I’m in Matanzas Province, Cuba, traveling with Smithsonian Journeys. We were scheduled for a “block party with locals”. Which sounds boring. Except that it turned out to be with the local Committee for the Defence of the Revolution. And the event had escalated – we had more than 200 locals attend and a local Communist Party official crashed the event to make sure that we all got got the Right Messages ™.
Browsing Posts in Travel
Cuba: Revolutionary Block Party
February 11, 2014
Cuba: Classic cars
February 11, 2014
For many years, Cubans were banned from buying and selling cars. If you had a car, you could keep it, but you couldn’t sell it or replace it. As a result, old cars were cherished, and pampered 1950s American cars are common on the streets of Havana and other cities. As well as the classic […]
Russia-Azerbaijan Border
September 19, 2013
The Russian-Azerbaijan border used to be closed to foreigners. But a couple of recent postings over on the Lonely Planet forums had indicated that the Russian regulations have changed to allow non-CIS citizens to cross. I was in the Caucasus, so I thought I would give it a try, starting from Derbent in Dagestan and […]
Australia: Magnetic Termites
June 6, 2013
The Magnetic Termites of North Australia are extremely cool. Their mounds look rather like tombstones. They are some 5-8 ft tall, very thin East-West (about 4 inches) and long North-South (2-3 feet). They are aligned like this to reduce the impact of the sun on the nests. The termites are known as magnetic termites or […]
Samara: Stalin Bunker
March 19, 2013
I am in Samara, where I have successfully infiltrated the Stalin Bunker. The bunker was build in great secrecy and in great haste in 1941, when Moscow was in danger and Kuibyshev (aka Samara) was the fallback Soviet capital. But Moscow survived and Stalin chose to stay in the city even during its most dangerous […]
Magnitogorsk: Steeltown USSR
March 14, 2013
I’m in fabled Magnitogorsk, Stalin’s Steeltown USSR. The steelplant is truly vast, running for miles along the Asian bank of the Ural River. Some parts are old and decrepit looking, others appear sparkling and ultra-modern. Today the plant is covered with a pall of smoke and steam, as hot smokestack gases hit the icy air.
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