Days 16 - 17 Havana

---

Day 1,2 Havana

Arrived late Friday in dark. Unexpectedly easy through immigration but waited ages for luggage. Pickup driver (sister of apartment mgr) received me like a long lost friend with kisses on both cheeks. Drive to apartment was in '61 jeep, no doors or seatbelts & hang on for dear life. Poor lighting made for a grim outlook.

Daylight brought a new outlook. Some trial and error diversions with the bus system & we managed to reach our target destination, the old town, a World Heritage Site.

What a contrast. A vast grid of cobbled (often potholed) streets & plazas lined with predominantly colonial mansions, churches, housing & official buildings with conditions ranging from almost complete dereliction to beautiful renovation. All the while hundreds of huge old 50's & 60's era American Customline's, Chevy's, Plymouth's etc filled the streets and loaded up with everyday taxi passengers . The best restored of these cars are parked at the key tourist points offering short tours around the city.

Nearly all bars had some sort of upbeat Cuban jazz music happening & with a few beers at night provided a relaxing end to the day.

After spending much of the next morning organising accommodation & buying bus tickets for our next stop we walked along one of the main arterial roads into the old town again to catch a ferry across to Casa Blanca, a stretegic narrow point overlooking the harbour where the original walled defences were built around the Castillo Los Tres Reyes del Morro. The castle would have been difficult to penetrate having a huge moat surrounding it. The defence was needed as it was one of the final ports for consolidating gold & other treasure looted from around Central & South America before being shipped back to Spain. Pirates were quickly aware of the treasures resting in this & other Cuban ports and were attacked again and again by Dutch, English and French pirates. The Spanish built fort after fort for protection but the English eventually captured the territory and later swapped for Florida.

---

Photos

Capitol Building
Renovation in progress