We Do Miss the Happy Faces Forum on Sympatico

 It seems that this post, shared in the Melia Cayo Coco guests-run FB group, seems to have gotten me blocked. Ahhhh, social media. 😀

Christmas Day 20-24, Melia Cayo Coco, Cuba. 

Story behind this luggage tag. Our last one so we're feeling nostalgic. 

 

Ok, ok: We also had a couple of beers while waiting for a family video Christmas call. 😈

 

In the early nineties Doreen Jones, a travel agent in Burlington, discovered the Cayos, from Guillermo in the west to Santa Maria and the others to the east.

She not only started recommending the area once the first resort opened in 1993, but then created a forum on, and remember this was the early/mid nineties, Sympatico.ca.

 

It was a welcome and much needed antidote to the loonie travel agents and the gusanos in Miami who did whatever they could to discourage travel to Cuba. 

 

Remember, back then the Miami lunatics, with the US government turning a blind eye (at best. At worst, facilitating, as with the bombing of a Cuban airliner on a flight to the Bahamas) were regularly coming down in high speed boats and running along the beachfront, shooting up hotels with heavy machine guns and rocket launchers. If you've been to Veradero you may have seen the monuments, hidden away because they might have discouraged tourism, to hotel workers who were killed on the job by those fuckwits. 

 

On our first trip to Cuba in 1990 we thought the light show on the beach was fab until we walked down to the waterline and saw the searchlights, talked to some of armed women soldiers looking out to sea. The night before we arrived our hotel took a bunch of 12.7mm rounds. A window smashed and a dozen big chips out of a wall. As did other hotels as the speedboats went from one end of the hotel strip to the other. The idea was to discourage tourism. 

 

Doreen worked hard to counter that by flogging Cuba's nascent tourism industry in Canada. A real pioneer. We're pretty sure she didn't make much on her sales as she was always off to travel shows etc and speaking on panels or making presentations at a time when no one wanted to travel here except a select few, usually people like us who had a political interest in eroding the effect of the US blockade. 

 

Her forum on Sympatico she called Happy Faces as the symbol was then popular. It became her motto. Be happy, deal with things like, LMAO, bartenders who were working from photos of margaritas and thought the white stuff on the rim of the glass was sugar, an understandable mistake in Cuba. Lol. Ask about the lovely bar on the top floor of the Dupont mansion in Veradero for more on that. Lol

 

She curated, though the term was not then in use, posts on the Happy Faces Form so that the lunatics in Miami couldn't make any headway. For twenty years it was the place to go if you wanted the straight poop on the Cayos. If you posted something about tourists being behind barbed wire and beaten to a pulp for trying to walk off your resort she was on it. 

 

We, Geri Sheedy and i, were long-time Happy Faces. Back then we'd have meet-ups at hotel ls and no matter which hotel you were at or what time of the year you went, there would be ten to fifteen and once about thirty Happy Faces at dinner. Resorts would treat you extra-specially and arrange private dinners with the manager, all thàt kinda stuff. Talks about the state of tourism, future plans, that kinda stuff. 

 

Truth be told the talks were a bit boring but the twenty year old rum warmed over a candle and the discounted cigars made them worthwhile.

 

The Sympatico web service eventually got shut down by Bell. In her seventies Doreen, with help from her son, learned to code (this was before WordPress etc) enough that until about 2013 she could manage her own website. 

 

TripAdvisor killed traffic to her site. A tremendous shame as TripAdvisor is not curated and while it is not generally recognized, it is a battleground between different hotels etc which trash each other without anyone curating postings on it. Google some of the companies that will trash your competitors if you are in the hotel biz if that seems a bit odd to you. 

 

Facebook groups with knowledgeable and committed admins like the ones here are Doreen's inheritors, even if they have never heard of the Happy Faces forum or website. 

 

Doreen is now in her mid or late 90s. We are occasionally in touch. When here in Cuba, at a resort or an hostale we drop her a line and though now blind she gets back to us and wants to know about the food, the service, the state of the buildings, how much smaller the plane seats are than they were in the nineties (ugh) and whether staff like Melvin who when she was thirty years younger helped open what is now the Muthu Colonial in 1993 are still around. 

 

A beery old man's thoughts on a day when it is too hazy to get out there and work on my tan.

 

On a more serious note, I like to do what i can to make sure that the work Doreen and a very few others like her did to make out stay here just a bit more enjoyable, or, hell, possible, is not forgotten.

Flying Brassieres in Moron, Cuba

Another Cuba memory we wanted recorded...

In late 1993 we stayed at  what was then the Guitart Colonial hotel, at the time the only resort on Cayo Coco.

 Met two fellows from Hamilton, one a steelworker and one worked sales at Wonder Bra. They were there just to party, never entered a pool and only went onto the beach on their very last day.

 One day they rented a Suzuki 4x4, took the roof off, scored a couple of bottles of rum and paid one of the hotel staff to drive them into Moron, the nearest town of any size.

 The bra guy had heard that the USian blockade made finding women's undies difficult and so he had brought a large suitcase full of them.  He sat in back with the suitcase and his bottle of rum while the steelworker sat with the driver with his bottle and acted as spotter.

 They would pull up to lines at bus stops, shops, red lights, anywhere there were women standing around.  The bra guy claimed he could size women at a distance, so he would fling appropriately-size bras at all the women and then before anyone could react they would zoom off to the next line-up.

 I would love to run into one of the women and find out what they thought:  standing there, minding their own business and suddenly, from out of nowhere comes a jeep.  It stops, a new bra that fits perfectly hits them, the jeep zooms off, rum fumes trailing behind. 

 Photo of them:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/dblackadder/12236298/in/album-191799 

Bucket List: Cumberland Miners Festival and Ginger Goodwin's Grave

Not much to say really.  The plan was to fly out to Vancouver Island, check into a cheap motel in Courtenay and then spend three days at the festival, one of my Bucket List items.  Afterwards I would take the new fast ferry to downtown Vancouver, do a couple of labour and other history walking tours of Vancouver, head to dinner at Vij's (favourite Indian restaurant in all the world) with my sister, who would also be hosting me in Vancouver, and some cousins.

What happened was a bit of a deviation from the plan.

 I got in an afternoon of wandering the town's 'White cemetery', got photos of Goodwin's grave and some others, including one Mac-Pap vet.  Then went shopping and had a good night's sleep.

Next day I made the ceremonies at the 'White' cemetery and the Chinese and Japanese cemeteries.  Much fun for me and a couple of hundred fellow travellers.

 A community lunch at the FABULOUS Cumberland Museum and Archives followed and I connected with  Joey Hartman (now BC Labour Heritage Centre board Chair, ex-Vancouver Labour Council President), had a lovely time with her and her friends.

But a dry cough started before lunch was done.

I got lost in the Museum and missed the history walking tour.  Pissed myself off.

Drove around the village randomly in an effort to find the walking tour and when I couldn't I retired to a nice brew pub for a sample of the local fare.  By then the cough had picked-up and I called it an early day.

Picked-up a COVID test kit on the way to my hotel and tested postive.  Masked-up I bought a few days worth of food and drink and retired to my motel bed.  A boring few days followed.

I shifted, masked-up, to Vancouver on the new ferry service to downtown and transferred to my sister's spare bed for another few days of coughing and eating toast with Cheese Whiz (whatever makes you feel better is my motto), then flew home.  Where I went straight to the spare bedroom until I tested negative.

No dinner with family at Vij's, no labour history walking tours, no nothing.

Sigh.

Debating whether to make the effort to do it all over again or just cross it off my list. 

Photos HERE. 

More Cuba Nostalgia

I should commit to this blog for the record.

 Our our first trip was 1990 or 91 and we went for two weeks at the Sol Palmeras in Veradero (lovely bungalows), arriving just a couple of days after a speedboat from Miami when down the beach at Veradero firing a .5inch machine gun at hotel lights.  We thought the searchlights dancing on the waves off the beach a light show until we chatted with the armed women soldiers operating them.

Wish I could find the photo I took of the monument to hotel workers killed by Los Gusanos over the years.  The days of film…I lost a lot of fine snaps.  It was to the right (east) of the main entrance to the old (1950's classic) Hotel Internacional.  Kinda hidden behind some bushes as though it was wanted to honour the dead workers but not wanted to scare the tourists.

Back then a regular event, along with planes dropping pig bait containing viruses that killed the animals and made the meat unsafe to eat, small bombs dropped on farms and bigger bombs in airports.

Also, same trip, are my memories of me exercising my non-existent Spanish, which I started studying mebbe a week before we left, and trying to get us into the CTC (union) offices for a visit.  Cabbie argued with me, seemed to say it was being reno’d and so was closed.   

One of our party thought the CTC politically off-limits and probably guarded by armed police, that this was just his excuse for not taking us there.   

Turns out I had been asking to be taken to the aquarium, which was indeed being reno’d.  LMAO.  We went to a bar instead and spent the rest of the day having a drink everywhere Hemingway ever had a drink.  Which, as it turns out, was a lot of places.

 

Bar-generated Cuba Nostalgia

This bit of nostalgia comes courtesy of Geri Sheedy.  We're just back from a couple of weeks at the Melia Cayo Coco and were telling folks in bars etc. what Cayo Coco was like back in the early 1990's.  Hard to believe it but there was for a time just the one hotel, The Colonial, on the whole island.  No airport either, but a long interesting drive from Ciego de Avila's airport out over the causeway.

Some of you may have heard this one. Apologies but it is a fun little anecdote. 

 In 1993 we were down the beach at the only resort on Cayo Coco at the time. 

On Wednesday a navy patrol boat anchored off the beach about noon. Much chat amongst the tourists. Most of it quite silly or just downright stupid. They are going to arrest people or just line folks up and shoot them, that sort of thing. Goofy at best.  The same type of tourist in Cuba who thinks they can't use their US credit cards because the Cuban government has banned them, that all the Blockade is the result of Cuban policies not USian.  Not that they think about such things much at all.  They're just off on a cheap holiday with lots of beer.

Around sunset the crew got off the ship and motored ashore in a dinghy. 

More consternation amongst the guests. 

Wednesdays were Beach BBQ Party nights at the resort. Crew danced, ate, drank (rather enthusiastically) and worked hard at flirting with the younger women guests. 

Thursday morning the ship was gone. 

Next Wednesday...

My guess is that the Cayo Coco posting was rather popular amongst Cuban sailors. :-)

It's the sort of informal fun thing that is unimaginable these days. Like going for a guided tour of the back end of the resort you're staying at or staff using your room for a party and bringing a case of tequila. You

PS  It seems that this post, shared in the Melia Cayo Coco guests-run FB group, seems to have gotten me blocked. Ahhhh, social media. :-)

Musings on Holiday Thieves

Vacation theft tactics come in waves, go in and out of fashion I think, and, of course, it is always the staff that get blamed and the holidaymakers who are either responsible or, if the victim, never think to apologize for their accusations.

Every few years it seems the arrival bus scam gets popular and this seems to be one of those years. Opportunistic: You find yourself on the airport bus on the way to your hotel.

 

When the bus driver and guide are (deliberately ) distracted you grab a random suitcase off the bus, take it to your room or, get a bellhop to do that, keep what you want and dump the rest in some bushes. 

 

Bar convo with other guests about their travel/arrival days...  Here this year, the bus finished its run, went back, guide and driver talked to other resort bellhops with a description of the missing bag (I take photos to feed my stream of consciousness fetish but now I have a real reason). The thieves in this case were caught in their room with the bag open and its owners right behind the security folks and the bellhop who remembered the bag and where he had taken it. I would buy a ticket to that. 

 

That story started a discussion and someone else had one from a few years ago. Clogged airport and long lines at incoming security. You get your stuff after it comes through the scanner, mill around a bit and then go to the scanner and grab a likely-looking bag as it comes out of the machine and off you go. Empty it and dump all but the cash, which most people carry in purses or bags. Grabbing wallets too obvious apparently. 

 

Then came security cameras. But a third discussant said last year someone grabbed her bag, she went after them, made a fuss got it back. Best bit: The thief later showed up at her resort claiming it was an accident.

 

We contributed lots of memories of people raising a loud stink about staff stealing jewellery etc and then not saying a word when it is found under their socks in a drawer or some such thing. Mildly embarrassed when asked why they were wearing the ring or whatever again a day later. 

 

Only personal story we could contribute was re. the time a plane load of Brits arrived and, true story, their plane had the luggage meant for another and it had theirs. Airline of course wouldn't let them raid the luggage on their plane. 

 

They stripped the hotel shop of every item of clothing. Also the one next door. But it was an isolated resort halfway between Veradero and Havana so that was it. 

 

Dumb or drunk or both they then started stealing anything any of the other guests had left on their patio furniture to dry. Then wore those clothes in public the next day. 

 

That was just about the most entertaining day I have ever had in Cuba. Much as I, surprisingly, love the floor show at the Tropicana, that was better.

The Four Eras of Reading Whilst on Holiday in Cuba:

1.  1990-2010. Read a lot of paper books, one, sometimes two novels a day, swapping what we brought with what was in the hotel's large library. English Granma widely available. Read a bit of French and tried out Spanish from the library offerings. Even when we coordinated our book selections for a trip we often had books comprising a third of our luggage.   Complete break from Canadian News's other than RCI if we remembered to bring the portable shortwave receiver. Which we mostly did (forget i mean). Slow internet cafes at hotels pricy. 

2.  2011-2020.  Kindle.  In early part of this era still reading some Cuban stuff but availability fades.  Still at least looking over the hotel library for interesting stuff. Consumption rate steady though the format now 90+% digital. Slow internet connections mean home news and weather checks are a weekly event. Wifi appears but have to pay for and limited coverage. Typically you have to sit in the lobby to get a connection. Spend as much time dealing with dropped connections as online. 

3.  2021-2025.  With news and magazine sites accessible via fast internet connections reading long-form fiction and non- drops off steeply.  Able to keep up with news from home so relaxing effect of holiday declines sharply and nearly disappears. Facebook usage as at home underlines this. 

4.  2026-????.  Reading patterns will be identical to those in play at home. VR will mean living in the same imaginary world as when at home only difference being you can tan while playing.  Desire to holiday in Cuba will end when someone invents a safe tanning sun lamp.

Do the World and Yourself a Favour - Not Just Tourists

If you're headed south this year please consider the following.

With tourism now still well below pre-pandemic levels, countries dependent on the industry are feeling the pinch. Now more than ever is the time to consider taking a suitcase of urgently needed medical supplies with you on your trip.

 

Not Just Tourists has chapters across Canada and will provide you with a FREE suitcase full of medical supplies and equipment that it has selected because they have either been requested by healthcare workers at your destination or because they are known to be in short supply.

 

They also provide the paperwork needed for customs and a contact to whom you can transfer the suitcase(s).

 

They can provide smaller bags like knapsacks if that's your preference.

 

My partner and I are longtime (since 1990) travellers to Cuba and for many years went 3 times a year. Since we discovered NJT we have been taking bags with us, usually two per trip. Always a smooth experience and a great feeling.

 

And, selfishly, a great tourist experience visiting hospitals and clinics, meeting Cuban healthcare workers and seeing the look on their face when they open a bag and see a gizmo whose use you can't even imagine but which is going to make a lot of lives better and longer.

 

NJT has contacts across the Caribbean, in Mexico and Central America, South America, the Philippines and parts of Africa.

 

If you are travelling to a resort you can often simply transfer the bag(s) you brought with you to the on-site medical staff. But I prefer to pay for a cab, if needed, and use the money I might have otherwise spent on a snorkelling trip or similar and visit a hospital or clinic.

 

If you're staying in a Cuban casa particular/hostal or similar elsewhere, you're likely within walking distance of a hospital or clinic, making it even easier and cheaper to drop a bag or two.

 

Give it a try. And consider treating yourself to a seat upgrade and get early boarding, a glass of fizzy wine, some less terrible food and a bigger luggage allowance so that you can fit in another NJT bag. LOL

 

https://njt.net/

Cuba Post-COVID 19

Last year, for Christmas 2023, we returned to Cuba for the first time since our time in Caibarien and Remedios in early 2020.  We had such a good time we returned to the Melia Cayo Coco again for Christmas 2024.

Photos of  2023 HERE and of 2024 HERE.  And for comparison purposes, our last pre-COVID stay in Caibarien HERE.

In 2023 we enjoyed ourselves but had chosen to return to resorts, as opposed to casa particulars and hostals, for mobility and other health reasons.  

But as a result of these last couple of trips we're re-thinking our travel enthusiasms.  Life changes and all that messy stuff.  Last year we were enjoying our first mid-winter break in three years while in the past, for 30+ years, we went two or three times each winter.  Typically once to a casa particular, a Cuban bed and breakfast, and twice to a resort to decompress from work by lying down and reading for two weeks before getting up and going home.  So I guess we were just so pleased to be there and enjoying the weather that we forgot all about how tired we were of resort holidays.

This year we kinda returned to where we were when we swore-off resorts and moved to more (very mildly and just in comparison to resorts) adventurous travel in Cuba.  We were bored less than a week in and even a day spent delivering some surgical equipment to the hospital in Moron didn't help, much as we enjoyed time in a red 1952 Ford Crown Victoria convertible.

Photos of the drop are HERE .  How and why we came to have two suitcases full of medical stuff only healthcare workers usually have access to can be found in my post re. Not Just Tourists which is HERE.

The resort, both trips, was fine, some wiggy shortages like one set of salt and pepper shakers set for the entire poolside snack bar, but the fries were good so who cares?  LOL

Portugal is definitely on for April, but that's less travel than a cottage experience really.

We are exploring, or will do if I get my shit together, a reunion trip to Florence with friends we shared an apartment with fifteen years ago.  Might work better for us.

But we're also trying to get the grand-kids interested in some travel and one of the possible enticements is a subsidized trip to the Cayo Coco hotel we loved for a decade starting in 1993 when it opened as the first resort on CC, so who knows.  But if that does go ahead it may just be our last trip to Cuba, hard as that is to believe.  

 

Bit of a shock to the system just thinking about it really.