Forty years ago, the Rolling Stones released “Undercover of the Night.” Not one of their most successful singles, it peaked at No. 11 on the U.K. charts, but it was accompanied by a memorable video depicting an ill-fated evening that kicks off at a lavish poolside party on the sprawling grounds of a heavily guarded mansion.
On the night of March 1 earlier this year, I find myself at that party. Or close enough. It recalls the oppressive, humid, tropical heat and that unique Latin American atmosphere in which anything can, and probably will, happen: the wild fervor of the Stones video; the magic realism of the novels of Márquez and Allende; or, in the case of this evening, a man clad in an illuminated suit of armor rocketing out of the viridian waters of a large kidney-shaped pool with spraying jets elevating the flyboard beneath his feet.
Moving in time to an epic soft-rock instrumental booming out across the sticky night air, he propels himself to the top of the palm trees surrounding the pool, swoops back down to skim the surface, and backflips, spinning head over heels, leaving behind a jet of water tracing his parabola in the inky sky. So unexpected and bizarre is his appearance that some time passes before I notice that he’s carrying a box. He carefully lowers himself until he’s hovering just inches above the surface of the pool—then glides slowly toward a glamorously clad model standing at the water’s edge and, taking the utmost care not to soak her dress, proffers her the box, which, it turns out, is packed with cigars.
It is indeed a moment worthy of Márquez: Part Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, part James Bond wannabe, this is the culminating moment of an evening dedicated to the launch of the Bolívar New Gold Medal cigar. Although what flyboarding has to do with handmade cigars, or for that matter their namesake early-19th-century South American liberator, is not immediately apparent.
We are halfway through the weeklong 23rd Festival of Havana, and around 1,500 cigar lovers have gathered at one of the Cuban capital’s “protocol houses,” lavish venues for official entertaining—in this case a sprawling Oscar Niemeyer-esque cantilevered structure on a slope. Impressive though it is, the modernist grandeur of the building is easily overpowered by the event taking place. The flyboarder is just one among many attractions.
On stage at one end of the garden, a man in front of a huge screen is delivering a Steve Jobsstyle keynote. I presume he is lauding the qualities of the new Bolívar, but it’s difficult to hear him over the
