The Havana hotel provided three meals a day, which we had to pay for when we booked the trip. The restaurant was a buffet set-up.
Every meal was exactly the same thing. Day after day.
Breakfast was rolls and jams, bowls of sweet oranges and tiny bananas. Coffee was served with tin pitchers of hot milk for the weaker stomachs not used to Cuban coffee. There was no juice.
Lunches were salads and rolls. You could order a cola or an orange soda that tasted nothing like what we were used to.
Every meal was exactly the same thing. Day after day.
Breakfast was rolls and jams, bowls of sweet oranges and tiny bananas. Coffee was served with tin pitchers of hot milk for the weaker stomachs not used to Cuban coffee. There was no juice.
Lunches were salads and rolls. You could order a cola or an orange soda that tasted nothing like what we were used to.
Orange was pronounced "or-an-gee."
Dinners were fish, beef, cooked vegetables, and rolls.
Always the same food, served with pride and big smiles. And the food was good.
Only one cup of coffee was allowed and only at breakfast. Coffee was scarce.
People ate the fish. I tried it one night. The first tiny bite tasted too strong and too fishy. I didn't eat the rest.
An hour later, we were on a bus to the countryside to the Tropicana nightclub, to see a show. You know the kind - singing and dancing and women with gigantic fruit baskets on their heads.
But within ten minutes on the bus, I was hit with a horrendous wave of nausea that bent me over. Heat and cold raced up my chest and neck and into my head. My head spun like crazy and it scared me.
One tiny bite was all it took. Food poisoning.
I spent the night in a washroom stall. I missed the show, but the loud music pounded through the whole building and into my head.
The washroom had older female attendants who handed each patron two sections of toilet paper in exchange for money. Two sections would not do for anybody, as far as I was concerned, but that's all they would sell. Toilet paper was scarce.
After an hour on my knees and hanging my head over the toilet, I staggered over to a small settee and laid down. I heard constant whispers and "tsking" because they thought I was drunk and sick. My face was stone white. I thought I was on my last round-up, and in fact I hoped that I was, it's how sick I felt.
Someone came and got me when the music stopped pounding and the show ended. They dragged me outside and stuffed me onto the bus.
The other tourists started whispering and "tsking," and I knew my good reputation was at risk. I am not a drinker, but how could they know that?
I still didn't know what was wrong with me.
Back in the hotel, a well-traveled friend came to my door and asked me what I ate for dinner. I told him about the one bite of fish.
He shook his head. "You have food poisoning. If you can keep these dry crackers down, you'll be better in two days."
I did, and I was. Almost. Still weak, but better.
I asked him if he'd tell the others that I wasn't "drunk sick" but "food poisoned" sick, and he just said, "Why do you care what strangers think?"
It would be nice, maybe, to live like that, to be free of the agony of scrutiny and gossip, but I just don;t know how to do that.
But my worst experience in Cuba was over.
Until the night we were to fly home.
Dinners were fish, beef, cooked vegetables, and rolls.
Always the same food, served with pride and big smiles. And the food was good.
Only one cup of coffee was allowed and only at breakfast. Coffee was scarce.
People ate the fish. I tried it one night. The first tiny bite tasted too strong and too fishy. I didn't eat the rest.
An hour later, we were on a bus to the countryside to the Tropicana nightclub, to see a show. You know the kind - singing and dancing and women with gigantic fruit baskets on their heads.
But within ten minutes on the bus, I was hit with a horrendous wave of nausea that bent me over. Heat and cold raced up my chest and neck and into my head. My head spun like crazy and it scared me.
One tiny bite was all it took. Food poisoning.
I spent the night in a washroom stall. I missed the show, but the loud music pounded through the whole building and into my head.
The washroom had older female attendants who handed each patron two sections of toilet paper in exchange for money. Two sections would not do for anybody, as far as I was concerned, but that's all they would sell. Toilet paper was scarce.
After an hour on my knees and hanging my head over the toilet, I staggered over to a small settee and laid down. I heard constant whispers and "tsking" because they thought I was drunk and sick. My face was stone white. I thought I was on my last round-up, and in fact I hoped that I was, it's how sick I felt.
Someone came and got me when the music stopped pounding and the show ended. They dragged me outside and stuffed me onto the bus.
The other tourists started whispering and "tsking," and I knew my good reputation was at risk. I am not a drinker, but how could they know that?
I still didn't know what was wrong with me.
Back in the hotel, a well-traveled friend came to my door and asked me what I ate for dinner. I told him about the one bite of fish.
He shook his head. "You have food poisoning. If you can keep these dry crackers down, you'll be better in two days."
I did, and I was. Almost. Still weak, but better.
I asked him if he'd tell the others that I wasn't "drunk sick" but "food poisoned" sick, and he just said, "Why do you care what strangers think?"
It would be nice, maybe, to live like that, to be free of the agony of scrutiny and gossip, but I just don;t know how to do that.
But my worst experience in Cuba was over.
Until the night we were to fly home.
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