Four days in Havana
Feb 24th, 2013, 07:28 AM
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2012
Posts: 45
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Four days in Havana
February 2013
Jose Marti International airport. Havana Cuba.
First impressions- the down escalator doesn´t work. Immigration was polite and took my ID photo US style. My driver met me in a battered nineteen fifties Dodge that wallowed alarmingly around corners.
I was reminded of the drive in from New Dehli airport with the parched scruffy suburbs, more people in India of course; but here also cattle, horse drawn carts, goat drawn carts. There were of course no posters of Sachin selling you Gillette razor blades but plenty exhorting the public to more socialism- this in contrast to the current government policy of less socialism and more freedom for small businesses...
I stayed in a casa privada, not in fact a house but a four-bed apartment in a faded Art Deco villa now past its prime with faded paint and a mouldy entrance hall. Maria´s furniture was of heavy commodes in French Baroque accessorized with Dralon sofas and a fine collection of millefiori ashtrays usually full with Maria´s daily quotient. The casa is called Casa Art Deco and costs $25 per night including aircon and a bathroom. She has been running this lodging service for a year following Raul´s reforms. The address on Ave Linea is a main artery north to south down to the water front and to the Malecon: the supposed promenade of the city but in fact a pavement bordered on one side by a six lane freeway and on the other by the crashing waves over the sea wall. It was nevertheless a favourite gathering point for young Cubans.
Continuing down Malecon you come to the Historic Centre where I spent most of my time.
And it is historic. Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Caribbean sets the tone for the story of the English Navy taking control of the warm waters and the treasure, and finally taking Havana from the Spanish governor in 1762 and bargaining the state of Florida in return for quitting the walled city. Ironically we English should have held onto Havana as we lost Florida to the republican armies of General Greene, not twenty years later.
Havana had been the capital of New Spain when Cortes turned up with plans to overthrow Montezuma and the Aztec Empire. Sensing that this would diminish his power base, the governor in Havana told Cortes to return but Cortes burned his boats and took Mexico City anyway. The governor was livid- he had a lovely life in his walled city with fine villas and churches- and just perfectly situated on the trade winds for supplies from the Mother Country. And in the end New Spain was run from Mexico.
Today the old quarter has clumps of architectural time throughout its surface.
There is the old church of St Francis, the Dominican cathedral, the Jesuit influence. The colonial buildings of the Presidential Palace. The courtyards of the rich sugar merchants. Then the art nouveau in 1900 and the neo-classical style beloved by bankers in 1910 and finally Art Deco in profusion in the thirties and the fine Hotel Nacional on the Malecon.
After the revolution the architecture becomes Stalin and Ceausescu.
I loved the Nacional with its gardens fit for the high functionaries of brother Communist states. That day all the dining areas were reserved for the Russian delegation whose three Jumbo Ilyushin-96 s were parked at Marti airport during my entire visit. I took a glass of white wine for a couple of quid from the garden bar and watched the sun go down on the Caribbean while all the Nacional staff came up from the kitchens and the lower depths to greet our brothers from Russia, here to help us with oil exploration; and with helpful advice as they, the Russkies, have been through Perestroika: right.
“Listen Raul old chap you had better retire, take a cigar and sit on a beach. We need to find a fit young man from the Office of National Vigilance to take over. Man who takes his shirt off and kills tigers. No tigers no matter; anyway next President for life. Then Cuba you sell off the big assets to a few friends. They keep most of the money- we thought one of them could buy Dynamo Moskva- Stalin´s team, good heritage- and they give some back to the New People´s Party. Everybody happy. Then you discontinue the soft peso and the old babushkas can sell lemonade on the street make a few kopeks or pesos. Quite picturesque actually. Anyway don´t call that tall Frenchwoman in the Chanel suits and the big teeth- she make you give the money back to the people after all her reforms. So, na zdaroviya comrades, more vodka.”
In the central squares of the old town the nineteenth century courtyard buildings with high ceilings have been targeted by the state organ Habanaguanex for restoration and conversion into restaurants bars and cafes; and very nice they are too.
But outside this hive of activity lies an area between the old town and the grand hotels of the Parque Central where there is no renovation. I was reminded of Piranesi drawings of wooden scaffolding, augmented in today´s Havana by washing lines, repair shops for bicycles, cheap counters selling coffee. All lit by 15watt bulbs and attended by bored youth and their grannies watching telly in the sitting rooms onto the street.
Back in the old quarter are the two Hemingway bars of high repute: the Bodeguitta del Medio for mojitos and the Floridita for his daiquiris- the latter being more upmarket, a bit less crowded and more expensive. Between these two poles of tourist attraction lie a dozen or so bars all with live music in the style of Buena Vista Social Club. With bongos and maracas.
Up a few streets from Maria´s flat you can see the daily struggle. The queues for the pay phone, the bank, the money change, the market to open, the bread shop. There were no queues for the pharmacy because there were no medicines to buy. Everyone has a ration book to buy rice, bread and beans. And milk if you have a child.
But anything else you might want to buy especially if it has packaging must be bought with CuCs the hard currency- valued at one for one with the $.So Maria is now affluent as she pulls in hundreds of Cucs from her guests; and her neighbour makes a few bob running them to the airport at $25 a time.
Bu all the state employees - i.e. most folk -are paid in MNs which are worth nothing and buy nothing. Employment by the state is valued as a job for what you can steal or influence. In fact there are two economies: Communism with the MN and capitalism with the strong peso Cuc. As soon as they abolish the weak peso, like Russia abandoned the weak rouble, then Communism is over.
The old cars are a delight of course- the ones that are polished and loved; and come straight out of Miami South Beach central casting circa 1955. Most of them are not so well preserved and burn up heavy palls of smoking pollution. The workhorse car of choice is the Fiat Russian Lada, along with a few Moskvich and Volgas with Cyrillic branding. I was touched to see a few Hillmans and Austins from the same era as my childhood. The only modern cars I saw were driven by the police and those that were provided for the Russian delegation outside the Nacional.
The tour buses are Yutongs from the People´s Republic of China and very smart they are too.
The only consistent advice you read on money to spend is to bring euros or Canadian dollars in cash. Well fair enough if you are on a tour group and everything is prepaid and you only have to spend money on mojitos and Che Guevara T shirts. But today´s independent tourists like me and others that I met, need lots of cash to pay for rooms and food and transport. Contrary to received wisdom you can in fact change Amex TCs at the Cadeca office in the basement of the Nacional. In the big Cadecas there are ATMS advertising Visa and MasterCard; and I saw European queuing up to use them- I don’t know if they worked. You can cash in Mexican pesos and $ for Cucs but they are unloved by the money changers.
A tourist can live quite well on $10 for dinner and a few bucks for beers. A taxi in town costs $ 5 to a tourist- a fraction of that cost to a local who will happily share a cab with six others.
The city seems safe- only the army and police carry guns- and the guards at the bank just carry sticks. If the government cancels the MN, they might need to up the security to quell the street riots.
Hugo Chavez is the big donor: daily container ships of petrol. If he dies, what then?
If the state can´t pay the army wages or the pensions.
Nobody wants their cane sugar or the bananas.
Without the volume of US tourists they are playing in small waters. They need the rows and rows of US airlines that sit at Cancun airfield.
I give it five years: till the day nobody on the state payroll gets paid and the army refuses to shoot into the crowd.
Andrew Thatcher
Jose Marti International airport. Havana Cuba.
First impressions- the down escalator doesn´t work. Immigration was polite and took my ID photo US style. My driver met me in a battered nineteen fifties Dodge that wallowed alarmingly around corners.
I was reminded of the drive in from New Dehli airport with the parched scruffy suburbs, more people in India of course; but here also cattle, horse drawn carts, goat drawn carts. There were of course no posters of Sachin selling you Gillette razor blades but plenty exhorting the public to more socialism- this in contrast to the current government policy of less socialism and more freedom for small businesses...
I stayed in a casa privada, not in fact a house but a four-bed apartment in a faded Art Deco villa now past its prime with faded paint and a mouldy entrance hall. Maria´s furniture was of heavy commodes in French Baroque accessorized with Dralon sofas and a fine collection of millefiori ashtrays usually full with Maria´s daily quotient. The casa is called Casa Art Deco and costs $25 per night including aircon and a bathroom. She has been running this lodging service for a year following Raul´s reforms. The address on Ave Linea is a main artery north to south down to the water front and to the Malecon: the supposed promenade of the city but in fact a pavement bordered on one side by a six lane freeway and on the other by the crashing waves over the sea wall. It was nevertheless a favourite gathering point for young Cubans.
Continuing down Malecon you come to the Historic Centre where I spent most of my time.
And it is historic. Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Caribbean sets the tone for the story of the English Navy taking control of the warm waters and the treasure, and finally taking Havana from the Spanish governor in 1762 and bargaining the state of Florida in return for quitting the walled city. Ironically we English should have held onto Havana as we lost Florida to the republican armies of General Greene, not twenty years later.
Havana had been the capital of New Spain when Cortes turned up with plans to overthrow Montezuma and the Aztec Empire. Sensing that this would diminish his power base, the governor in Havana told Cortes to return but Cortes burned his boats and took Mexico City anyway. The governor was livid- he had a lovely life in his walled city with fine villas and churches- and just perfectly situated on the trade winds for supplies from the Mother Country. And in the end New Spain was run from Mexico.
Today the old quarter has clumps of architectural time throughout its surface.
There is the old church of St Francis, the Dominican cathedral, the Jesuit influence. The colonial buildings of the Presidential Palace. The courtyards of the rich sugar merchants. Then the art nouveau in 1900 and the neo-classical style beloved by bankers in 1910 and finally Art Deco in profusion in the thirties and the fine Hotel Nacional on the Malecon.
After the revolution the architecture becomes Stalin and Ceausescu.
I loved the Nacional with its gardens fit for the high functionaries of brother Communist states. That day all the dining areas were reserved for the Russian delegation whose three Jumbo Ilyushin-96 s were parked at Marti airport during my entire visit. I took a glass of white wine for a couple of quid from the garden bar and watched the sun go down on the Caribbean while all the Nacional staff came up from the kitchens and the lower depths to greet our brothers from Russia, here to help us with oil exploration; and with helpful advice as they, the Russkies, have been through Perestroika: right.
“Listen Raul old chap you had better retire, take a cigar and sit on a beach. We need to find a fit young man from the Office of National Vigilance to take over. Man who takes his shirt off and kills tigers. No tigers no matter; anyway next President for life. Then Cuba you sell off the big assets to a few friends. They keep most of the money- we thought one of them could buy Dynamo Moskva- Stalin´s team, good heritage- and they give some back to the New People´s Party. Everybody happy. Then you discontinue the soft peso and the old babushkas can sell lemonade on the street make a few kopeks or pesos. Quite picturesque actually. Anyway don´t call that tall Frenchwoman in the Chanel suits and the big teeth- she make you give the money back to the people after all her reforms. So, na zdaroviya comrades, more vodka.”
In the central squares of the old town the nineteenth century courtyard buildings with high ceilings have been targeted by the state organ Habanaguanex for restoration and conversion into restaurants bars and cafes; and very nice they are too.
But outside this hive of activity lies an area between the old town and the grand hotels of the Parque Central where there is no renovation. I was reminded of Piranesi drawings of wooden scaffolding, augmented in today´s Havana by washing lines, repair shops for bicycles, cheap counters selling coffee. All lit by 15watt bulbs and attended by bored youth and their grannies watching telly in the sitting rooms onto the street.
Back in the old quarter are the two Hemingway bars of high repute: the Bodeguitta del Medio for mojitos and the Floridita for his daiquiris- the latter being more upmarket, a bit less crowded and more expensive. Between these two poles of tourist attraction lie a dozen or so bars all with live music in the style of Buena Vista Social Club. With bongos and maracas.
Up a few streets from Maria´s flat you can see the daily struggle. The queues for the pay phone, the bank, the money change, the market to open, the bread shop. There were no queues for the pharmacy because there were no medicines to buy. Everyone has a ration book to buy rice, bread and beans. And milk if you have a child.
But anything else you might want to buy especially if it has packaging must be bought with CuCs the hard currency- valued at one for one with the $.So Maria is now affluent as she pulls in hundreds of Cucs from her guests; and her neighbour makes a few bob running them to the airport at $25 a time.
Bu all the state employees - i.e. most folk -are paid in MNs which are worth nothing and buy nothing. Employment by the state is valued as a job for what you can steal or influence. In fact there are two economies: Communism with the MN and capitalism with the strong peso Cuc. As soon as they abolish the weak peso, like Russia abandoned the weak rouble, then Communism is over.
The old cars are a delight of course- the ones that are polished and loved; and come straight out of Miami South Beach central casting circa 1955. Most of them are not so well preserved and burn up heavy palls of smoking pollution. The workhorse car of choice is the Fiat Russian Lada, along with a few Moskvich and Volgas with Cyrillic branding. I was touched to see a few Hillmans and Austins from the same era as my childhood. The only modern cars I saw were driven by the police and those that were provided for the Russian delegation outside the Nacional.
The tour buses are Yutongs from the People´s Republic of China and very smart they are too.
The only consistent advice you read on money to spend is to bring euros or Canadian dollars in cash. Well fair enough if you are on a tour group and everything is prepaid and you only have to spend money on mojitos and Che Guevara T shirts. But today´s independent tourists like me and others that I met, need lots of cash to pay for rooms and food and transport. Contrary to received wisdom you can in fact change Amex TCs at the Cadeca office in the basement of the Nacional. In the big Cadecas there are ATMS advertising Visa and MasterCard; and I saw European queuing up to use them- I don’t know if they worked. You can cash in Mexican pesos and $ for Cucs but they are unloved by the money changers.
A tourist can live quite well on $10 for dinner and a few bucks for beers. A taxi in town costs $ 5 to a tourist- a fraction of that cost to a local who will happily share a cab with six others.
The city seems safe- only the army and police carry guns- and the guards at the bank just carry sticks. If the government cancels the MN, they might need to up the security to quell the street riots.
Hugo Chavez is the big donor: daily container ships of petrol. If he dies, what then?
If the state can´t pay the army wages or the pensions.
Nobody wants their cane sugar or the bananas.
Without the volume of US tourists they are playing in small waters. They need the rows and rows of US airlines that sit at Cancun airfield.
I give it five years: till the day nobody on the state payroll gets paid and the army refuses to shoot into the crowd.
Andrew Thatcher
Feb 25th, 2013, 12:49 PM
#2
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 407
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Sorry, but what a bullsh*t report. Your condascending attitude about just about everything comes thru loud and clear. Factually, you're so far out in left-field that this report is laughable.
Comments such as...."If the government cancels the MN, they might need to up the security to quell the street riots" or your wonderful.... "till the day nobody on the state payroll gets paid and the army refuses to shoot into the crowd" are so completely over-the-top as to be absurd.
I sure hope people aren't misled by the ramblings of your nonsense, because if you actually went to Cuba, you've missed the boat completely.
Comments such as...."If the government cancels the MN, they might need to up the security to quell the street riots" or your wonderful.... "till the day nobody on the state payroll gets paid and the army refuses to shoot into the crowd" are so completely over-the-top as to be absurd.
I sure hope people aren't misled by the ramblings of your nonsense, because if you actually went to Cuba, you've missed the boat completely.
Feb 26th, 2013, 03:17 PM
#5
Join Date: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,648
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I don't necessarily agree with all of the OP's opinions but I found the trip report interesting. I don't know Cuba well, having only spent a week there. But it felt like a very intense week. Much more so than weeks spent at other Caribbean islands. I did not find the report patronizing.
I look forward to revisiting the island someday. I had very mixed feelings about many things there. No doubt there are great misconceptions of the island in the US. Wages are a huge issue and those in the service industry catering to tourists must make a thousand times more than doctors, for instance. The system works in some ways (education) but falls way short in other ways.
I knew a few Cubans and we visited with them in Cienfuegos. i was with people who had visited numerous times, so I think I saw more than a first-time tourist. The Cuban people are wonderful. They are welcoming to Americans and realize that both governments are not representative of their citizens feelings.
I think the OP is entitled to his opinions. Anyone can have the information he provides with some basic research before traveling combined with his observations.
I really don't understand how this report is thought to be phony.
I look forward to revisiting the island someday. I had very mixed feelings about many things there. No doubt there are great misconceptions of the island in the US. Wages are a huge issue and those in the service industry catering to tourists must make a thousand times more than doctors, for instance. The system works in some ways (education) but falls way short in other ways.
I knew a few Cubans and we visited with them in Cienfuegos. i was with people who had visited numerous times, so I think I saw more than a first-time tourist. The Cuban people are wonderful. They are welcoming to Americans and realize that both governments are not representative of their citizens feelings.
I think the OP is entitled to his opinions. Anyone can have the information he provides with some basic research before traveling combined with his observations.
I really don't understand how this report is thought to be phony.
Feb 27th, 2013, 11:52 AM
#6
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 711
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
CW, thanks for you post. I, too, was scratching my head at why someone would think this was a phony report. I've spent more than three weeks over time in Cuba and you can certainly cover what the OP did in less than four days. He's talking about a square mile or two (old and central havana--from the National to Place des Armas).
There is a tone to the post that others might not like or agree with, but Andrew (via clicking on his name) is a frequent and prolific poster throughout all of the Fodors forums, so there would be no reason to fake anything.
My guess is that he fancies that he writes good prose (which he does) and that his reports are about flair as much as substance.
HOwever, in all honesty, in Havana there are queues, there are ration stores with no rations, there are a lot more con men on the streets than ten years ago, there are people losing their government jobs and no longer get stipends, and there is little retraining, there are people living in indescribably bad housing. The move to a freer society is not free--it is painful--it always is in every society. To think otherwise is to write a fairy tale on the other extreme which is as much "left field" as some think this OP's post is.
I love Cuba and am going back again this April. I certainly do not have months/years of experience in Cuba that other posters may have,but in my trips over the last decade I have seen a lot of changes--some good, some pretty difficult.
Just because someone like the OP has a different opinion, doesn't mean it is "left field" to him or some others. It is a different opinion. An opinion btw, that I completely disagree with, but I like reading as it makes me wonder why he and I see things differently.
There is a tone to the post that others might not like or agree with, but Andrew (via clicking on his name) is a frequent and prolific poster throughout all of the Fodors forums, so there would be no reason to fake anything.
My guess is that he fancies that he writes good prose (which he does) and that his reports are about flair as much as substance.
HOwever, in all honesty, in Havana there are queues, there are ration stores with no rations, there are a lot more con men on the streets than ten years ago, there are people losing their government jobs and no longer get stipends, and there is little retraining, there are people living in indescribably bad housing. The move to a freer society is not free--it is painful--it always is in every society. To think otherwise is to write a fairy tale on the other extreme which is as much "left field" as some think this OP's post is.
I love Cuba and am going back again this April. I certainly do not have months/years of experience in Cuba that other posters may have,but in my trips over the last decade I have seen a lot of changes--some good, some pretty difficult.
Just because someone like the OP has a different opinion, doesn't mean it is "left field" to him or some others. It is a different opinion. An opinion btw, that I completely disagree with, but I like reading as it makes me wonder why he and I see things differently.
Jun 8th, 2014, 10:11 AM
#7
Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 288
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I personally liked the OPs written experience. At least he remembered and recounted well. For my trip in the early 90s, I can only flash back to bits and pieces, and as a result I plan to take a trip next February/March, spending the entire time in Habana. I hope to get a different perspective, and I definitely will take lots and lots of photographs. Will be with a group and am bound and determined to do "my own thing" [at times] without causing any scenes, for there are a few things in the itinerary that do NOT interest me at all. During my first trip, we went to a hospital for children and saw a few kids suffering from cancer. I, in looking back, can't see the purpose of the company including this facet as part of our itinerary.
One day two women and I hailed a taxi and went to the Casa Africa Museum. One of the women had read that this museum housed gifts that Mr. Castro [...can't remember his official title] had received from African nations. Both floors were full of beautiful artifacts and items, and we three, plus our guide, were the only ones here. ...can't remember if we paid a fee of entrance or not, but I certainly plan to return. ...have read different things about this place and want to find out "the truth" if that is possible.
Again, thanks, Andrew! I appreciated what you wrote!!!!!!
One day two women and I hailed a taxi and went to the Casa Africa Museum. One of the women had read that this museum housed gifts that Mr. Castro [...can't remember his official title] had received from African nations. Both floors were full of beautiful artifacts and items, and we three, plus our guide, were the only ones here. ...can't remember if we paid a fee of entrance or not, but I certainly plan to return. ...have read different things about this place and want to find out "the truth" if that is possible.
Again, thanks, Andrew! I appreciated what you wrote!!!!!!
