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Published: February 5th 2019
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Thursday 31st January
Not too bonkers a start this morning as we had decided to overnight in the Travel lodge in Gatwick. Apparently the M25 was at a standstill for a couple of hours according to some people who made the plane by the skin of their teeth! Just a bit of de icing and we were off quite promptly.....3 films later and we have arrived in Havana....just a balmy 24C! I had allowed 2 hrs to unload, immigration, get our luggage, change money and get a taxi but we actually arrived at our Casa an hour early than I had said. Of course we had one bag through pretty quickly and the other bag about 20mins later but at least it arrived this year!.....
It’s still Thursday evening so chat and drink with our hosts, bit of a walk to get some supper and then a fairly early evening as we are 5hrs.ahead.
Fri 1st. February
We decided that we would look around the area that we are staying in on the outskirts of Havana called Vedado.
• We do love a good cemetery and they have a huge one here, all big white tombs and statues , we did
have a bit of a shock as we walked around, when we passed a group of people standing around one of these tombs, to see amongst some old wooden boards ....some bones and a couple of skulls lying on the path!. They were obviously having a bit of a sort out to get someone else in!... I didn’t take a photo!
• The next couple of days we spent walking around Old Havana and Central. It was obviously a beautiful city at one time and such a great shame that nothing is being done to preserve these buildings. We found it interesting that there didn’t seem to be any local traders selling street food or snacks, any super market’s or shops have hardly anything on the shelves. There’s a shortage of flour and so bread can be hard to come by so there was always huge queues outside any shop.
• On our last morning we hired a vintage convertible to drive us around for about an hour... it’s the thing to do! Our driver was Eduardo and his car was a Chevrolet 1956. It was blue, though I have never seen so many pink cars! some of them were
really beautiful and obviously lots of people asking if you wanted a ride! Quite a good idea to get a car not too close to the cruise ship terminal...####£!
For our last night we went to a club!...a proper one with a queue to get in and bags checked and everything!!
It was called Fabrica and was a combination of about 5 different bars and acts/music and a art gallery so if you didn’t like the music in one bar to could try another one or look at the art. So at the bar we asked for a mojito and the barman said double or single.... well you obviously want to taste the rum so we said double....He then got out, about a litre sized glass about the width of our pint glasses and put about an inch of sugar and lemon juice, filled with ice and then poured, using two bottles of rum ,about most of the way up the glass leaving a few inches for some soda!!and a few sprigs of mint.....it was very strong and very heavy!! Needless to say we didn’t have another one!
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