Hello Havana

Hello Havana – April, 2011

When it came to doing road trips from Varadero, Debbie was happy to share her collection of local knowledge with the cruisers on the docks.  She has accumulated a variety of local maps, lists of casas particular where she or others have stayed as well as tips and tricks to make the trip more enjoyable.  A warning about the “Please buy milk for my baby.” scam was most helpful during our visit to Havana. She even made a phone call to Dagoberto, one of the casa hosts, to let him know that a party of four was headed his way and would be looking for rooms for the night.  

The Viazul bus line offers service to Havana from Veradero several times a day. The trip to the central  bus terminal takes just over 3 hours. If you get off at Habana Vieja (Old Havana) the trip is about half an hour shorter.

The ticketing system is pretty basic (a rubber stamp on a piece of adding machine paper with the date and time hand  written on it) but the buses are air conditioned and quite comfortable.

The highway from Varadero to Havana follows the northeastern coast line. Other than a few fishing boats and some small freighters in the Port of Matanzas, there was very little marine traffic in sight.

DIY pina coladas at a roadside refreshment stop. The bartender fills glasses with mix. Several bottles of Havana Club rum circulate among the customers so they can mix “to taste”. We are still about an hour from Habana Vieja (Old Havana), enough time for a nap if you need it.

We disembarked in Old Havana and made our way on foot to the address we had for Dagoberto  in Centro Habana, just on the edge of Habana Vieja. We arrived to learn that his rooms had been rented to some prior arrivals but not to worry, he knew someone close by with rooms available. Rooms are first come, first served because too many people never show up and they can’t afford to pass up customers. That’s just the way it is.

We stayed at Casa Marie Elena and our travelling companions stayed across the street at another casa. Marie Elena does not speak very much English which gave us a forced opportunity to practice speaking a few words of Spanish.

 Comfortable is not a word often used in association with Cuban beds. This one was passable. The air conditioner worked well and being located in the center of a block of connected buildings, the room was very quiet. The room had two windows. One opened into a shaft that was open to the sky above, the other one held the air conditioner. After putting many miles on our flip flops exploring Old Havana we slept  quite well.

The location of our casa was perfect for exploring Old Havana.  We were just s few blocks from the Capitol Building on the edge of the busy tourist district with more to see than we could manage in our first three day visit. We could only hope to skim the surface.

We “ooohed” and were awed by the abundance of architectural styles. Yes, much of it is crumbling but it was heartening to see just how much restoration is in progress.  If only I could remember a little more of that first year art history class that I took many years ago at the University of Saskatchewan.

We marveled at the survival of National Geographic magazines from the 1940’s on sale in the booksellers square,

…. drank mojitos at Dos Hermanos, an upscale version of one of Ernest Hemingway’s haunts,

 …. witnessed a little propaganda (Translation: “Every Cuban must know how to shoot and shoot well.”),

…. happened on a wedding spilling out onto a busy sidewalk,

…. were impressed by the local eco friendly laundry facilities,

 …. and were invited to the top floor of a semi-abandoned building for an impromptu personal performance by these local afro-Cuban musicians.

That was day one.

We started day 2 with a visit to the Museo de la Revolucion which is housed in the former Presidential Palace of dictator Fulgencio Batista.

 The building has been beautifully maintained and contains many artifacts purported to be from the revolution. Many of the displays have English descriptions so we were able to understand the gist of the message that was being communicated.

After a few hours in the air conditioned museum we were redy to stroll the streets once more. Live entertainment was everywhere…..

A troupe of colourful stilt walkers posed for pictures on the streets.

A crowd gathered around participants from the celtic festival.

 This travelling quartet entertained us more than once  The gentleman on the left is a veteran of the war in Angola and was in charge of collecting tips. Note the mustard and ketchup improvised shakers.

 An open air stage  was the venue for night time modern theatre.

We saw many signs in store windows advising that they would be closed for most of the next day in order to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of socialism in Cuba at a rally in the Plaza de la Revolucion.  When we asked Marie Elena about the event she confirmed that Raul would be in attendance but we would need to arrive by 6 AM if we wanted to see him. A million people were expected to be in attendance.  We weren’t about to set our alarms but decided to set out after breakfast in the general direction of the festivities and see what happened.

 Several streets were decorated for the occasion. Nothing goes to waste in Cuba.

A bici taxi (pedi-cab) took us towards the site of the big celebration. As we approached we could see that crowds of people were already moving in the opposite direction from us. The streets were lined with hundreds of buses waiting for them. We spent a couple of hours just watching the well behaved  crowds.

 Che was well represented on the many posters carried by the celebrants.

Dagoberto arranged for this taxi to take us back to Varadero.