The Capital

We take the taxi to the casa particular. Here, a "particular house" means a house that has rooms for rent, similar to a bed-and-breakfast in the states. They are authorized by the government, and are usually in older colonial-style houses.

The first few days we see the usual tourist stuff: nice architecture, churches, plazas where people congregate. It is nice to be able to walk around a city. America has almost no cities where you can walk around, and the few that we have (New York, San Francisco) have a very different feel than walking areas in Europe, Asia or other parts of the Americas.

After a few days we rent a motor scooter (here called a moto) and ride that around the city. Much more fun! A moto is the best way to get around this city if you have a nice girlfriend. At night we try to find salsa dancing. We go to several places that have music, shows & dancing, but they are rather disappointing.

One day on the moto we purposefully eat from a street vendor, where locals would eat. Tiina writes:
"During lunch I talked to some locals who appeared to be interested in conversation. I asked what tended to be the preferred pets in Cuba, this after he showed us two live rabbits sitting docilely in a bag and which he indicated would soon be someone's dinner once he sold them. He replied that most pets in Havana are dogs and cats, but that his favorite was a pig because they are smart and cute, and that best of all, once it was fat enough you could eat it!

Eat it, I replied, you can't eat your pets. Sure you can he said. Not a long time ago we would eat dogs if we had to. The street dog begging for scraps near us smiled at him."

During the tip a question came up: What is the best known brand name in the world? Is it "The United States"? I used to say Coca Cola, but certainly anywhere where someone has had a coke, they would have heard of the United States. For if they had never had a Coke before, and they had one for the first time, they would ask "Where does this magical drink come from?", and the person would say "The United States" (or "America", or some other functional synonym).

I do mean this as an honest question: Can anyone suggest any brand name that is better known than The United States (frequently known as America)? I won't accept something like "god" or "food", since that is a concept not controlled or defined by any one person or group.

Is there any human in the world today, over the age of 15 who is not retarded or deaf, who has not heard of the United States? It's almost impossible for us to answer, for any researcher who could answer that question is most likely from the US or western Europe. In the most remote tribe in the Amazon, or New Guinea, or Africa, if they've made contact with the outside world, would they not ask about the rest of the world, and would they not be told about this magical place called "America"?

Are there any tribes left in the world that don't have communication with the outside world? There was one set of uncontacted tribes in the New Guinea highlands discovered about 20 years ago (I think this was discussed in "Guns, Germs & Steel", or one of Jared Diamond's other books). Where would a non-communicative tribe be in the world today, if they did exist? Amazon? Possibly, although several recent "undiscovered tribes" have been revealed as fakes. Africa? They may be a few levels removed from direct contact with "the outside world", but my guess is that they do have contact with the other tribes who have contact with the outside world. New Guinea? It's been pretty directly explored for a while now.

(For more information on this topic, including some where my guesses are a little wrong, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples)