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Published: January 13th 2013
Havana
Sunset on the MaleconDay 449 Wednesday 2
nd January
Headless Chook that is my story today, woke up ready to move on and we went down to breakfast at 8.00am, knowing that it starts at 6.30am so we were not too early. So far this hotel has been great and it should be for the price but today there was hardly anything for breakfast and when we asked for an omelette which had been offered on other mornings we were told “NO” and then some very long winded story in Spanish. I walked out to reception and asked what was happening and he quickly rang the kitchen and had a terse conversation with them and then said they should be putting out breakfast for us now. Walked back in and saw the head man come out of the kitchen with a huge plate of food and plonk himself down at a table and start to eat in front of us. No food came out for us so we guessed it was his way of saying “F you I’m not giving you any” so we left and commented to reception, not a great start to the day.
Finished packing
Havana
Tourist area of Habana Vieja and checked the internet to see if the payment for our flight had gone through but there was still no confirmation – no problem we will go to the airport early and sort it out as we have the reservation. We booked a taxi which costs 300 bol (AUD$67) to the airport and were soon on our way albeit at about 10km/hr as we hit bumper to bumper traffic. We finally made it to the airport and were confronted by the holiday crush there were queues on top of queues. We lined up at Cubana Air and after about 30 minutes made it to the counter where our reservation drew blank responses. This counter was chaotic and shambolic with staff running everywhere they took our passports and told us to wait and we did, we saw another couple buying tickets over the counter and then we were told that the plane was full. We got the distinct feeling that we were bumped – OH Shit – what do we do now? There was no way we could afford another night in Caracas let alone the cab fare there and back again. We ran up to the internet café and looked
Havana
The magnificent Barcadi Rum Building at other flights and saw Copa Airlines had a flight at 6.30pm so we booked that only to get the same message reserved but not confirmed – damn. Grabbed all our bags and went down to the check-in counter here at least we were told our seats were reserved but not paid for and they do not accept credit cards, so the man gave me a phone number and code to make payment. We did not have a phone card so we couldn’t use the public phones but I remembered seeing a Moviestar (South American phone company) office with phone booths so I left Scott with the bags and started my mad running. After a few minutes found the phone booths and started to dial but nothing was happening, frustrated I asked the counter “WHY” only to be told this number does not work here; I think maybe it is a toll free number.
Next move I went to Tourist Information who did not speak any English and did not seem keen on my bad Spanish, no problem there are plenty of tourist offices. Next place no and then I stumbled across another tour place and the guy said
Havana
Lions on the main drag of Prado yes he could help and no problem use their phone to call the airline. He rang for me and made sure I got through to the right section and was put on hold awaiting the next operator. Thirty minutes later I was still on hold and the staff said no problem which was really nice of them. Eventually I got through to an English speaking operator and explained the situation and the booking numbers which took him ages to find only to be told that I would have to contact my travel agent which I nicely tried to explain was the internet and I could not do that. Finally he said the only way I could do it was to rebook and pay but the price may be different, but at this stage I didn’t care just do it, so back on hold I went. A couple of minutes later he came back and said the flight is booked out and that is why my payment was not accepted – OH ****. Dejected I made my way back to Scott who thought I had fallen into a Black Hole and told him what had happened we grabbed the bags and
Havana
One of the many forts around the town started to wander, sent an email to Leo at Casa Particular (accommodation in Cuba) letting him know we were having trouble and we will keep him posted. We stopped at the counter that let me make the phone call and asked if they could check when the next available flight to Cuba was and they said tomorrow and we should go directly to the airline counter as we should be able to get it cheaper and pay by credit card. Backpacks back on we trudged downstairs again to some unheard of airline and queued up, while waiting we both had a niggling feeling we should go back to Copa Airlines as initially they said there was a reservation. Left Scott again and ran across and this time I got a lady who spoke good English making it easy to explain the situation, she said yes there are seats for us but I have to ring this number….”NO”. I told her I had done that only to be told there were no seats, she said do I have a credit card….”YES”…. Oh no it is with Scott so off I was running like a mad woman. Got Scott, the bags and
Havana
A garden bed of old cannons we ran back to the counter were she proceeded to do the payment with my credit card and check our bags in, I can’t believe it we are on the flight. So with 2.5 hours to spare we ran back to the internet café to let Leo know we were on our way but could he let the Casa know we would not be there till after midnight. Now we had time to breath and I realised I was busting to go to the toilet as we had left the hotel at 10.00am and it was now after 4.00pm it is amazing what you can ignore when you are in a flap. Six hours of lining up phoning and arguing but at least we will be finally escaping Venezuela.
We sat on the floor in the departure lounge – never enough seats and read and finally calmed down, we boarded early; a first for us and left early. We are now heading to Panama for a short stop and here we brought our Tourist Cards at the check-in counter of Copa, these are mandatory for entering Cuba and cost $US 20.00 each. Back on the connecting plane and off
Havana
The restored old chemist to La Habana (Havana) Cuba arriving just before midnight, concerned we may have forgotten some paperwork and would be rejected, but we breezed through a little faster than we expected and were worried we may have missed a section like customs and an x-ray machine. Got money from an ATM which is CUC (tourist money) and the locals use pesos guess we will work it out as we go along.
Outside the airport there were lots of people so we thought it would be ages before we could get a taxi but a man said “taxi” and we were on our way. OMG I can’t believe I am in Cuba I have always wanted to come here so under an amazing moon lighting up the sky and passing 1950’s yank tanks we made our way to town, it is like a dream. Arrived at the Casa (home) we are staying at and were greeted warmly by Lisette who runs this one and shown to our room which is very comfortable and has a private bathroom. I think we were both asleep before our heads hit the pillow.
Day 450 Thursday 3
rd January
Havana
Street murals Got up ready to see what Havana has to offer, Lisette gave us a rundown on dangers and what to see before we headed out. We have opted not to have breakfast at the Casa as there are so many cafes around. We walked around the foreshore before making our way into Vieja Habana and through the second hand booksellers and the amazing old buildings. About 11.30am we decided to look for a café to have what was now closer to lunch than breakfast so we stopped at Café Paris and ordered a coffee and sandwich. Before our meal arrived the band was set up and music was filling the place and unlike so many other countries we have passed through here they can sing and play. At the end a tray is passed around for tips and there was no hassle also unlike other places. Can I say even Scott is smiling and although early days is enjoying Cuba and getting into the vibe.
Habana Vieja, which translates as Old Havana, is the cultural and tourist hub of Havana and it was here back in the 1970’s that Cuba started a process of restoring the splendour
Havana
Typical street view in Vieja Havana away from the tourists of the old town. The process continues today and is run by the City Historian’s office led by an enthusiastic guy called Eusebio Leal Spengler, and has been so successful that they are pushing out the restoration projects into other Havana suburbs and into other Cuban cities. To try and give you an idea of the task at hand you have to realise that Havana has been little altered since sometime in the 1900’s and to add to the work there has been next to no maintenance since the day they were built. Everywhere you look there are buildings either restored to their former glory or in complete decay, but generally the latter. In the heart of Habana Vieja where the bulk of the restoration work has been done most of the streets are packed with tourists but thankfully it hasn’t overwhelmed completely the great vibe of the place. Walk a few blocks in any direction away from the tourist spots and you find yourself amongst the locals living their lives in rundown apartment blocks, or the local butcher with only two bits of meat on offer, or perhaps the local convenience store with about half a shelf of items
Havana
Che watching over a barbers chair on sale. It is great walking around the tourist area with all the cafes and all the shops selling touristy stuff but the best experience is just strolling the back streets taking in the more real side of Havana.
Back in the 1990’s when tourism was taking off in Cuba, the Government started to worry about the country being flooded with foreign currencies and so set up a dual currency called “convertibles” or as they are known today CUC’s (cooks). The CUC’s are worth approximately $1 AUS/US and the local currency, the Cuban Peso which the locals are paid is worth about 25pesos to the $1. Now to give you an idea of the difference between what we can buy and what a local can buy, the wages in Cuba are fixed so that you get paid in a range of 250 to 900 pesos a month, which is 10.4 to 27.5 CUC’s a month. It is good for us to walk into a bar in the tourist area and order a couple of beers which cost 1.5 CUC’s each, which is about $1.50 but costs the locals 36 pesos….a huge slice of the monthly salary. Of course the
Havana
The capital Building locals get stuff cheaper away from the tourist area when paying in Pesos, but if they want to get ahead they need to be getting CUC’s and that leads to them trying to acquire/pester/scam them from tourists. A lot of locals (even doctors) end up doing a second job as a taxi driver or waiter to make ends meet or as we encountered wandering the streets trying their hand at scamming money. The most common is befriending you and then giving out advice on what to see and do followed by a plea for milk for their baby, which you can buy at a nearby shop, where they will get a cut. Generally don’t give money out and didn’t here, but it does at times make you feel like the world’s biggest bastard. Thankfully most don’t look too malnourished and they are never too pushy and it’s easy to escape and the whole thing feels like a cottage industry rather than a real plea for help. The upside of how this country works of course is that Cubans get free education, free health care and basic food supplies for next to nothing, so whatever money they make they spend on
Havana
Havana traffic “luxuries”. Unfortunately the lure of CUC’s are driving people out of other jobs and into areas where they rub shoulders with tourists.
We had a fantastic day just looking around the town taking in the sights till 5, when we headed back to our home. At 6, Leo the guy we had been emailing at
www.casaparticularcuba.org came around to talk to us and give us some more advice about his town and country. We knew he was turning up tonight and had been worried we were going to be in for a hard sell but in the end it was just a courtesy call as well as giving us bus timetables, and contact details for other Casa Particulars in Cuba. Casa Particulars are as explained before are where someone can rent a room out for a tourist or local traveller at a fixed rate of between 20 – 35 CUC’s a night and they pay the Government tax every month of 150 CUC, regardless if they have anyone or not. Now remember that incomes are fixed at an equivalent of 10.4 to 27.5 CUC’s a month so you can understand that everyone wants a tourist staying with them.
Havana
The classic cars of Havana The Government makes sure any rooms on offer are up to scratch and meet a certain requirement and the company we went through does a second go to make sure you get the better places. Now what you get for your money isn’t the Hilton (nor should you expect it), and you are living in the spare room of a family home but it is a great experience. Our first casa experience with Lisette was very easy and she was so lovely and the room was great with its own bathroom with hot water, so we couldn’t ask for more. Leo from the company “Casa Particulars” spent an hour with us and seemed so passionate not only about the company he worked for but also Cuba in general, it gave us a the impression that although the country was still having a few difficulties they were destined for bigger and better things.
After Leo left we wandered along the Malecon, which is the century’s old seawall that protects the oceanside esplanade till we found a restaurant for dinner. The place we ended up at was so swanky with bow tied waiters and white tablecloths with polished cutlery…we felt like
Havana
Street view near our home we had landed on Mars. Got an amazing feed and with beer and cocktails it came to 32 CUC’s $32, which is less than we paid for a pizza hut pizza in Venezuela…things are looking up. On the way back from the restaurant we stopped at a small bar called “Prado 21” just around the corner from our home where we sat down for a beer and cocktail. Within a few minutes we had a trio of old boys jamming away on some great Cuban tunes whilst watching 1950’s Buicks, Plymouths and Cadillacs cruise past. We just about had to pinch ourselves to believe we were here, this was no Disneyland it was the real deal. Before we knew it the time was after 11 and we could have stayed there a lot longer but felt guilty about staggering back to someone else’s home so late and so we said our goodbyes and headed off. Of course when we got back to our home “grandma” Lisette’s mother answered the door just to make us feel extra guilty, made us feel like we were teenagers again. Perhaps this is the only negative to the casa particulars is our guilt as I
Havana
Fidel Castro´s jeep am sure they are used to people arriving back at all hours, note she actually just smiled and let us in so it was no worries.
Day 451 Friday 4
th January
After such a fantastic day yesterday we were keen to get up and get back into Havana, and we started with going back up to the bar we were at last night where we could get breakfast. We got a great breakfast and a Cuban sandwich, which is basically a huge slab of pork, ham and cheese on bread. Over our stay in Cuba we discovered that the recipe is certainly not as heavily enforced as other Government policies.
After our feed we headed down to the Cuban art gallery to get a feel of local culture. The gallery is housed in one of the very few modern buildings in Havana and covers all aspects of Cuban art from early to modern with religious art and sculptures and took us nearly three hours to wander through. We got a dual ticket for 8 CUC’s that allowed us to visit the second “International art gallery”, which we opted to visit
Havana
Museum of the Revolution collection tomorrow as there is only so much art you can look at in one day. Instead of seeing more art we walked across the road to the Museum to the Revolution to get a good dose of recent Cuban history. The museum is set in a magnificent old building with an adjoining modern annexe holding the large hardware and sets out the history of how Fidel and Co took Cuba and still holds it today. How much of what is shown and told in this museum is utter bullshit is hard to know as being from the “capitalist west”, we have been fed our own version of utter bullshit. Somewhere in between the truth lies, but the fact remains that on November 25
th 1956, 81 men (including Che Guevara, Fidel and Raul Castro) landed on a Cuban shore from a boat called “Granma” and by December 1958 had taken control of the whole of Cuba from the dictator Batista. Since then the USA has continued perhaps the world’s most stupidest embargoes, tried to assassinate Fidel countless times and even made an armed invasion of Cuba (the Bay of Pigs Fiasco) in an attempt to reinstall a more sympathetic dictatorship. Of
Havana
Museum of the Revolution opinion of previous US Presidents course Fidel and his Government are no “Country Women’s Association” and have ruthlessly suppressed all opposition and media but I guess you can sort of understand why the guy is a bit paranoid. After looking though the museum we wandered out to the “hardware” section where they had the original “Grandma” boat which they landed in Cuba preserved behind glass as well as assorted other revolutionary artefacts. We had Castro’s jeep, complete with bullet holes, a Sea Fury fighter plane used at the Bay of Pigs and a jet engine from an American U2 spy plane that was shot down over Cuba, certainly an interesting collection.
After this museum we were once again drawn back into old Havana, which is just such a joy to wander. Had a good look through the used book market in one of the plaza’s as well as the many new book stores and discovered that there is only three types of books available in Cuba, books on Fidel, books on Che, or books on Fidel and Che. This isn’t maybe brainwashing but perhaps brainwashing due to lack of choice. To be fair Michele did spot a Danielle Steel novel, but I don’t think
Havana
Cars and forts of Havana you could classify that as an alternative and if Amnesty International finds out about it Fidel could be in for real trouble.
We ended up stopping at a bar in the backstreets of old Havana for a few drinks just taking in the Cuban vibe. At this time of the day the streets were flooded with people on the way home from work, guys riding around in bikes selling groceries and kids running riot. At one point a mother appeared on a balcony above screaming out for her little boy to come home, perhaps for dinner. He duly appeared and screamed that he didn’t want to and after 5 minutes of arguing he ran off again to play with friends. This is the world before everything was consumed by Sony Playstations, computers and mobile phones and it is refreshing to be experiencing it. I am not saying that consumerism doesn’t exist or that this is a trouble free environment but there is something quite amazing about the whole feel of Havana.
We then took off and wandered aimlessly along the foreshore till we found ourselves at a restaurant that perhaps wasn’t the best place for a feed. After
Havana
Our street sitting down and ordering we realised it was a big touristy sort of joint and our feed was a bit overpriced but considering wasn’t too bad. On the way home we had to once again stop at our favourite bar where we were once again serenaded by a trio of musicians whilst playing “name that yank tank”. After our bit of a late night last night we had good intentions of getting home early for “grandma” but oopps probably got a bit carried away to the point I (Scott) cannot quite remember going home other than a vague memory of Grandma letting us through the door….my mother can probably relate to this. Shelley was drinking Mojito’s and I beer and then Cuba Libre’s (rum and coke) and our bill came to $22……a nice change from Venezuela where one beer cost $8.
Day 452 Saturday 5
th January
For breakfast today we tried out yet another café and once again our Spanglish failed us and we didn’t quite get what we had thought we ordered, but it was good, cheap and the coffee was great. From here we wandered down to the art
Havana
The area around our home gallery international, which is the second art museum in Havana and covers all the art in the world other than Cuba. We had picked up a dual ticket with the Cuban art gallery yesterday and so it got the entrance at a reduced rate. Of course I couldn’t find the ticket and we walked all the way back to our home thinking I had left it there only to discover it was in my wallet all the time….glad we enjoy walking.
The art gallery was fairly good and included Greek and Roman pottery and art as well as an Egyptian mummy along with art from France, England, USA and Spain. There were some really lovely pieces of art, but I must admit after looking at the stuff for two days we were starting to feel a bit “arted out”. We then headed in search of bus tickets out of town and managed to pick them up at a tour office at the Seville Hotel. At the rear of the Seville Hotel and across the road is the magnificent old Barcardi Rum Headquarters which used to be based here till Castro came along. It is a great piece of architecture
Havana
Monument near the Malecon and is topped with the Barcardi bat. From here we dived back into old Havana to find an internet café we had passed yesterday. The Internet is strictly enforced here in Cuba, which may be as a result of how effective Castro and Co used the radio in his day and they really don’t want mass media biting them in the bum. Things are changing in Cuba but at present what we understand is that no one other than businesses can have internet and locals can only use it at Government Internet offices (cafes) where it is heavily monitored. It is strange for us having internet generally all the time and being able to jump on it morning and night and now nothing. Only the top hotels have computers with internet and as far as I can tell none have WiFi.
We found the Government run Entesac office and lined up for ten minutes before we could get through the door and buy an internet card. Down the back were 3 computers all taken which we had to wait till one was available, and had to wait longer when a pair of tourists jumped ahead of us. I don’t
Havana
Street art and monuments know why but the rudeness of other tourists never fails to astonish us, Should have probably made a scene about it but didn’t want to sink to their level. Finally got on the computer and got to check our emails and what was happening in the world and by the time we left it was after 4 so we went looking for a bar.
Late in the afternoon we strolled up to the Malecon to watch the sunset and mingle with the locals, it was such a great way to finish our first visit to Havana. Tomorrow we are heading onto explore the rest of Cuba and are hoping it is as good as Havana.
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Andrea
Pleased to see you opted for Casa Particulars over hotels! You will really enjoy the rest of the island, each town has its own charm, and I loved all the spanglish mishaps. You may realize the best food will be found at your homestay, especially as you get farther from Havana. Have a wonderful time!