting several times her monthly salary just in tips. This calculation does not include the 15 baseball-caps, 25 bars of soap, 15 bottles of shampoo and all the other items that she takes home to sell in the village (even a maid can only wash her hair so many times daily). Some maids have rooms where they store their goods. They do not have room for it all at home.

 Turning children into beggars

            And then there is the willy-nilly off resort gifting, which is even worse. Tourists invading schools with pencils or throwing candy at children from tour busses. Teaching children at an age where they are learning how the world revolves, that it's way better business to stand by the road waiting for the tourist bus than getting an education. One can only imagine the consequences when these children turn young adults having been raised thinking of all foreigners as a quick way to gifts and money. Those tourists that spend their time in Cuba off resort do not have to imagine, the consequences of two decades of thoughtless gifting is all too real.

            There are now schools in Cuba (located near resorts) that have guards posted by the entrance to stop tourists from entering and disturbing the children.

 Cuba is Cuba

            So what can be done then, realizing (perhaps) that good intentions are only creating a bigger gap between rich and poor in a society in which the system intends that all are equal, and that years of random gifting in Cuba has nothing for the progress of the country and made it a constant hassle for many tourists to visit? Turning doctors and scholars into resort bartenders or street pimps and university graduates into prostitutes - instead of teachers, nurses or professors.

Here are two things that can be done:

1. Tip according to local standards and realize that there are other people in the 40 other rooms at the resort tipping as well. And leave any material item and larger cash sum with organizations in Cuba that have a much better overview of who needs the aid and a way to get the aid there. None of which is in any way possible to know for a regular tourist. If it is the 'save-the-world' gene that has you handing out, consider helping out in countries that are in dire need of help. Look no further than Cubas nearest neighbor, Haiti, for instance. A starving Haitian living in the streets of Port Au Prince would probably be shocked to see well-fed Cubans being handed gifts and money just because they hold that one quality that in the mindset of many tourists qualifies them for immediate material aid: They are Cuban.

2. Accept that Cuba is Cuba and not Canada, UK or Italy. That the world is a varied place, and that there are other ways to live and make  a country go around than what  most tourists are used to. And go there with a solid conscience that the simple fact that you are traveling there makes a huge impact on Cuba's economy. A contribution that is already being spread out into every corner of the country through all the above-mentioned government initiatives (Food, housing, school, hospitals). And thus head there knowing that the trip-purchase itself is doing Cubans good.

            The greatest gift is respect and friendship. That is what 'real' Cubans are interested in. The Cubans who beg for the shirt off your back or the soap in your bathroom or the peso in your pocket, may not need those items at all. And by giving randomly a tourist is only making sure that begging and hassling tourists stays a profitable business. And that more Cubans are turning to this way of life. An effect that does nothing good for Cuba - and nothing good for any tourist visiting Cuba.

                                                                                                  

From Elizabeth Hill

12 March 2015

Melia Long-stay Photos Uploaded

Ta-dah!  The photos are HERE.  As always I will promise to do captions, but...

Trip Home

Fine trip home though the airport way busier than we have ever seen it before. Even an American AirlineS flight to Miami (passengers all seemed to be travelling on Cuban passports). Julio in the VIP lounge took great care of us and as a result we got through the flight in Canjet's tiny Seats well enough. Cabin crew great too.

One note of interest: the bus guide reminded us all that the CUC is soon to disappear. While a date has not been announced he did strongly recommend that we convert all our pesos to CAD as we might not be able to use them on a future trip, depending on when the change happens.

Friends (you know who you are) picked us up at the airport (on a Friday afternoon no less, that's love) and drove us home in short order.  Better yet, when home we were presented with a package of emergency rations.  The package included a bottle of white and one of red.  While the resort wines were inoffensive they weren't all that interesting either (one pay-for bottle of a Chilean chardonnay that Geri had one night aside), so they were were VERY welcome.

Photos going up thoughout the day. Links will be posted later. Also look for a short note on our visits to the Sol CSM and the new Valentine's resort tour we took (will be posted in the apporpriate discussions along with links to resort-specific photos we took).

More from the Melia

Random notes again.

1.  On Xmas day there was a water ballet display in the main pool.  It was combined with a display of excessive tolerance of small children as three 10 year olds were allowed to pretend to join in.  The team, from the uni at Santa Clara, did a nice job of avoiding them but their parents deserve a whack.  I wouldn't have minded seeing one of the performers crush one of the kids by the time they were done, so long as none of the ballet types were injured of course.😃

2.  Years ago, in Veradero so must be 25 years ago, we remember seeing a man standing on the beach with his hands over his head rotating in the sand.  Rotisserie tanning we called it.  Saw someone doing the same here.  Gotta admire the dedication.  😃

3.  Another of the 'I enjoyed many years ago' books that I brought along to re-read before passing along to the stepson who owns Toronto's best second hand bookshop, Re: Reading on the Danforth just west of Pape on the north side, is Orhan Pamuk's The Black Book.  Not just still a great read but also, as with others I brought, a very different read as I have now spent time in Istanbul.  Even has a scene on isstikal Caddesi.  Found memory of walking along it just after dark and hearing the tiny tap-tap of dozens of shoemakers at work. 

4.  I have well and truly fallen into a daily rut.  Nice to have a (quite good) cappuccino waiting for me each morning at 0700 though.  At my table even.

5.  The server providing poolside drinks started a conversation with the folks sitting next to us one morning.  Turns out they live literally a stone's throw from us in Cobourg.  Small world.

6.  Another book to get a positive notice even if recently published is The Tailings of Warren Peace by Stephen Law.  Look for it.

7.  Lots of great weather but a couple of days really toasty.  The afternoon of one we retired to the lobby bar and sat in the shade and breeze, read and directed new arrivals off the airport bus to the bar's washroom.  In the old days the busses had their own and a bar at the back to boot.  Getting old...and so is my bladder. 😳

8.  One of the reasons we so love building 17 here is that with an Oceanside room on the 2nd floor you can get a blistering breeze by opening both doors.  Much better than a/c.

9.  I'm reassessing my plan to get a bus pass when I retire.  I think maybe an electric golf cart.  Had a couple of runs in one.  Quiet, feels fast in confined spaces and clean. 

10. Scorned Woman Sauce a great general purpose sauce for adding a bit of zest to resort food and drinks.

11. The Mambi Lounge on the Danforth in Toronto comes highly recommended by folks here as a Cuban bar and restaurant.  Music pretty good too they say.

12. We slid over the Sol for their weekly suckling pigs BBQ.  Kinda fun, they make a bit of a party of it.  Kinda reminded me of 20 years ago at the Guitart Cayo Coco when they would roast a few on the beach once a week.  A Cuban navy patrol boat would always anchor off the beach that morning, causing much anxiety among the tourists.  The crew would paddle ashore in an inflatable and spend the evening flirting with tourists and enjoying the party.  The boat would be gone the next morning.  😄

13.  Who says beach vacations aren't learning experiences, a chance to expand your mind?  Today I learned that before it became a mouthwash Listerine was a topical treatment for gonorrhoea. 😄

14. Shared a table at lunch with the cutest young couple from a village near Munich who are on a beach stop in the middle of their tour of Cuba.  Much fun.  A reminder to always take advantage of a shared table.  In the dozen times we have we've never had a bad time.