| LYA:
Did you take pictures for your coffee table book while you were traveling
on your motorcycle, or did you go back and them later?
CB:
The motorcycle journey happened in 1996 and was the first long journey
I made through Cuba. I was photographing the whole while and taking photos
of American cars, but at that time I hadn’t conceived of a coffee table
book. That came later when I realized I had a lot of photos of American
cars, but also because the more I traveled through the country the more
it became obvious that the number of old American cars was quite profound,
about one in six. I was coming across cars I'd never seen. I’m English
and I didn’t know the history of Chevrolet and Oldsmobile etcetera, but
I did know I was seeing vehicles that were extremely rare, such as Hudsons
and Model T Fords—almost every day you see a Model T in the countryside
as a daily run-around vehicle.
LYA:
You teach travel writing to people, tell me about that.
CB:
I gave a course two nights ago. More or less monthly I teach a full learning
annex and I’ve been on faculty for about five years. It’s basically Travel
Writing 101; a three-hour class where I give all the basics, the tools
a would-be travel writer needs to set out and get enthused, and tips on
how to avoid common pitfalls neophyte travel writers make.
LYA:
Have you had any success stories from your students?
CB:
Absolutely. There was an English guy who was a waiter in the Bay area and
he took my class. He sold to Conde Nast Traveler in about six months or
so. That was six to eight weeks after graduating from my class, and he’d
never been published. He called and said, “I just got my first story published!”
He sent it to me with photos. He’s actually a good photographer as well
as a good writer. He’s now launched a full-time career.
LYA:
Let’s go back to your adventure in Cuba. Did you ever feel your life was
at risk?
CB:
That’s a really excellent question because a lot of people have great fears
about traveling to Cuba. My first visit was in 1993, and I made several
more short visits before I began my motorcycle trip, but nonetheless when
I took the motorcycle in, I had a lot of fears. Not about the physical
danger of muggings and whatnot — my experiences in Cuba told me that it's
a very safe destination from that perspective. But I had certain other
fears, even though I couldn’t put my finger on it.
I think one
fear was that I would run afoul of Cuban officials, because it's a Communist
state, and the government keeps a very close eye on folks, especially foreign
journalists. It was also during this journey I had some tremendously important
political epiphanies that had a profound impact on my political perspective
of Cuba. At the same time I had become aware that Cuba is very much a police
state. I had my encounters with Secret Police when I expressed myself politically
for the first time incautiously on the telephone to the States. Within
24 hours I was taken in and interrogated. Cuban intelligence made its final
appearance seconds before I left Cuba, also. One of my fears was losing
my motorcycle to Cuban officials, but my biggest fear of all was losing
my notebooks.
I was not only
taking notes for my guidebook – critically important notes about accommodations
and bus routes and other essential information – I was taking other notes
as well. Those notebooks included some damaging conversations with individual
Cubans, and also my own perspectives and feelings, many of which were very
positive towards Cuba and the government, and many which were negative.
In the last moments, when I was preparing the motorcycle to exit, I had
actually hidden my notebooks. It was only once onboard the boat that I
felt I was being paranoid for no reason. Because the motorcycle was going
to be on the deck and I knew it was going to be washed by sea spray and
waves, once we were ready to sail I took the notebooks from under the saddle
where I’d taped them for hiding. I thought I was safe, so I tucked them
in my baggage in the hold of the boat. It was only at this stage the Secret
Police came specifically to read my notebooks. They had quite clearly been
keeping tabs on me, unbeknownst to me, and they came and said, “Your notebooks
Mr. Baker."
LYA:
And they looked at them.
CB:
They read them! And what was really fascinating was… I don’t like to give
it all away because this is an important part of Mi Moto Fidel… but I went
through an epiphany. In earlier trips I had been viewing the Cuban Revolution
very sympathetically. And whilst I still have tremendous sympathies and
respect for the accomplishments of the Revolution, it was during the motorcycle
journey that I changed my perspective.
So what happened
was the tone in the notebooks, which were ordered chronologically, began
to shift. By notebook #4 the shift was happening. At that stage more Cubans
(who will only make critical comments if they believe you can be trusted)
were beginning to open up to me and I was finding a different Cuba —a different
perspective coming from the people themselves. And that was reflected in
the notebooks.
So the Secret
Police began reading them. As I said I had had an interrogation, and that’s
absolutely the right word for it, in the eastern provinces of Holguien
six weeks prior. I’d been through the questioning and knew the process.
It was almost an identical thematic interrogation as he was reading my
notebooks. He wanted to know if I was a journalist, and since I wasn’t
traveling on a journalist’s visa, I tried to pass myself off as an ordinary
teacher and consultant on tourism. He asked why I needed all these notes
if I wasn’t a journalist. But more importantly they were looking for negative
commentary. They weren’t going to let these notebooks out of the country
if there were negatives.
His questioning
got stronger and stronger as he went through notebooks #2 and #3, and obviously
he was reading piecemeal. Then he got to notebook #4 where this great change
happened, and he’d already reached the critical point of the questioning,
“What do you think about the Revolution, what have you written about it,
what have you written about Cuba, and is there anything negative?” I was
panicking because they had an agent whose job was to stand over me and
intimidate me, to gauge my reaction as the other agent was questioning
me. At the moment I was about to buckle under, my knees were going, I was
going to lose all my notebooks, he handed them back to me and said, “You
can write a good book with that.”
LYA:
What did you learn from your adventure you could share, especially for
someone who might be a little fearful?
CB:
Well, I learned an important lesson during the attempt to get to Cuba.
If you’re determined to make something happen, however difficult it seems,
if it's a true dream it will happen. You'll make it happen. That was really
reflected for me when I arrived in Florida to pick up the pre-arranged
sailboat that was going to take me to Cuba. I hadn’t seen it before, I
don’t think I’d seen pictures even, but I had a commitment from the skipper
who used to take his own motorcycle into Cuba. So I’ve got everything ready,
and I took one look at his boat and simply turned around. I said, “I’m
not putting my motorcycle on that piece of crap.” The sea was very rough,
there was a storm at the time...
I didn’t even
say hello to the skipper, I just said, “I'm not going on that boat. What
do I do now?” I was so full of belief that this day I was going to Cuba.
I think it was only because I believed my dream was going to happen that
I actually got another boat arranged within two hours. And it wasn’t as
if I arranged it, I just serendipitously found another boat that was ready
to leave for Cuba and had been cleared by customs. I’m atheistic, so I
don’t believe in the Gods, but if there are gods, they were certainly working
on my behalf at that moment.
LYA:
One last question. From your British perspective, tell me your take on
Bush’s attitude towards Cuba.
CB:
I am also a U.S. citizen, a 25-year resident of the Bay area. I think that
in itself tells you where I might be politically. I live in the Bay area
because I thoroughly enjoy its liberal take on the world and the local’s
belief that we need to be contributory in society. I was very very dismayed
by the election results because I think that in the last four years America
has been on a dangerous path internationally and domestically. So while
the feeling in my local community, and perhaps even the whole of costal
California, was of great hope that we could turn America around to a much
saner, respectful course in the world that would pay attention to resolving
issues, I feel the majority of America is caught in some incorrect perspective
and time warp and has got its priorities mixed up.
LYA:
I agree. I heard one of Bush’s campaign speeches in Florida catering to
the Miami mafia and saying, “Freedom is on the march.” So next stop, Cuba.
CB:
Yes Mark, it’s really sad to think what the next step might be. A lot of
Cubans are very fearful there's an agenda for Cuba, that it’s next. Thoughts
that there may have been secret plans to put troops in Cuba on any pretext,
and we know pretexts were used to get into Iraq. Had Iraq not become the
mess it is, I think Cubans would have a good rationale to be fearful that
America would come stomping in with troops. But the Bush administration
seems to have pandered to a small clique of extreme Cuban-Americans in
Miami for electoral reasons. It’s important to remember Cubans are disproportionately
powerful politically in relationship to their numbers down there. It’s
pleasing to know there’s a growing moderate voice amongst that community
that provides more balance, but it’s not getting heard by Washington.
LYA:
Thank you very much for your time, Chris.
CB:
Thank you, Mark.
Is the
adventurous life of a travel writer appealing to you? Learn how you can
make it your reality. Experts Mark McMahon & Chris Baker can show you
how. Click
here for more information.
To contact
Mark, click here.
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Chris Baker, click here.
The following
are Mark's previous articles for the magazine:
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