Mi Moto Fidel: Motorcycling Through Castro's Cuba

by Christopher P. Baker

Book Overview

Astride his BMW motorcycle, Christopher Baker wanders the highways and byways of Cuba, the first such adventure by a foreigner in the more than 40 years of Fidel Castro's revolution. The moto allows a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0792279611
• ISBN13: 9780792279617
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: National Geographic Society
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 4.1" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Cuba - spot-on

Chris Baker does an outstanding job of capturing the essence and gist of Cuba in Mi Moto Fidel. Almost everyone that has gone to Cuba cites "the people" as one of the major assets. Chris' writing brings his characters to life and depicts the Cubanos and Cubanas to a tee. Having been there twice, I feel like I have actually met some of the very people that he has described. He craftily portrays the struggles yet parallel joy of life that run so rampant throughout Cuba. Chris hones in on the key aspects of Cuban life - the economic and political strains, the music and dance, the hospitality and openess of the people, the sexuality and the omnipresent transition of an entire society.He is very masterful at interweaving historical data with his personal experiences. He brings the reader along on his many journeys - the geographic, personal, cultural and political. He allows us to see and understand how his own views transform over the course of the book.His dry sense of humor had me in hysterics on more than one occasion. I would have loved to witness some of the amusing moments that he articulates. His writing style is very gripping and easy to read. Mi Moto Fidel provides a wonderful escape to an intriguing foreign land. While it would be very simple to finish the book quickly, I found myself intentionally savoring each word, not wanting the stories to end.

Baker's Cuban motocycle journy a real winner

Baker's words utterly captivated my imagination. Each time I had to put the book down, it was like leaving a great party much too early. And, when I came to the last page it was as like a power outage in the midst of watching an enthralling movie. Bake deftly crafts scenes that are alive with the alluring sights, sounds and scents of Cuba. He manages to smoothly weave in to the mix, fascinating bits about Cuba's tumultuous history, some intriguing insights into Castro's childhood and early years as well as informative asides about Che and other pre and post revolutionary characters. His words flow like a heartfelt letter from a friend- or better yet, to read Me Moto Fidel is the next best thing to riding right alongside Baker as he explores one of the world's most enigmatic countries onboard his rugged Paris-Dakkar Beemer. Baker was also commendably frank and revealing about his socialist ideals and how his preconceptions and assumptions were sometimes confirmed, sometimes transmuted and repeatedly decimated as he explored Cuba's towns, cities and rural expanses. Mui Bueno, Cristobal!! Perfecto!

Mi Moto Fidel

I absolutely loved this book. Christopher Baker has a fantastic writing style which creates wonderful word pictures of his experiences in a strange land. His writing is very often more like a well-crafted thriller than a travelogue--makes you really feel as if you are on the bike with him and seeing the country for the first time. I have never been to Cuba, but his book makes me want to go there and experience the wonderful hospitality and humanity of the people. I strongly recommend this book to everyone!

Mi Moto Fidel

Whether you're traveling to Cuba or just dreaming of exploring this enigmatic island, "Mi Moto Fidel" is a remarkable read. Encounter by encounter, author Christopher Baker's adventures and insights travel deeply into the long-shrouded avenidas of Cuba's psyche. Initially infatuated with Castro's grand commitment to communism, Baker's explorations gradually cause him to experience a profound, political shift. After surviving a near shipwreck crossing the "widest, deepest moat in the world," the ninety-mile stretch of sea separating Key West, Florida from Cuba, Baker exclaims, "Havana! I can't wipe the grin off my face." Havana is Baker's jumping off point for a 7,000 mile trek across Cuba, his chariot a bodacious red BMW Paris-Dakkar motorbike. Baker's black leather get up, his exuberance, his flaming red motorcycle fascinate all who encounter him. Part travelogue, part memoir, part political treatise, Baker unabashedly records not only his impressions of Cuba but also those of his more private thoughts and experiences. This was not the writer's first attempt to uncover the reality of today's Cuba. As the author of two comprehensive and practical guidebooks about the island, he had made several previous trips. But, in the more personal "Mi Moto Fidel," Baker cuts to Cuba's core, laying bare the island's more intimate ways. He calls his travels both "disheartening and uplifting." Baker is at his best on his motorcycle, his senses completely at one with the island's unfolding landscape. Transporting the reader with him, he cruises the country's coastline and inland terrain. Impressions riff and rumble, creating verbal snapshots of Cuba's people and places. As one recedes, another more vivid unfolds. During his three-month odyssey, Baker and his bike consistently engage and attract the locals. Farmers, fishermen, former doctors, flamenco dancers, all contribute to the writer's political " coming of age" in this sweet and sour stewpot of police state and sultry paradise. Ultimately Cuba itself, its people, its history and geography propel the narrative. Too, Baker's "moto fidel" proves itself a fitting companion as it comes to represent the journey's one faithful and sustaining relationship. Often poetic and poignant, "Mi Moto Fidel" illuminates the dynamic mix of socialism and sensuality that is Cuba.

Mi Moto Fidel, don't cross the Florida Straits without it

What is it about Cuba and how is it that Christopher P. Baker is able to get to the absolute core of the question so effectively? Perhaps it is that rare combination of love at first sight and a love that grows even finer as it ages. Enigmatic? Perhaps, but Baker hammers away at the puzzle in trip after trip, then book after book and we come to know more and more about this officially sanctioned American pariah with each sentence he commits to paper. It's a people-to-people thing, as Baker so effectively points out in his astonishing new book, "Mi Moto Fidel, Motorcycling through Castro's Cuba." I have read no U.S.-based author who has explored Cuba to the extent that Baker has. If you want the details of where to stay, eat, nightclub, sightsee, etc. no guidebooks touch his on Cuba as a whole or Havana in particular. However, in the process of researching these finely detailed works, he found a growing attachment to place and people that transcended the simple exposition of details and that developed into a need to put himself in the midst of things throughout the island. To say that his method for doing so was a bit challenging is substantiated within the first few pages of the book that describes his incredible 7,000-mile journey about Cuba, when you read of his prized BMW motorcycle, lashed precariously onto the stern of a heaving ship, pitching and yawing through the rough seas of the Straits of Florida. "Mi Moto Fidel" is a remarkable account of Baker's encounters with the people of Cuba in the settings that have defined their life, particularly since the ascension of Fidel Castro more than 40 years ago. At times in reminds of the journeys of Steinbeck, Kerouac, and, of course, Pirsig without the over-emphasis on Zen. Unashamedly and unabashedly Baker details his encounters - even the most intimate ones - with Cuba women. With friends from overseas, he takes us on tours about Havana that are reminiscent of scenes from "The Sun Also Rises." Hemingway and his attachment to Cuba are well-known and Baker helps us understand Papa's great attraction to this fascinating island. If you are considering a trip to Cuba and have the wherewithal to get there, do not leave without three books: Baker's guidebooks on the country and its capital, and "Mi Moto Fidel," for a wonderful account of the heart and soul of the country. If you are just interested in a fine read, by all means pick up the latter.