VANS IN CUBA

Me in the snakerun fountain
photo by James Gardner

I'm not going to write some long essay about our trip to Cuba as you'll see the footage soon enough and there's an article coming in Sidewalk. Here's just a few of my thoughts and observations:

I've travelled a fair bit but I have never been to anywhere like Cuba, I think it's fair to say there's nowhere else in the world like it. It's kind of a 50's timewarp but everythings 60 years old and fucked.

The architecture is stunning. You can hang out in 5 star hotels that haven't changed since they were built (mostly by the Mafia) and you feel like you're in a movie. Most notably the Hotel National which is where Sinatra sang as a cover for a huge mob meeting.

The people are poor as fuck but are some of the happiest and most positive people I've ever met. They all made us so welcome and everyone wanted to talk and ask about or lives and also what we thought of Cuba.

The food generally sucks especially if you're a vegetarian. Most stuff on the menus isn't available.

There's not really any trouble there and despite the fact street drinking/lurking is a national passtime, and not discouraged by the law as far as i could tell, you don't have gangs of kids running round town stabbing each other like we do here. Not coincidentally they have harsh punishments for pretty much every crime.

Being a skateboarder in Cuba really is as tough as you've heard. The one skatepark in Havana pretty much sucks. You can't actually buy hardware anywhere. Some place stock Vans and stuff but they're about $50 per pair and the average Cuban wage is £10 per month.

Booze and fags are cheap as hell.


Read more on our adventures in the next issue of Sidewalk mag.