Advertisement
Published: September 3rd 2006
Edit Blog Post
San Cristobal
Claire´s favourite cathedral in old Havana Hola from Cuba!
Three days after wearing beanies, gloves and fleeces for a hike in the Yorkshire Dales, we stumbled into the Cuban heat. The daytime temperatures are much the same as in Brisbane, but night minimums and the humidity are much more like Darwin in summer.
We still have no photos, and will add some when we can get hold of them, and find a computer terminal that doesn´t have all its software locked down. This may not be until we leave Cuba.
Some first impressions... Everywhere we have been we are awed and inspired by the architecture. It is, of course, heavily influenced by colonial Spanish, with Moorish touches thrown in, but with a very Cuban flavour. Even though a lot of it is crumbling, it remains stunning. In the old buildings, the ceilings are about 6.5 to 7 metres high, and the doors and windows often 4 metres high, in an attempt to keep the interiors cool.
The sunsets are also stunning. At this time of year, the hurricane season, there is not much colour in the evening sky because of the afternoon build-up of thunderheads. However, the cloudscapes with touches of
Sunset
Cloudscape over El Morro, Havana sunset colours are beautiful and huge, and remind us how insignificant humans are in the scale of the natural world.
Apart from the unrelenting heat, Cuba is a land of contrasts. Love him or hate him, one can´t help but admire Fidel. Whatever Cubans´personal political views, all the locals we´ve spoken with admire his intelligence and his strategic skills. We have been surprised by the number of official murals of him and Che that we have seen all over the country. Often they include one of the other national heroes, such as Camilo Cienfuegos, José Martí and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. We are impressed with what socialism has achieved here. For example, as we understand it, life expectancy is 74 for men and 78 for women, the adult literacy rate is 96% or so, and everyone has a home, free health care, and free education to university level. Certainly the people we have met are articulate and knowledgeable.
Of course, music is everywhere. And it´s mostly fantastic. One hears it drifting (or powering!) out of bars and homes, as well as the streets. As well as the expected son, salsa and other traditional genres, we have been surprised
Che
Looming above gatekeeper at the Ministry of the Interior to discover that Cuba has an internationally regarded rap and hip hop scene, and there is a huge festival devoted to these held every year in Habana.
Cubans also have a rich heritage of dance, sculpture, painting, and these, along with music, seem to be well- funded by the government. (They seem to be much better supported than Australian arts.)
Without our bikes we have been restricted to travelling by bus, mostly to provincial capitals. Although we had intended to cycle the byways and villages, there have been compensations to moving around by bus. We have visited lovely towns we would never have seen otherwise, such as Baracoa, a good 1,000 kilometres from Habana. It is the site of the first Spanish settlement in Cuba (in 1512), and became accessible by road only 40 years ago.
More soon! Hasta luego.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.286s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 23; qc: 107; dbt: 0.1147s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Helena
non-member comment
Bikes
Good to see that loss of your bikes is not slowing you down! I have just bought a second-hand little Dahon folder for scooting around town. Very exciting! Humidity is already rising here, though all is forgiven the weather for treating us to a whole week of rain! Have fun, Helena