Blogs from Cuba, Central America Caribbean - page 57

Drenched in a tropical thunderstorm I peer through the doorway into Ernest Hemingway’s writing room, the top room in an observatory adjoining Finca Vigia his home on the outskirts of Havana. His typewriter, a battered old black machine, still has a sheet of paper in it. Here it is that he wrote his Pulitzer winning book The Old Man and the Sea. We are not allowed inside. The house is kept just as Hemingway lived in it. Some people are annoyed. They hadn’t read the small print saying we would only be able to view through open windows and doorways. ... read more

This is a look inside Ernest Hemingway's Observatory/writing tower. Its full of books, paintings, giant telescope and a big counch. All that's missing are the cigars and alcohol.... read more

Havana Get fortune told in the Old Square by a flamboyant Cuban woman with lots of rings on her fingers who speaks no English and I speak no Spanish. She has a friend who acts as interpreter. After much slapping of thighs she announces I have trouble with my knees. "You don’t need to pay 10 dollars to be told that," says Malcolm. OK I was conned. So what. It added to the carnival atmosphere. ... read more

Cuba Our arrival into Havana is like something out of an old film set. Crowds gather on deck as we enter the port, heavily guarded by old world canons. Last week Thomson Dream generated worldwide media coverage, as the first British cruise ship to be allowed into Cuba. We are told that our visit will be the last. For political reasons Thomson will not be going again. We are about to step into a time warp though not all passengers share this sense of occasion. I bump into an aquaintance in the ship’s lift. ‘You going ashore?” “No…can’t is bothered. You got to change your money and you may not be get it back. Lot of palaver. No…I am not going.” ... read more

Cuba surprises, on occasions frustrates, and sometimes just completely takes your breath away. After Vinales, we spent a week in the beautiful colonial city of Trinidad located on Cuba’s southern Caribbean coast. It is stunning – cobblestone streets, both restored and crumbling stone houses, and of course a beautiful stretch of Caribbean beach. It was once a wealthy Spanish town built on slavery and the sugar industry. It also has the apparently normal history for towns of this region of being plundered repeatedly by English pirates; some like Francis Drake were later ‘rewarded’ by the English with knighthoods. We managed to rent a whole house to ourselves – mainly to have some personal space which is not really something you have when staying in a normal casa particular (you are in the middle of a Cuban ... read more