Frequent Desert Companion contributor Launce Rake is more than just a writer, raconteur, boulevardier and member of the intelligentsia. He’s also a seasoned traveler. Not long ago he returned from nearly two weeks in Cuba, fortuitously timed with the Obama administration’s effort to thaw relations with that island nation. At 7 p.m. Saturday at The Writer’s Block, Rake will talk about that and other Caribbean adventures, joined by noted travel writer Brendan Shanahan, a parttime Las Vegan and author of In Turkey I Am Beautiful , among other books (brendanshanahan.net). Diego Cano will provide music.
Let us warm you up with a quick Q&A with Rake:
What kinds of travel stories do you plan to tell at the Writer's Block event?
Travel is always a highly personal experience. The way I perceive things is going to be different from what other people see. For me, though, I notice the little things: what's on television, what we run over on the road, the complete insanity of the road signs, how people relate to me and to other visitors. But I am also a student of politics and foreign policy, and so what Cuba is like as far as being a Marxist dictatorship, or an alleged dictatorship, is of keen interest. How much of that is true? How does the government affect life for ordinary people? And how is the rapid evolution of Cuban-American relations going to change the island? I think spending a couple of weeks hanging out almost entirely with ordinary Cuban people gave me an insight that you might not get from a highly paid international correspondent.
What’s a travel story you can't or won't tell?
I think most drinkers while on holiday to exotic destinations experience a night or two of debauchery, the details of which must never, ever be discussed. I did not commit any crimes that I am aware of.
Has travel actually broadened your mind?
Cuba broadened my mind in that the remnants of the Soviet-style state are quite obviously still there, overrun with weeds both literal and figurative, but looming in the background all over the island. I have been all over Latin America and the Caribbean, but I have never seen this anywhere before. It was a genuinely new experience. I have to wonder whether those remnants will remain a decade from now, if indeed Americans are allowed to travel freely to the island. Will the dilapidated and hideous Soviet-style concrete apartment complexes, which could have been lifted straight from East Germany of the mid-1970s, remain? What about the otherwise exemplary health and education system? I don’t know. But it is something to think about.