Cuba

Central America Caribbean » Cuba » Oeste » La Habana
April 10th 2010

Published: April 13th 2010

Before disaster struck

So it was mid to late afternoon, we had checked into our overpriced hotel that was intended as a one-night splurge (it had a pool, that we never actually swam in, and was supposedly in a good area) and were eager to go out and see Havana, or La Habana as it is called here. (You can see some photos of the hotel taken by other people by following these links -

The outside of the hotel
Another shot of the glamorous facade of Hotel Vedado
The Pool

We walked down to the Malecon, Havana's 8km long sea-front promenade, road and sea-wall, and strolled east towards the city centre. This is one of Havana's principle attraction and throughout our 4 day stay we returned many times, either as a way of getting somewhere else, or simply to enjoy it in itself. You would typically see any combination of the following- people of all ages sat on the wall hanging out, couples being coupley, people snorkelling and/or spear fishing the other side of the wall, kids playing baseball, a man playing the trumpet, waves crashing over the wall and soaking people and/or cars on the road, people lying down by the wall waiting to get soaked by the waves, people diving into the water below, people walking their dogs, people selling knick-knacks such as hand-made jewellry, tourists such as us gaping at the aforementioned sights. On the other side of the road stands an incredible collection of extravagant yet rapidly detiorating buildings of such grandiose style, all in different pastle shades of fading paintwork. On the road that bisects these sites you will sea shiny new yellow tuk-tuk taxis, decrepit old ladas, incredible old cars the name of which I do not know, but are familiar from old American movies, ranging from seriously falling apart to looking as shiny and new as the day they were born. Click on the following links for some good pictures of the Malecon-

Waves crashing on the Malecon
More waves crashing on the Malecon
Malecon Traffic

Disaster!

Seeing as we had spent the previous night in an overpriced airport waiting area without much sleep, and hadn't eaten anything decent since lunch time the day before, we decided to go and have an early dinner. There was a restaurant listed in our guide book that was supposed to be good for vegetarian options and also offer a buffet, so as it was near by we decided to head there.

The two waitresses were on 'stand outside and drum up business' duty, so we made their job a whole lot easier by having the prior intention of entering even before they were trying to convince us to. One of these waitresses was the most enthusiastic waitress I have ever met, who spoke rapidly and constantly about I have no idea what, and would constantly appear behind us without us noticing to check on the food, see if we were wanting anything else etc. The name of this restaurant is Restaurante Biki.

After a pretty decent and not too expensive dinner, we asked for the bill, and as the cash we had was in my pocket, we paid and made to leave (as an aside, in Cuba they have two currencies. Pesos are intended for Cubans only, however there are also CUCs, commonly referred to as convertibles, or sometimes pesos, which are intended mainly for tourists. 1 CUC will get you 24 pesos if you change them. This makes things very confusing. You can buy a nestle icecream in a touristy area for 1.50 cuc, more or less, or you can buy an icre cream straight out of the machine, lining up behind lots of locals, for one peso. Or you can do as I did, and pay with 1 CUC not realising, and the person taking your money will most definetly NOT point out your mistake, making you pay 24 times the going rate. Very confusing. Supposedly you can pay in CUCs for an item prices in pesos and get pesos as change. Basically, unless you are astute, self aware and willing to look for non-touristy areas, you will pay a heck of a lot more for everything than a Cuban will. I'm not saying this is good or bad (but it is massively frustrating), but that is the way it is.)

But our bag was not where it was supposed to be. It was not even near where it was supposed to be, or indeed anywhere in the vicinity that we could see. Uh oh. This would normally not be too bad. But as we had come straight from the hotel, we had not taken out the valuable items that were in there following the flight etc., due in part to tiredness, forgetfulness and eager anticipation of Havana. Therefore, as our bag was now missing, so was the following-

• Our guidebook (normally not too bad, but try finding a replacement in Havana, next to impossible, especially when you don't have a guidebook telling you where the book shops are)
• Our Spanish-English dictionary (normally not too bad, but try reporting the theft of your items in limited Spanish to a police force that couldn't care less and speaks in a Spanish accent barely interpretable
• Guatemalan money we had not got around to changing
• My Yellow Fever vaccination certificate (I will find out soon, when we cross the border, whether this is bad or not)
• Sarah's camera, and all five memory cards containing all of our photos taken as yet, over the past two months (which we only had as we were meant to back these all up in Cancun before our flight, but didn't manage to get this done before they all closed and we had to leave for the airport)
• Both of our passports (pretty bad, but made a lot worse by the fact that casa particular owners and hotel management are not allowed to have you stay unless they see your actual passport, and not just a photocopy, meaning that we could now not stay anywhere 100%!l(MISSING)egally in Cuba
• Our 'Tourist Cards', as mentioned in the previous blog, which apparently pose a great problem when lost
• My snazzy document holder that Emily got me for Christmas
• Sarah's hairbrush (not very important, but an item that we found nigh on impossible to replace in Havana) - Sarah would like me to mention that she discovered that her hair did not get greasy at all when not being brushed for four days, one positive to come out of this!
• Some of our anti-malarial medication
• The key to our hotel room
• My credit card and Sarah's debit card
• And probably some other little bits and bobs that I can't remember, as we kept all sorts of junk in that bag

The bag was pretty decent too.

But anyway, easy come easy go. Worse things happen at sea. The important thing was to sort out the mess we were now in.

The aftermath

We headed back to where we thought the hotel was, but not having our guide book with the map inside, and it being now dark, we got lost. But not too badly lost, and with the help of a man in another hotel, we soon found our way back. We told the concierge at our hotel what had happened, and his face dropped so much it looked as if we had just told him we'd ran over his dog and his mother. He went and fetched the doorman, and they told us to wait in the lobby. I'm not sure why, as they didn't actually do anything to help. After 15 minutes of sitting waiting for who knows what, we asked the concierge where the nearest polce station was, and headed out for it. It was now around 10pm on Saturday night.

We asked a taxi driver how much it would cost to get us to the police station, and we being tourists were quoted 25 CUCs, about £22. So we decided to walk (it took about 20 minutes).

The streets of Havana were packed with party going youths (younger than us), all out and having a great time. We were very tired and a little fed up.

We arrived at the police station. It was a plain building in a residential neighbourhood that bore no great insignia or sign of life. In the lobby sat a man on a railed-off raised platform behind a desk with a large ledger on, a phone, a paper tray and not much else. three men stood in front of the desk in the white and pale blue undecorated room, one of which was on the phone to what sounded like a friend of his. No one made any move to greet us. There were a couple of plastic chairs behind us.

We managed to get the chap at the desks attention after a long time of us stood there, a metre away from him, as he tried to ignore us. He didn't speak English, in fact no one there would admit to speaking any English. Even so, they did not slow down their rapid speech so that we could better understand them. After a long time of trying to explain what had happened, which I think we succeeded in, he started to write some notes in his ledger, occasionally stopping to ask us questions that we didn't understand. After what felt like a year of this, another officer appeared, who must have had a bit more seniority, who took us into his shared office, and the process was restarted on another ledger. We had the same comunication issues, but he was a bit more willing to use gestures and actions to aid the discourse. His office was similair in appearance. Three old desks with paper trays and not much else, save for the desk to our right that had an antique typewriter on it. To our left and in front of us, on the pastle blue peeling walls were hung photo portraits of Fidel Castro, and to our right, his brother and succesor Raul.

Investigador Leonardo, as we later found out he was called, did start to show a little more interest, and we were very surprised when he requested that we go with him to the restaurant, the 'scene of the crime' as it were. I believe this was largely brought about since neither he, nor any of his colleagues in the station at that time, nor either the unknown to us people he called on the telephone knew of this restaurant Biki, and i believed thoroughly doubted its existence.

So off we went, Sarah, I, Investigador Leonardo and his driver, and a female officer who was catching a lift to another police station, in a seriously old and beat-up white lada that must have had all of the stuffing taken out of the seats, and was missing a door handle. Interestingly, there was nothing on or in this car to indicate that it was a police car, save for the occupants, and thus it was afforded little respect by the late-Saturday night Havana traffic.

Arriving back at restaurant Biki with Investigador Leonardo and his surly driver in tow, both quite surprised I imagine that the restaurant existed, and myself surprised that we managed to navigate them back to this restaurant in the dark unfamiliar streets of Havana. The waitresses were still around, and each of them, even ones we hadn't noticed or spoke to earlier, were sat down by the police officer and thoroughly interviewed. We had absolutely no idea what was being said, only that this lasted a very very long time. The restaurant was closed by this point, and there was a small dog running around excitedly. A little too excitedly perhaps as it had to relieve itself there in the restaurant, and as Sarah and I were sat half asleep on the floor waiting for the interviews to end, we were the only ones to notice the small brown deposit it left at the other side of the room.

Finally, after what seemed like (and probably was) hours, we hopped back into the beat-up old white Lada with Leonardo and his driver and headed back to the station. After another round of badly communicated questions and answers, he gave us his name and telephone number and said that we could leave. He told us to call back in a day or two to see if our things could be located. It was now around 1.30am, and we headed back to our hotel, absolutely shattered. Yet the nearby streets of Havana were like any other big town/city at this time on a Saturday night, with plenty of drunk people standing around take-away stands and spilling into the streets. Back at our hotel, after being let into our room, we set our alarm for shortly before the free breakfast ended the next morning and crashed out on our bed.

Day 2

Twice in the morning before we awoke there were knocks at our door, with one of these times someone entering very briefly. We didn't know what this was about but were too tired to care. We got up just in time for our breakfast, so we thought, but due to having the wrong time (it was an hour later than we thought it was) we missed the free breakfast. Therefore, after a bit of wandering around (including down a dark alley looking for a cafe, and around town with a friendly chap who took it upon himself to be our tour guide, try as we may to escape him) we found a cafe to have some Cuban pizza and coffee for breakfast.

As we only had one night booked at the hotel, and as it was way more than we wanted to pay, we wanted to find a Casa Particular to stay in. These are homes of Cubans that have a spare room or two, that offer both the cheapest option, and the best way to meet Cuban people and experience Cuban life. These are listed with hotels in guidebooks and such, but without ours, or any maps, we were a bit stuck as to where to look for one. Internet access was available, if you could find someone who would sell you a card (which we couldn't), and even then it would cost you the equivalent of £5 per hour (incidentally, Cubans cannot use the internet unless under close supervision, or unless it is applicable for their job). Our plan, therefore, was to wander around until we saw tourists, to then have a flick through their guide book and ask them for any reccomendations. This plan worked surprisingly well.

After around 15 minutes of strolling along the Malecon, we came across two Swedish girls who we chatted with, and glanced at their guidebook. They also reccomended their Casa Particular, as it was owned and operated by a very friendly chap, who would be able to find us somewhere to stay, as his place was full. We turned up at his house, ringing a bell that tugged on a string that stretched up a flight of stairs to ring the upstairs bell. The latch of the door worked similiarly but in reverse. This man was very friendly, but full, so he took us over to his friends place, another Casa Particular, just around the corner, around 10 metres back from the Malecon. This Casa was owned by a lady named Josefina, who lived with her spouse, Reynaldo, and their two dogs.

Food glorious food! (and lots of rum - when in Cuba!)

This arrangement turned out to be the best thing that happened to us in our whole stay in Cuba. Josefina was lovely, and cooked us incredible quantities of delicious food. Our first dinner consisted of a big bowl of white rice, and big bowl of flavoured rice, a big bowl of bread, a bowl of chips, a huge plate of salad, cream cheese (very common here, whereas butter is very hard to get hold of, something they apologised for many times), an omelette for me, a fish the half the size of my leg for Sarah, fried plantains, and freshly made fruit juices. We thought that the food couldn't be solely for us, and that Reynaldo and Josefina would join us. But it was indeed all intended for us, and they were quite upset that we didn't manage to eat it all. (Despite never managing to finish the food put in front of us, portion sizes didn't decrease, so we ended up stuffing ourselves massively to avoid offending them. They told us a couple of days later that they were concerned about how thin we are, how little we eat, and in particular my vegetarianism, stating that it would cause me big problems, even going so far as mimicking shooting oneself in the head as a dramatisation of the problems of a vegetarian diet!).

After we had eaten, Reynaldo would sit with us and we would talk. He was a very interesting guy and had a lot to teach us. He used to be a policeman, but quit due to, among other factors, the inherent corruption. Apparently although Fidel and Raul are honest and good-intentioned, the machinations of the state below these heads-of-state are full of nepotism and subsequent inefficiency. He talked basic but good English, so many of our conversations were conducted by us talking in Spanish, and he in English. I played chess with Reynaldo a fair few times, and we all got through a lot of rum. He would tell us about the different ages of rum you could purchase, and would constantly fill and refill our glasses to commemorate any occasion, be it a stressful visit to the embassy or police, our last evening, a free afternoon or pretty much any excuse. When we left, we bought Reynaldo a small bottle of his favourite 3 years-aged white rum to say thank you for all of his help with our many visits to the police (the second visit was to ask for a copy of an official report, or at least a reference number, but we were turned away and told to return the following day, when we were succesful) and to the embassy (to arrange for emergency passports, after our initial visit when we were told that we would have to leave Cuba for Panama as soon as possible, and subsequently arrange new flights, get cash for the emergency passports, and get passport photographs taken - this involved visiting a shop where a chap with a digital camera took a picture of you sat infront of a white wall, and returned an hour and a half later to pick the pictures up) as well as the Copa Air offices. He insisted on us drinking it with him, despite his stocks being depleted already because of us. A tradition in Cuba, according to Reynaldo, is to always offer the first part of a newly opened bottle of rum (and perhaps other drinks) to God, in the form of raising the bottle above your head for a second, before lowering it and pouring a good sized splash onto the floor. In this case it was the floor of the living room, but i'm sure the dogs enjoyed this a little later.

Being tourists

Although over the next few days, which were to be our only days in Cuba, we had to visit the embassy twice, the police twice more, and the airline offices, we endeavoured to see Havana properly and to enjoy what time we had there. So we spent our afternoons ambling through the centre of the city, in both Central Havana and Old Havana, admiring the incredible old buildings in various states of disrepair, the general ambience, avoiding baseballs being hit in games being played on any small bit of open space, seeing the old city walls and castle, and eating peso ice-cream, but only paying one peso for it this time! There were a surprising amount of tourists milling around in the city centre, and one tour group that we could have sworn was being led by Barack Obama. (Cheeky bugger, we thought, not allowing Americans into Cuba but leading blimming tours around the capital city!!) In one small park, the sun must have been getting to me, as I said to a lady sat there, behind a dog that was rolling around in the sun with a big grin on his face, 'you enjoy the sun!', meaning to say that the dog was enjoying the sun, as I was pointing at the dog. To this she replied (in Spanish) 'yes, but it is a little hot today', with a slightly bemused look on her face. (Sarah: I'm compiling a book of all the random things Ben has said to people due to conjugation problems, such as telling a little girl that was begging for money that she didn't speak Spanish!!!)

The only other notable thing we did in Havana was use a semi-posh hotel's swimming pool. They had an arrangement that you could pay 10 CUC to use the pool, and choose 8 CUCs worth of stuff from the bar and snack menu. In this way we spent an enjoyable hour or two on a rooftop terrace by the pool, sipping mojitos, eating a 'vegetable' baguette, that consisted of egg and onion.

But alas, it was time for us to leave, apparently, being that we were not allowed to stay anywhere without passports (Reynaldo and Josefina where really very worried about the police finding out that we were staying at theirs without proper passports), and so we caught an early morning taxi to the airport, and only four days after our Cuban adventure had begun (badly), we were on our way to Panama, a slight deviation from our plans. (You'll be happy to know that we bought a camera at duty free, so the next blog will have pictures!).