5 days in La Habana

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I’ve moved into a new casa particular, owned by a lovely couple, Anita and Jorge - they live below Yamelis and Federico and but also have this house… some kind of loophole so they don’t really live here but can rent it. It’s a much better deal for a permanent stay than Casa Federico, which is really set up for tourists. Here I pay $CUC 450 a month which includes breakfast and dinner (huge tasty portions, there’s lots of fresh juice and she even manages to get hold of tomatoes which I haven’t seen in any of the markets!). There’s a German girl living here too, Corina, here for a semester to study psychology.

The apartment is on a main road, Infanta, opposite a Catholic Church, near the uni and the Malecón. It’s on the top floor so you get a great view of Habana. The only thing that I was worried about b4 moving here was the noise but I’ve slept ok so far. We share the top floor with another apartment - the family of Lily, an adorably friendly and funny woman who could suffocate you in her huge, voluptuous body! She cooks for us and is always around, unlike Anita, who I haven’t seen since I moved in! Lily also has two rooms for students, which as yet are empty. The apartment is always buzzing with people; also living there are her husband, Chino, youngest son, Dacio and there’s a guy, Chapa who works there. She has two other kids who no longer live with them. The older son is doing military service and lives with his girlfriend, and her daughter, a stunning model, lives in Sicily with her husband. Seems that marrying foreigners is common (esp beautiful Cubanas with distinctly average looking bald Italians!) and most people have at least one relation who has immigrated.

Before choosing this house I looked around four others, one of which I really liked: it was on a quieter road, the hosts seemed lovely and it had a cute small balcony but it was full. Another was actually an illegal one… a dodgy deal which I would’ve been leaping into a nasty risky hole if I had taken (for $CUC 300 a month but not worth the inevitable problems). A woman (the sister of the artist who did the murals in Callejón de Hamel, how we found this set up and as she liked to repeat) kept telling us how “aquí está muy seguro, muy seguro” (its very safe here)… somehow after hearing that soooo many times it started to become less and less convincing.

On Thursday after moving in, Corina and I went to the Hotel Nacional to use the pool for free… we just walked past the woman at the desk who tried calling us back saying “Hola! Hola!”… after about 5 mins, before I’d had time to dive in, the bitch came over and asked us: “Are you guests at this hotel? What room number please? Are. You. Staying. here?” Our plan (that we were German and couldn’t understand her…) did not work!! Maybe because I can’t speak German. Anyway, after refusing to pay the extortionate $CUC18 entrance price, we got chucked out! L Not one to give up easily, I decided we should go round the back where they have another pool, simpler and no bar, but quiet, cool, refreshing and free!! Today, Saturday, I went again this time with Gabriel… sin problemas… sweet as!

On Friday Corina and I checked out the beach - Santa Maria del Mar at Playas del Este. It was disappointingly busy but other than that, the classic, (almost!) perfect Caribbean beach. We parked our white asses in a spot along the 50km of white sandiness that makes up Playas del Este, to the east of La Habana. The petty crime rate on the beaches is notoriously high, but it is well policed… very well policed. We had our personal policia while we were there (sometimes two), dressed completely in white… down to the white Converse Hi-tops… what a dude!

Friday night we (Gabriel, Corina & yo) were invited by Daniel, the son of Magaly where G is staying, to go to a bar/film café called Fresa y Chocolate (after the famous Cuban film) for a monthly event where they show some new arty short films or documentaries done by the INCIN (or something like that - Cuban film institute) and after is a party. We got there just as the film was finishing unfortunately but stayed for the party. Met some wicked people… a much nicer crowd than anywhere I’ve been so far - chilled out, arty, studenty types who seemed cool…until the music turned to cheese… then they didn’t seem quite so cool getting overexcited about the Men In Black theme, Spice Girls, YMCA, Chere, Backstreet Boys (yes, really) and other “tunes” that reminded me of primary school discos!! The night at the café ended quite early - 1ish, so Daniel’s friends decided to wander down to the Malecón con una botella de RON til the early hours. That’s the favourite thing to do at night here, the whole stretch of the Malecón is packed with people hanging out and passing the bottle around. Earlier on in the evenings you see people of all ages there, people walking up and down selling pop-corn, chicle, peanuts or plastic roses, and the odd musician serenading someone.

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