We Flee the Ghost of Jesse Helms, in a Studebaker

On Saturday, our final day in Cuba the “Impact” team had organized another p2p event for our extra day but Suzi and I both decided that after Cienfuegos we had enough of buses, even very nice air-conditioned Chinese buses, so we set off on our own “self guided” p2p tour.  I intend that this blog be part of the documentation in case the feds question us.  We have last names and further notes in our files.

We started the day engaging Luan, who drives a 1952 yellow Studebaker convertible, to take us to Moro Castle, an old “craft” cigar factory, the second largest “Christ” in Latin America (After Rio) and Che’s house, all on the other side of the harbor.

This Studebaker is not in the cherry shape of the Chevy from the other night.  It has plywood floors because the original floors rusted out.  It is held together with Bondo and the yellow paint is more like Rustolium than car paint.  The door latches are long gone and have been replaced with gate latches.  There are no turn signals so Luan has to, and does, use hand signals.  Under the hood is an old Russian Lada engine.  Luan gave me a tour under the hood.  But from a distance this car still looks cool with the Studebaker hood ornament in place.  This may be a more authentic experience than we had in the Chevy Bel Air.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.