Tag: Havana

Returning to Havana, we stayed at Casa Leticia in Vedado for our last night in Cuba.

With a flight at 8pm, we had time next day to walk to the Plaza de la Revolution, through modern Vedado sporting plenty of concrete, including street markers.

The plaza is huge, dominated by the huge Jose Marti memorial tower and statue on one side …

,.. and the Che Guevara memorial on the other with the widely recognised photo of him reproduced as a stylised steel frieze.

Nearby is a sculpture of Camilo Cienfuegos in a similar style.

We continued to the Necropolis de Colon, Havana’s huge cemetery where some two million people have been buried.

Time for lunch, we returned to La Rampa and had tacos in Waoo while we relaxed and watched the world go by.

Our last trip to the airport was in a cranky Lada, with some great 50s tunes playing. Strangely though, the music in Cuban taxis always seems to return to 80s power ballads, appealing no doubt to the Cuban romantic streak! It started to rain, and we realised that the single windscreen wiper was non-operational, requiring the driver to hop out and wipe the screen at each set of lights, but we expected nothing else … this is Cuba!

Our month is over and we’ve had a great time here in Cuba with each town having its own character so travelling round was definitely worth it. On the whole, things have gone very smoothly. Having booked buses and our internal flight online from home and reserved our casas direct by email, we only had a couple of travel delays and all the casas were excellent. The most time consuming thing was queuing at the bank to change our sterling, but with plenty of ATMs everywhere, there was actually no need to have brought sterling at all, and accessing the public wifi was generally easier than we expected.

We had hoped to get a bit more under the skin of Cuba, find out more about daily life, how it works and what it means for Cuban people but our lack of Spanish made detailed conversations impossible so we are relying on the photographs to tell the story.

Thanks for checking out Cuba with us and adios till next time.

Well that was a long day, travelling from Baracoa to Havana. We enjoyed a leisurely start, and chatted to Adrian who told us he was a cameraman for the tv company and gave us a copy of a documentary he made about Hurricane Matthew which was very interesting. The flight ended up being delayed by a couple of hours but the waiting room was breezy …

… and the plane finally arrived!

It was 7.30pm before we got back to Reservas El Cristo in Havana where we were greeted by Fidel as old friends! We found Lamparilla tapas bar just down the road and enjoyed a fusion meal of peanut pesto dip, veggie lasagne, meatballs and roasted veg which made a nice change from rice, beans and salad and returned a second night for burritos and a Cuban dish called Ropa Vieja of shredded beef with peppers and onion which was delicious.

With just two days here, we spent the first continuing to explore Habana Vieja or the old town. The four main squares have been restored as well as most of the buildings down a couple of thoroughfares linking them, with a selection of hotels, bars, restaurants, souvenir shops and small museums.

Plaza Armas is the oldest square, with a leafy centre surrounded by grand buildings, including an incongruous Greek style temple called El Templete on the site of the foundation of Havana and the first mass in 1519 as well as a couple of Cuban Baroque Palacios.

Plaza Vieja is the largest square, with a huge fountain and surrounding buildings including a museum, arts centre, shops and cafes as well as a yet to be restored art Nouveau Palacio in the corner. Children from the school were using the shady part to run races!

Plaza San Francisco was nearest the dock and dominated by a huge convent church and as for the fourth square, we had already visited Plaza de la Catedral at the beginning of our trip.

There are three restored pharmacies in the old town, the oldest and by far the most impressive was La Reunion, opened in 1853 and the largest of its kind in the Americas, remaining in business until 1959. The wooden cabinets, rows of jars and stained glass were impressive and there were cases of old medical equipment too.

Another impressive edifice built on the edge of the old town is the Edificio Barcardi, an amazing 12-storey Art Deco building built in 1930 as a symbol of the wealth of the Bacardi dynasty and crowned with a bat.

Beyond this everyday life continues along roads lined with pretty dilapidated buildings, with people working and shopping.

We saw signs of further restoration, with boards saying works were either sponsored by the state or with foreign investment.

There is so much to do, I can’t believe it will change overnight, but there are signs showing that Havana will be 500 years old in 2019 so no doubt there is a push towards this date.

Hemingway links are everywhere and attract huge crowds of tourists. La Bodeguita del Medio was one of his favourite haunts, the best spot for a mojito, but everyone else thinks so too so we gave it a miss especially as there didn’t seem to be space on the wall for our names …

… but we did pop into the Hotel Ambos Mundos where he lived for a while …

… went up in the original 1920s lift to the roof for the view then left, unwilling to pay £2 each just to see inside his room.

Whenever we travel, I like to check out any films or books to set the scene and never having read Hemingway, I chose a slim one, called The Old Man of the Sea about an old fisherman’s battle with a huge Marlin off the Cuba shores, no doubt drawing on Hemingway’s own experiences as a keen game fisherman. I then read Adios Hemingway, a modern mystery about a dead body found in the garden of Hemingway’s house, years after his death where the detective is an aspiring author and Hemingway fan which was really good. We also watched Cuba with Sean Connery and Havana with Robert Redford, pretty dire films, but both set around the time of the revolution, showing scenes of Cuba and how some of the swanky hotels in Havana would have looked And there were similar references in Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene. Since I arrived, my reading has lightened up – Distant Marvels about Maria Sirena, born during the Wars of Independence with the Spanish and stretching to Fidel Castro’s victorious revolution. Next up Ghost Heart, a tale of two cousins, one who remained in Cuba after the revolution and the other who went to America and their contrasting lives and I have just started Last Dance in Havana ….

Our second day began at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, just in the Cuban section to see how the C20 had shaped the country’s art.

The building itself was a surprise, a very stylish modern space and here is our pick of the collection including Wilfred Lam’s Third World exploring the Afro- Cuban spirit and a Cuban take on pop art from Raul Martinez.

We then crossed El Prado into Centro Habana, which had its heyday in the C18-19, and once contained famous shopping streets. The streets are wider than in the old town, and the buildings far more dilapidated, and in places, the word slum would not be inappropriate. It is hard to be sure if the insides are as bad as the outside, although in places, glimpses suggest they are. We both felt sadly voyeuristic walking through the streets taking pictures.

We headed to the Callejon de Hamel, billed as a public space dedicated to Afro-Cuba with a mural painted by Salvador Gonzalez. It also has shrines and images and references to Santeria, but has also been decorated with reclaimed items in a style similar to a Budapest ruin bar, especially with its cafe at one end. On Sundays there are Santeria ceremonies and rumba put on for the tourists, and we would have visited then if our plane had not been late. We learned no more of Santeria on our visit, but the cold drink was welcome and the alley photogenic!

Continuing further we reached Vedado, with tall 1950s buildings …

… one of the tallest being Edificio FOSCA, a Y shaped apartment building which dominates the area …

… and La Rampa leading to the sea.

This is also home to the flagship branch of Coppelia, a national chain of ice cream parlours. It is like a spaceship which has landed in the middle of a leafy park, and was designed in 1966 to be within the price range of every Cuban. It serves over a thousand customers a day, and people queue for an hour to be served. We walked round and took some pictures but this area was only for those with national pesos … despite its egalitarian aims, tourists have to use the fast track queue, pay in CUC and sit apart!

On balance, the ice-cream at Helad’oro, a tiny parlour in the old town offering Cuban flavours at a CUC a scoop, including pina colada and mojito as well as exotic fruit like guanabana was far better.

For years Havana was America’s tropical playground and most of the fabulous hotels built by the Mob still exist here in their original splendour, due to benign neglect and recent restoration. These include the The Hotel Nacional de Cuba overlooking the sea and built in 1930, which blends Spanish, Moorish, classical, and Art Deco elements in its imposing design …

… The Havana Libre, once the Havana Hilton which was the largest hotel in Havana when it was built …

… and The Havana Riviera which is now the best-preserved example of a swank 1950s resort hotel in the world.

Several times, we were offered an hour touring the city in a convertible American car for CUC$50, but having already had several great American car experiences, we decided to stick to walking and ended the afternoon with a stroll back along the Malecon from the Hotel Nacional to La Punta. It is lined with sections of Neo-classical buildings, once colourful maybe, but now more candy-coloured and some more weather-beaten than others, punctuated with a park, a couple of inventive cafes and the odd 1950s tower. As we walked, we watched people enjoying the sunshine, the cars whizzing by and a cruise ship leaving port.

Next day, we awoke to pouring rain, but it stopped after breakfast. The Lada which took us to the bus station drove along the Malecon, so we got our classic car experience in Havana after all!

This time, we are travelling westwards!

Our flight left Gatwick at 12.30 and we arrived 10 hours later at 17.30. We were surprised that within a couple of hours of landing, we had collected our luggage and cleared the airport, changed some money and got a taxi to our first casa particular, Reservas El Cristo. Arriving after dark meant we could make much out during our drive to the city. We were welcomed by Fidel who showed us our room with a balcony overlooking Plaza el Cristo which we saw in the morning.

We took a quick turn round the block to stretch our legs and the evening was positively balmy after England. We returned for a home cooked dinner of pumpkin and eggs for Chris and marinated and grilled pork for me, served with salad and plantain fritters called tostones. We also had beans and rice called moros y cristianos – the black bean for the Moors and the white rice for the Christians and washed it all down with a beer. After our long day, we called it a night and dropped off to sleep listening to live music coming from the bar over the road.

We both slept well, easy I suppose after so many hours up and a comfortable bed. Breakfast was mixed fruit then scrambled eggs and bread and we shared it with a couple of ladies from California heading home after a great stay in Cuba.

Our first priority next morning was to change some money, as we only changed a small amount at the airport and then to buy our bus tickets to leave Havana the next day. There was quite a queue at the bank, with several people already waiting outside. After 20 minutes we were able to go inside and another 20 minutes before it was our turn. There were five clerks serving, but it just seemed to take ages. There are two currencies here, the CUC$ or Cuban Convertible Peso, which is pegged against the US$ so of the same value, and the CUP$ which are National Pesos used by the locals and worth much less. Solvent with a supply of CUCs we headed to the Cubanacan desk in the lovely Hotel Ingleterra …

… only to be told it had moved to the the almost as lovely Hotel Plaza across the square.

We were a little concerned that all the tickets might be sold, but our worries were unfounded, and we left with bus tickets in hand!

We spent a while watching the cars cruising …

Returning to Parque Central, we we able to relax and take in the view, with the Gran Teatro and Hotel Inglaterra ahead, and a huge number of vintage American cars in an array of colours, jockeying for position and eager for business taking tourists round the city.

We asked in the theatre about a tour and we shown round the newly restored building which contains not only a theatre hall dating from 1837 and home to the Cuban National Ballet, but also lavish space once used for socialising and dancing. We looked out of the balcony on the Capitolio building which is undergoing similar treatment and houses the National Assembly.

We started walking down the Paseo del Prado, fondly just called El Prado, an elegant boulevard with a tree-lined pavement down the centre and residential neo-classical buildings in a variety of colours and degrees of delapidation either side …

… and watched more cars cruising by.

Reaching the end at La Punta, we looked one way and see the Malecon or sea wall in an elegant curve towards the district of Havana called Vedado punctuated with skyscrapers …

… and the other way towards the Castillo de les Tres Reyes del Morro.

We turned back and thought it was time for some history to help give our time in Cuba a little structure and we went into the Museo de la Revolucion, housed in the sumptuous presidential palace of the 1950s dictator Batista …

… with memorial outside to the Heroes of the Revolution, Castro, Cienfuegos, & Che Guevara.

We walked round the displays which were almost entirely in Spanish, with the odd caption in English. There was one small part about the reforms made after the revolution which looked like it had been newly curated and was ok, but for the rest, there were a lot of black and white photos of men in fatigues with guns, battle plans and various personal bits and pieces. There are still sprays of bullet holes in the courtyard …

… which leads to the Granma Memorial, named after and displaying the boat Castro and his men took from Mexico to begin the revolution, a flame burning to the fallen and various relics including a couple of home made armoured vehicles.

Having learnt so little about the history in the museum, I did some reading and here is the history spot which you may wish to pass over, but is as concise as I could make it to introduce a couple of the main men and events.

Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba in 1492 and claimed it for the Spanish. Colonisation followed with settlers from Europe and slaves from Africa working to cultivate tobacco and sugar making Havana a strategic port in the Caribbean. The British conquered Havana in 1763, enabling Cuba to trade with countries other than Spain, then swapped Havana for Florida a year later, but free trade in Cuba remained when the Spanish returned.

The struggle for Cuban independence began in 1868 when a landowner ‘called Cespedes freed his slaves, beginning the Ten Years War which ended in failure. Slavery in Cuba was abolished in 1886 and the Second War of Independence began in 1895, led by Jose Marti. The Spanish-American War resulted in a Spanish withdrawal from the island in 1898 and following a period of US military rule, Cuba became independent in 1902 but still under domination of the US.

Several governments followed, and while there was some social reform and modernisation, there was also corruption and discontent. In 1933, a young sergeant called Batista staged a coup and brought military support to several successive presidents, and was also president himself, but in 1952, fearing he would not win the election, Batista took control in a military coup. He seemed to have lost any zeal for social change, organised crime became ingrained and this period of leadership became a violent dictatorship.

Fidel Castro led the subsequent revolutionary movement which succeeded in 1959 and there was a period of reform with education and healthcare, but the regime became intolerant of opposition, and many tried to leave Cuba. Cuban-US relations soured, and the US tried to regain power at the Bay of Pigs but failed so declared a trade embargo. Castro entered a pact with the Soviet Union and introduced a repressive Communist regime. As a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US stated they would not invade Cuba and tightened the trade embargo. Cuba became economically dependent on the USSR so when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 the situation in Communist Cuba became desperate so Castro was forced to allow some free enterprise and also opened up Cuba to tourism. Fidel Castro resigned in 2008 and his brother Raoul Castro took over, bringing more reforms and restoring diplomatic ties with the US in 2015, however Cuba remains a dictatorship.

Next we headed into Habana Vieja, the old town, arriving first in Plaza de la Catedral, dominated by the best example of Cuban Baroque style, the cathedral, and surrounded by aristocratic residences.

Santeria is the most widespread of the faiths imported by African slaves and is still an important part of the national identity today, happily sitting side by side in the same plaza as the cathedral. Practitioners dress all in white, with a coloured bead necklace and we saw such a woman sitting at a table, presumably waiting for someone to request help and advice.

There are four squares in the old town, and after wandering down an alley, we found ourselves in the Plaza de Armas, the oldest square, and took a look in the Museo de la Ciudad housed in one of the lovely old colonial buildings with Columbus taking central stage in the courtyard.

We decided we had walked far enough and since we were conveniently passing El Floridita, home of the Cuban daiquiri and famous Hemingway haunt, we thought we’d try one out.

It was really busy and we were lucky to get stools at the bar but it meant we had ringside seats as we watched the barman pouring cocktails.

Our first daiquiris were delicious …

… and we sat listening to the band …

… under the eagle eye of Hemingway, propping up the bar in the corner!

Later we had dinner in a small paladar, which in the 1990s were small restaurants offering home-cooking often in people’s homes. With a recent relaxation of restrictions, paladars are more widespread but are still small private restaurants. We chose Hanoi as it offered a vegetarian set menu of beans, rice and salad for Chris, and I had camarones empilados or prawns in a tangy tomato sauce, with rice and salad. We also had our first mojitos … and they were very good and very generous with the rum!

Tomorrow we are moving on but we will be seeing more of Havana later …