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Published: January 18th 2009
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We had arranged a CUC3 breakfast with Nicolas and were met at 0800 by a huge bowl of fruit, scrambled eggs, a loaf of bread, a glass of grapefruit juice and a jug of coffee. By 0830 we were pounding the pavement on the Malecon, the waterfront road heading towards Habana Vieja - old Havana.
Cuba is just how I imagined it would be - beautiful but decrepit architecture, locals fishing off the rocks, kids running through the narrow streets and old Yankee cars spilling exhaust fumes into the air as they rattle past.
We’d barely been walking 30 minutes when we stumbled on Plaza 13 de Marzo and the impressive Museo de la Revolucion - the former presidential palace and home of Fulgencio Batista the infamous president overthrown in the revolution of 1959. The museum CUC5 had displays from the first and second civil wars of the late 19th century through to present day but the bulk of the items were related to the period from the attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953 to the missile crisis of October 1962.
Amongst the items of interest were Che Guevara’s famous beret, Fidel Castro’s revolutionary army clothing along
with the tail of an American plane shot down during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and the Granma - the boat that Fidel, Che and the army took from Mexico to Cuba to begin the revolution.
I had spent almost a year prior to the trip studying the history of Cuba and to see these items in person was just an indescribable feeling. We didn’t get out of the museum until 1300 - I think Jo was ready to leave an hour or so earlier though.
We continued several blocks east to old Havana and followed the walking tour from Lonely Planet past Cathedral de San Cristobal de la Habana (with two odd spires) and into Plaza de Armas where the locals who weren’t trying to sell us horse-drawn cart tours, cigars or hash, sold books about the revolution and it’s characters. The narrow cobblestone streets were surrounded by old buildings and 18th century churches and opened out to tree lined plazas every few blocks.
We found lunch on a pier by the water - two bowls of fish soup and a huge seafood paella containing a lobster CUC24 with a Bucanero, the local beer.
We found a market selling arts and crafts - several of which we would have purchased if we were at the end of our Cuban adventure rather than the start, before we walked back through central Habana to see the Capitolio Nacional - the building that houses the Cuban academy of science and looks not dissimilar to the US capital building.
By 1800 we were hot and tired and caught a cab back to Casa Nova CUC4. I had a shower and we spent most of the rest of the night drinking ron (rum) daiquiris (six or more each) at Floridita - one of Ernest Hemingway’s old haunts. Dinner was a huge plate of shrimps with rice for Jo and chicken and rice for me at CUC10 - a good meal at a reasonable price.
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