The Love Bus

The drive from Camaguey to Havana is around 7 to 8 hours. Later, when were neck-deep in paperwork and bureaucracy and running back and forth to Havana constantly, my brother-in-law, our personal driver, would cut the drive down to 6 hours at top-speed. But back then, on our first trip, on the bus, it was a 12 hour trip.

I've taken rickety bus trips through the terraced fields of Southern China fearing for my life at every turn, I've taken the Greyhound all over Canada, once barely surviving a 4-day bus marathon from Montreal to Vancouver Island, I've traveled across the world on planes and trains and ferries and boats and even ended up sitting on a trucker's lap once as he let me, the deeply-stoned hitchhiker, steer his 18-wheeler down the highway towards Calgary. Some of these adventures were terrifying, some boring, some awe-inspiring...none of them came close to the pure bliss I felt curled up against Juan for 12 hours as we traveled halfway across Cuba.

See ya later striped building in Camaguey!!!

The air conditioning was too cold. I didn't care. The music too loud. I didn't care. I was hungry. I didn't care. All I cared about was the man in the seat next to me. We would take shifts, him sitting up with his arms around me, trying to make the small space as warm and comfortable as possible for me so that I could sleep. After an hour or two, I'd sit up and let him rest in my lap, softly rubbing his arms and back, twisting his frizzy hair up into funny shapes and then patting it back down. I'd catalogue every bit of him - here a small scar on his forehead, here the curve of his forearm, here the way his mouth opens slightly to push out breath while he sleeps, here the way he purses his lips to the left when he wants to kiss me, here the way he scrunches up the space under his nose to say 'Que?' (I did not yet know this was a mannerism shared by 11 million other Cubans). I wanted to memorize every part of him, build a sense memory of him that could either help me get through another separation from him or let me keep him with me as I moved on completely.

Yes, even in the midst of these simple, beautiful moments, I was still looking for a way out. I still believed that there was no future for us, that at the end of this trip I'd say goodbye and mean it. Every sweet word he said, every soft touch, every tender moment was tinged with both sadness and intensity....little memento moris peeking up behind everything whispering 'This will end this will end this will end'. I tried to block out their voices, enjoy the moment, not worry about the future but in every pause I'd hear a door slowly creaking shut.

'Alas poor Juan I knew him well'...picture it with orange hair and a sunburn and you've got me 

Around 3am, we pulled into a road-stop with a few fast-food type restaurants selling pizzas, ham and cheese sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs. As it was intended for Cubans they charged in national money (CUP), not the convertible pesos used by tourists (CUC). Juan told me to put away my money and walked off confidently to buy us each a hot dog and a pop with a dancing lime on the side. I was so proud as he reappeared back at my side with the food he'd purchased me. So happy to have our busmates see him paying for this meal. I didn't care that it was just a hot dog and a lukewarm sugary soda, it was him taking care of me, that was what mattered. To this day, it remains the best meal I've ever eaten.

As we finished our food and drinks the driver called out to those of us still lingering around outside the bus. We all hurried back on and found our seats. I don't know what the driver had eaten at that road-stop but his mood was just as good as mine as we drove off. He cranked the reggaeton music as loud as it would go and got on the loud-speaker. Juan interpreted for me but even without knowing Spanish I understood the gist of what he was saying...

'Hey sleepyheads, why aren't you drinking? Why aren't you dancing? We're on the road to Havana...let's have fun!!!'

I decided that bus-driver was right. I pushed my worries down as far as they could go, hugged Juan close and told him that I loved him. Sure everything in the world has to end at some point...but not on that bus and not on that night.

Forbidden Love

The next few days were...well...heavily scheduled. I knew that Juan would have to work for the first week of my holiday but I hadn't really thought through the implications of that. I had had so much fun the first trip with my co-worker and the other guests we'd become friends with that I didn't consider what it might be like when I was there on my own. Also not taken into consideration was the fact that I can get really awkward in uncertain conditions. I've always felt that I have a lot in common with a goldfish. In my usual waters, I'm a fearless, fast-swimming, leaping, wiggling, air-bubble-making fiend. But put me in a plastic bag and throw me in a new tank full of even newer fish and I will stay in the comfort zone of my bag as long as possible. There is actually a very good chance that I will never come out of that bag.

This is not what I actually look like, just a photo of an over-extended metaphor

As it turned out, the end of April was not exactly a hopping time for travel to Cuba. The resort was half-empty and the half-full part was not filled with very fun people. The tattooed Windsorites provided a little bit of companionship, until they both got food poisoning on the second day and retired indefinitely to their room. I settled for trailing Juan from activity to activity, feeling nothing like the exciting, vivacious woman he'd met in December.

From 9-12:30, I would participate half-heartedly in morning beach activities - stretching, bocce ball, aquacize, merengue...I would do it all, except for beach volleyball...there are some lines I just don't cross. From 12:30-3:00 we would leave the resort for lunch with a side of kissing and hand-holding at the Commercial Centre next door. 3:00-6:00 was pool-side darts, Spanish lessons, salsa, steppercize, ring toss, beer barrel balancing, throwing of balls through holes, throwing of suntanning people into the pool. From 6-6:30 the entertainment staff would have their daily meeting in front of the stage, I'd creep around the area, trying to act like I actually had some purpose in life besides counting the moments between Juan's breaks.

Through all of this Juan would try to throw me what scraps of attention he could - little surreptitious glances, a hand grazed across an arm, a wink, a foot against mine underwater, a quick pat on my head as he walked past my chair. But he was working and there were bosses everywhere. The entertainment boss, the restaurant boss, the head of security, the manager of the resort, they did not approve of inappropriate mingling between guests and entertainers and they were always watching. I tried to reason with Juan, we'd been flirting and touching up a storm on my first trip, why was he so scared to come near me now? He said it was different now, that he couldn't hide the fact that he had real feelings for me, that he couldn't act playful with me without it being obvious that it was not play.

Sometimes he could sneak off with me from 6:30 until 9, which is when the evening show began. Unless during that time he had door-opening duty at the main restaurant, in which case I would eat alone...or sometimes with a table of seniors who felt sorry for me. After the kids' show, and before the cabaret, there was social dancing, Juan's first dance of the night, every night, was with me. Of course the next dance was with a 13 year old girl going through an awkward phase, next up a cougar divorcee wearing her teenaged daughter's clothing, after that an extremely sunburnt woman on her honeymooon...but the first was always mine!

When the show was over and Juan had changed from his actorly clothes into some bedazzled evening wear, we'd sit around by the DJ booth with the other entertainers, all of them speaking rapid, slang-filled Spanish. I suspected even if I hadn't have dropped out of Spanish class after the 5th class, I still would have understood nothing. As it was, I would simply paste a fake smile on my face and try not to look as out of place as I felt.

Finally, just as I would be hitting a wall of exhaustion, the group would all stand up at once and start walking to the resort gates, heading to the one decent club in town. My heart would race in anticipation as we neared the exit, knowing as soon as we turned the corner past the last security guard, Juan would pull me towards him and hug me tight and kiss me and touch my face sweetly and tell me that it wouldn't always be like this between us, that someday it would actually be real.