Cuba is supposed to be a really safe destination for travel – and it’s true. There is a subjective feeling of safety, for example when parading cameras around town but also when walking around at night. But also objectively, tourism is such an important business for the country that there is draconic punishment for theft or assault on tourists.
During our press trip, we did feel perfectly safe, which probably also has to do with the police escorts and the overall feeling that we are being treated like ambassadors of Angela Merkel’s grace enjoying all the preferred treatment that state guests usually have. The only thing we did not do is giving speeches but no importathat’s why I have this blog.
So yesterday we experienced Trinidad, Cuba’s most beautiful old colonial-style city, rather known among tourists so I won’t excessively write about it here as Lonely Planet has all the details. Actually, I’ll stop right here, and if you want to go to Bodeguita del Medioto write Hala Madrid on its walls like quite some others, you’re not my friend anyway.
Later that day, we went for a break above the hills of Trinidad, enjoying the amazing view. Mystery cameraman (MC) and I decided to split, as I wanted to go to the lunch place in Manaca Iznaga (MI), a village where one of the richest sugar barons used to live in the past with his slaves, with a huge landmark tower. MC continued to film. Of course, he reached MI earlier anyway, as the other busses had to stop over at yet another sight where I simply decided to sleep on the porch out of exhaustion but also out of silent protest against an overloaded program.
As we reached the former slave farm, I went straight to the lunch table. MC had already climbed the tower just to come down slightly afterwards to join us for lunch. He left the cameras up on the tower as they were doing time-lapses. No one did actually protest about this – remember what I wrote earlier about the feeling of perfect security. Here, it was different though as other tourist groups would go up and down the tower, and you know what’s next: both cameras were stolen while we were eating. Incredible. Crime in MI.
We informed the organizers and all hell broke loose. This is the worst-case scenario for the Cuban Tourism Ministry. Quite quickly it turned out that it could almost surely not have been Cubans, as tourists frequent the tower and the locals rather not. Very soon, the Interior Ministry showed up in a Lada. The police also came, sending its youngest apprentice, his job was to inspect the crime scene atop of the tower and take fingerprints. Wow, imagine this after a robbery of this kind in any Western country. A guy in a yellow shirt who was with us all the time all of sudden got going, which felt fishy from the beginning. Much later I found out who he was – the “Security Chief”. Imagine an unknown guy turning up after a robbery that happened to you not introducing himself in any way putting your back up against the wall. The guy was visibly keen on showing that he is not to blame for anything. How helpful.
We were assured that everything would be done to find the cameras again. We already knew back then that this means they are never to be seen ever again. Bloody tourists. How sick can you be to steal obviously professional cameras while they film atop of a tower while you’re on holidays yourself? #disgusted
What happened next was a journey into the fictional world of a comedy – with the little difference that it was actually true. Yesterday, I found it hard to believe. Today, I’m glad I went through this experience because dealing with authorities from now will never be the same again. Listen to this:
We were brought to the Ministry of Interior, section Trinidad. There, a uniformed officer speaking some kind of Spanish not even understandable for highly ranked members of the Instituto Cervantestook us to some room with a big portray of Raúl Castro. A girl sat next to a computer, no idea who she was. After we had started explaining what had happened, she started to take notes, painfully slow though. After a while another woman came in, aged maximum 25, good looking, pregnant. She was referred to as the “prosecutor” but did not bother to introduce herself. She started explaining that MC was supposed to write down by hand what had happened to him, not starting with the incident though, but with his arrival in Cuba more than a week ago. “I landed at José Marti Airport on April 30 at Terminal whatever”. Incredible. To make things even funnier, another man came in and he was supposed to be the “lawyer” of MC now. He did not introduce himself; he just sat down and occasionally gave his opinion on whether MC should write his report in the first or in the third person.
I only found out about all this because we had an interpreter with us, one of the organizers, who helped me figure out everything and spoke Spanish in a more official way so that I could understand, unlike his fellow countrymen.
What a scene. At some point, the lawyer left, the prosecutor started to flirt with both MC and then with me while indicating that she was very tired, eventually putting her head on the table and chilling out. A guy maximum aged 16 replaced the lawyer; the guy wore a shirt with a snowman on it that had a carrot at the place of a nose. The shirt said: “Funny, I smell carrots”. All of this, by the way, is true.
MC kept on writing down the story like in school. In the meantime, the phone of the uniformed officer constantly rang. The ring tone was some kind of reggeton.The girls supposed to take notes gave up. The T-shirt guy had no apparent function. After a very long procedure, the story was finally written down in all (not so due) detail while the stolen cameras were already being shipped out to Jamaica probably.
We received the camera rig back that looked as if it was put into a powder keg. The thieves had actually left the rig behind, because you cannot hide that so well when leaving Cuba again as innocent tourist with a sunburn and a bag full of funky souvenirs, such as camera equipment worth several thousands of Euros.
What can I say? Yes, it was not the best idea to leave the camera unattended. The way the Cuban authorities made us feel that this matter is being taken seriously was sweet. Then again, the way they went about this did not look like they tell you in the movies, but in a way, they created their own incredible cinematic version of an investigation into a hideous crime. And the result was clear from the start anyway: some evil-minded travellers now possess two cameras, and the 5 minutes in the world’s best countryteam has to improvise now to make world domination a reality.
Off to Havana we go for some final curtain action in the capital. Thanks for being with us, like dozens of international journalists that gave us moral support.