P116
CN
III LOWSIDE
BY RENNIE SCAYSBROOK
C
uban rum, specifically the
drop emanating from a
bottle of Havana Club 7,
is one of those drinks I can back
down with unearning ease.
Something that tastes this good
seems to disappear faster and
faster the more I drink it, and when
it's matched to the yellow and pink
glaze from the sunset streaming
across the Malecon, itself a near
straight shot from Tampa, it's almost
difficult not to enjoy life.
In the background, the hustle
and noise of Cuban life carries
on unabated. An old man with a
nondescript two-stroke crackles by,
followed a stunningly clean Chevy
Bel Air two-door in baby blue carry-
ing cashed-up tourists.
This is the final night of our six-
day adventure into the depths of
the Cuban dream. I've wanted to
visit this most mysterious of lands
since 2001, when the physiothera-
pist treating me for a work accident
had just returned from her third trip
to Havana—quite the journey from
Sydney. Her sheer obsession with
the place was enough to infect me
with a want to see Cuba first hand,
so the wife and I pulled the pin last
August and booked the tickets.
I've never been to a communist
country before. I've read about
places like China and Vietnam,
but never seen the day-to-day lives
of a regime such as those of the
Castros' up close.
The old theory of Cuba, and
particularly Havana, is it is stuck in
1950s. And while that's got an air
of truth to it, the real age is some
imaginary era between 1950 and
2007, about the time when mobile
roaming data became a real thing
for almost everyone else in the
world.
The motorcycles around Havana
tell part of the story. Unlike the
grand American cars that dot the
roads and provide a large chuck of
the projected Cuban image tourists
love, the motorcycles are a throw-
back to what you'd expect a land
removed of western influence and
goods to have.
Long-gone East German marque
MZ with their ETZ250 features
heavily in Havana. This is the
brand that powered people around
eastern bloc countries during the
reign of the Soviet Union, so to see
its little two-stroke, the first MZ to
be fitted with a disc front brake and
oil injection, is no great surprise.
CHASING THE HAVANA DREAM
The two sides of Havana: classic American iron and cheap Chinese motorcycles.
