HERB HILLER, SWITCHING GEARS TO A HIGHER CALLING

 

     Herb Hiller’s 10-speed got wings this week. It carried the Coconut Grove trailblazer up a steep, heavenly hill. He died in North Georgia at 93 this week. 

 

     Although he spent just 20 years living in the Grove, he had a huge impact on the seaside village and South Florida. After he moved to North Florida in the 80’s he’d return for visits often.

   The New York native found his niche helping to create South Florida’s modern cruise industry. With savvy PR skills he preached,  “Get on a ship and visit the sun-filled Caribbean!”, to a world filled with island dreams.     

    A friend told me as communications director for a major cruise line he was constantly on the phone and writing letters to make things happen. To create a closer bond to the neighboring Bahama Islands he led the effort to produce the Grove's popular Goombay Festival in the 70’s which still exists today.  Soon after, he got Coconut Grove’s first farmers market off the ground.

    He and his wife, Mary Lee, raised their two daughters in their spacious compound on South Main Highway. In the 70’s I’d see this tall, thin, man whizzing by on his 10-speed.  When he finally stopped to talk he told me his life had vastly improved since he traded his car for a bike.

He was changing in other ways too.

    Rather than stuffing people into cruise ships Heb started promoting something new, bicycle tourism. He wanted everyone to peddle their way to new adventures. He’d return to South Florida for bicycle events and Eco-tourism conferences.

     Herb biked all over Florida discovering the Sunshine State’s hidden wonders. As a  talented writer he would share them in his travel guides and numerous magazine articles. 

      For several years the brilliant Harvard grad led bicycle tours. He told me once, "Yes, you can look out on Lake Okeechobee but why not really get to know it and its people?  He invited me on one of his two-day, 135-mile bike tours that straddled the top of the dirt levee that surrounds the watery expanse. I politely declined as I think it would have killed me.

Visiting Herb on his island, 2010

     Fifteen years ago my wife and I caught up with Herb at his 1850's home. Being Herb, it was on an island in the middle of North Florida’s Lake George. You could only get there by boat.

    While he made sour-dough bread from scratch, he told us about his tireless work to create a 3,000-mile bike path stretching from Florida to Maine. Most 79-year olds don’t take on things like that.  

      A few years later, when we all became well aware of global warming, Mr. Hiller transformed into a formidable octogenarian climate warrior. He began working feverishly on ways to stop tourism from adding to the problem.

   

     He began writing his “Climate Traveler” blog. It became part of a continuing effort to get us thinking about how his baby -tourism- could stop contributing to the slow destruction of our planet. Each entry (the last just five weeks ago) was extremely well-written and included extensive footnotes.

     Last year he summed up his post-cruise-line life writing that after he quit the cruise lines he became "the maverick director" of the Caribbean Travel Association. His new career focused on promoting interactions between travelers and the people in the places that they visited. 

 

    He wrote about the importance of getting people off big ships and into nature, the growth of Eco-tourism, and the subsequent realization of how travel has a profound effect on climate change. "Trying to get people out of their houses and cars is not easy work,” he told me back in 2010. “Sometimes it feels like pushing boulders uphill”. 

     My maverick friend was still writing eloquently about saving the world a month ago when his health took a turn for the worse.  

     We should all be grateful for the likes of Herb Hiller. They are the ones that keep pushing the boulders, who open our eyes to new possibilities like home-made bread, stepping outside, and saving our marvelous planet.

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  Addendum:  Anyone can still share a bike ride with Herb. By going on his "The Climate Traveler" blog this morning, I was able to briefly escape to Trinidad. Here's his first sentence of a four-part series describing his 10-day bike ride across the island,

       Memories of cycling in Trinidad hang full  like a cluster of ripe papaya, like the fast flutter of feeding hummingbirds, the lure of pungent roti, of aromatic sweet cocoa, of bananas eaten four at a time, of a chin slobbered with coconut water, of the rippling sounds of steel drum, the jook of calypso, and everything from flocks of scarlet ibis to the regalia of Carnival in the vivid colors of the soda pop that Trinis swig.

Grande Riviere, Trinidad

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CUBA

   I'd like to share a few more photos from last month's trip to Cuba. Below, "on our way", 29,000 feet over Key West.  

 

 

 

When we  arrived in Old Havana, we were greeted by a group that could have marched right out of the Flying Pig Parade.

We soon learned these artists perform here almost hourly.

The view of "Plaza Vieja" from our apartment balcony. There was plenty of room for all seven of us.

 

 

"Woman With Fork", plaza statue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking up from our interior courtyard,

 

 

Old Havana -just 10 % of the city- is where most tourists congregate to visit museums, cafes, the Buena Vista Social Club, and 400 years of architecture.

 

 

 

 

It wasn't unusual to see buildings with no roofs and crumbling walls.

 

 

   I guess people were much taller 300 years ago because all of the buildings in Habana Vieja had twelve-foot doors.

 

 This one led to a stairway and the many apartments above. Stepping inside,

 

 

1780's mansion now the Ceramic Museum

Others stairways were magnificent. 

 

 

 

 

Ceramic typewriter

 

Francesca and her brother shopping.

Chair parade

 

I'm not a city person and so was thrilled when we left for Vinales in western Cuba.

 

The hills you see popping up are vine-covered limestone "magotes".  Rock climbers love these things.

 

 Below, clowning around with our niece and nephew.

 

We rode horses and unlike the last time, I was not thrown by mine. I thanked "Pancho" profusely.

 

Tobacco farm's privy door lock

We enjoyed exciting live music almost every night

Where cigars come from

 

Tractors, like cars, are rare. Much of the  plowing is done with oxen. 

 

 

Days later we headed to Cienfuegos where we enjoyed a bay side sunset.

  In the morning we encountered a Sunday concert by the city's community band. I asked why there were few women attending and was told, "They're in church".

   

On the main square we toured the Terry Opera House where Enrico Caruso once sang for the local sugar barons and their families.

Cabbie on his way to pick up a fare

 

 

The last city we visited was Trinidad on the south central coast.

 

The view from our cottage patio 

 

 

A restaurant down the street was decorated with the shackles used to transport the slaves that built this place. 

 A nicer place to dine

 

 

    Thanks for coming along.  I'd like to close with one of my favorites, "Blue Shirt the street dog".

 

 

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A FEW THINGS ABOUT CUBA

        When I grew up, dogs ran free. They still do in Cuba.  

Most all of them are thin, scrappy terriers searching for their next meal.  The people we met in Cuba were tough too, friendly folks working hard to get by. 

Another thing I noticed were the old American cars.  At first I thought they were somewhat amazing but I remembered, "Yes, but... that's all they've got".  We stopped sharing our cars -and most

everything else- with  Cuba 65 years ago. 

We'd all be driving '53 Chevys if they were the only autos we had. Few Cubans can afford any kind of car.  Those who have them face gas lines three blocks long.  Almost all are used to ferry goods and people.

I could write on and on about our time there,  My wife said it best, "Our 12-day trip was more of an education than a vacation", lessons on how people manage to get by on very little.  

I took photos galore. I'll spare you except for my shots of the Cuban street dogs and old car hood ornaments. 

 

Admiring the view in Cojimar, the setting for Hemingway's "Old Man And The Sea".

 

Wandering the cobblestone streets of Trinidad De Cuba. Our paving lasts 20 years. These stones have been there since the 1700's.

 

 

 

 

 

We saw quite a few hairless terriers. One in Havana had his thin ears shredded in dog fights.

There were no tags, collars, or other ornamentation on these mutts. I saw plenty of that on the hoods of the old American cars we'd see rolling by.

 

 

 

Most of them were designed like rockets to emulate a sense of speed, flight, and freedom....but the one on this elderly Pontiac...

 

had the profile of a futuristic Indian chief.

 

Towards the late fifties ornaments got smaller 

 

 

 

 

and smaller

 

 

 

 

 

then, for the most part, they disappeared.

 

A 60's European import

 

 

 

 

 

Rest assured that these curvy chromium sculptures will be alive and well in Cuba for years to come. 

The old American classics are less than 20% of cars on the road but when you see them, they make a big impression.  It was flash-back time for me.

When I was a kid these steeds were showroom new.

 

Not all are cherry like this Cadillac. It was waiting in Old Havana to whisk away a couple of happy newlyweds.  

Some are really funky, just barely there.

A

If you added an engine, transmission, seats, paint, and windows this old Ford  could be somethin'.

Most of the cars we saw were not American-made, like these 70's Russian Ladas.  Cubans work miracles to keep the few cars they have running.

 

Check out this lumbering Chinese bus. There are no pollution laws. City air is often filled with noxious diesel fumes.

Like Togo, Burundi, and Bolivia, Cuba has higher priorities than car ownership. 

In the U.S. there are 850 automobiles for every 1000 residents.  In Cuba, 56.  Many of the vehicles are

hand built .

And others, just different. 

 

 

 

 

 

Horsepower can be measured by the size of your engine or,

 

 the size of your horse.

 

      Every vehicle (and horse) you see here carried tourists, locals, and just above, coffee beans. Bicycles were not in great numbers. Most locals ride crowded busses, pedicabs, hitch-hike, or walk. 

You do what you must to get by in Cuba.  We were told most monthly salaries were equivalent to two-hour's pay at a Gainesville Burger King. Go figure.

I'm still workin' on it. 

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