Day 18 – The Havanas and the Havana Nots

Urban roosters rudely awoke me from my slumber at about 4am, a trend that continued every day for the entire trip through Cuba. I am not an avian admirer. I love to eat them but suffer a terrible phobia of those knobbly clawed feathered beasts of death. To mangle the words of the Soup Nazi, no sleep for you. I had slept badly all night actually. Woke up every couple of hours. This was a harbinger of doom.

The guesthouse terrace was (and presumably is) still super cute.  An oasis of plants, animal statues and a red retro breakfast bar. The view is amazing!

The Cuban experience of guesthouse breakfast is remarkably consistent, as I would shortly discover. Let’s play Cuban breakfast bingo. Thermos of dubious coffee, bread rolls, guava jam, guava juice, small fruit plate of guava, papaya and pineapple with rotating bonus of watermelon or star fruit, choice of scrambled eggs or omelette. Check, check, check. Winner! Sometimes more but never less and never different. Vista del Mar also served ham but my Spam filter was going off. Thus began a daily pattern more reliable than the weather – drink as much dubious coffee from the thermos to power up for the day and avoid the sugary jam. FYI – I never saw a piece of sliced bread all week. It doesn’t exist. Sandwiches are all rolls,  baguettes or even burgers. It just means meat and cheese shoved inside a bread product. Breakfast was always 5 CUC plus 1 for a tip. (The CUC is roughly on par with the US dollar)

Today we were blessed with no rain. The weather was lovely! A bit fresh in the morning but I trusted nobody and nothing after that sheet of sleet so the raincoat cane with me.

Barbara – who preferred the name Adita as a nickname but my group seemed to lack the linguistic ability to call her this so opted for the easier Anglo name – led us through the streets of Havana. My mental picture of Havana was a streetscape of bright, patchy colours and dilapidated buildings. This was true for a big chunk of it. Our hotel was smack in the middle of that. Immediately opposite the hotel was a derelict looking building. Barbara advised that at least 5 families lived there and in places like this all around the city. Terrible conditions but they were off the street.

Segue into terrible conditions. Despite the cars, locals walked in the middle of the road to avoid the crumbling balconies. Three little girls were killed the previous week by a balcony collapsing on them. There is no city maintenance on most of these 19th century domestic dwellings and many would be condemned with a date for a bulldozing. With proper restoration, these once-beautiful homes would scrub up like a new penny. At least from the outside – I suspect plumbing is non existent in many. Walking around, you get a sense of derelict grandeur. A bit like an abandoned theme park falling to pieces. My enduring memory will be the huge doors. At least 20 feet high. Every building has them – it seems such a juxtaposition that people live in squalor in the shadow of opulence.

Every picture book of Havana shows the gorgeous Instagram colour pops of these historic streets. But I didn’t know that Havana was such a rich source of contemporary street art. Amongst the tourist tat is a subculture of record stores and hipster cafes breaking free of the stereotypical Havana timewarp experience. This is a taste of modern Havana trying to move forward despite the blockade and its communist heritage. I even found a vegan café selling wheatgrass shots and organic beetroot cake. See – around every corner a contrast.

We strolled the Plaza Vieja, a square established for merchants when the priests from the nearby cathedral couldn’t handle the noise! Batista, America’s puppet dictator from the early 50s (well the second time around), built a car park underneath it at one point that destabilised it. Barbara started pointing out cafes and restaurants. This one’s state-owned, this one’s private. You’d never know. Supporting local is big here. People prefer to give their dinero to people who have managed to set up their own businesses now that it is permitted to do so, as it was banned for many years. But yes – many guest houses, restaurants, bars, shops etc are owned by the government.

Barbara took us to St Francis’ church which was beautiful on the outside and unknown on the inside since it was always roped off. The statue I am posed with in this post stands out the front. He is called the Gentleman from Paris. Apparently, he was a migrant from (Italy maybe – it wasn’t France) with a family. But he had an affair with a married woman whose husband reported him on a trumped up robbery charge. He went completely mad in the slammer. When he got out, he lived on the streets but generously donated whatever he found to other people. Upon his death, the city honoured this local hero with a statue. Touching him on the hand, beard and foot brings good luck. Popular theory about his name is that his high level of education was associated with France. No, he didn’t have a baguette in his pocket and he wasn’t happy to see me.

The bodega was a real opener. To me, a bodega is the convenience store that gets robbed in a Law and Order episode. Throughout Cuba, bodegas are small stores where families can collect essential groceries at state-controlled, low-cost prices by using a ration book that looks straight out of the 1940s. Goods include rice, eggs, coffee, sugar and cigars etc. (Meat is available from a butcher in the same way.) It differs per month based on availability. 10 eggs per month per family. Huev-nos! A few three egg omelettes and I’d be gone. I felt my biceps withering away in sympathetic protein withdrawal. One month, there might be a shortage of something. Of course, you are free to make your own arrangements with swaps and deals and to source your food elsewhere. I suspect it leads to all the urban chickens.

This wouldn’t be so bad if you could just pop into an On the Run for a snack. No bueno. No convenience stores or supermarkets in Havana. No supermarkets anywhere actually. You might find a guy with a cart selling chips and packets of biscuits. That’s it.

Next stop, Plaza de Armas with the oldest military fort in Central America. The Spanish built it in a crap spot – copped too much fire from ship cannonballs – so they abandoned it to built another one further down the mouth of the bay. Interesting point later picked up by me as I walked past another tour later – the statue on the Havana Club logo is copied from the statue of Love on the top of the fort.

A large white statue poses in the Plaza. This is Cespedes, designer of the original Cuban flag in the 19th century. Cuban history is full of stories of bookish guys who should have stuck to fighting for freedom via politicking but bravely picked up a weapon and died in battle. Jose Marti, who fought for independence against Spain in the late 19th century, is their true national hero. I was expecting to see big Castro monuments or statues demonstrating evidence of an enduring cult of personality. Didn’t see one. Marti was Castro’s hero. He’s everybody’s hero because he’s their original liberator from colonial oppression. Every town has a Marti Street, a statue or a bust of Marti, a Marti Square etc.

I could have kept going but the group demanded coffee and a sit down. This was good coffee. As opposed to dubious ‘functional’ thermos coffee, all the purchased coffee from cafes was great! Others complained about the intensity but I like it strong and black.

Next stop, Cathedral Square. No prizes for guessing what that’s named after. 2 minutes inside was the command.

It was a whistle stop tour of Havana because we had to leave the guesthouse by 12.15 to make a 2pm bus to Vinales, our next destination. I was not feeling great. The telltale signs of impending migraine were there . My eyelids flickered, I felt a weight behind them, my mouth tasted funny.  We returned back to the hotel to grab our gear and head to the bus station where we waited an hour after checking in. It was an interminably long wait for me. My migraines don’t hurt like headaches but they make me dizzy, vague and weird. I can’t talk to much and I basically want shut my eyes in silence.

The three hour bus trip was perfect for that. I slipped in and out of consciousness with my noise cancelling headphones on. I had no clue of where I was. I felt like complete trash. When we stopped to refuel, everybody got off the bus and I had no idea which way was up. It was like floating in a half-asleep zombie state of no awareness.

The dozing did help. By the time I reached Vinales, I was feeling a bit better. We checked into our guesthouse – Casa Isabelita – where my room was more basic but fine. Barbara was not one for letting the group check in and chill. She was more of a girl after my own heart – dump the bags and let’s hit the town. There wasn’t much to see -a square, a main drag with some restaurants and a mercado store. What? I hear you say. Read the next post when I tell you what was inside.

Time for dinner. Barbara took us to a charcoal meat specialist with another specialty – the best pina colada in the world. I don’t really like them myself. But when in Vinales … For god’s sake, it’s served in the pineapple. The staff deliver it virgin (eg no alcohol), let you drink it down a bit and then GIVE THE TABLE A BOTTLE OF WHITE RUM TO POUR YOUR OWN. Rum really was cheap if they could afford to pass it around like that. After you drained the drink, you could hack into the pineapple with a knife and spoon. Dessert and drink in one!!

For dinner, I ordered grilled tuna which arrived with an expectedly limp salad. But the meal was served farmers style which means each person picks their individual meat and share large plates of rice, rice and beans, soup and vegetables. Mine was delicious. The others ordered more pina coladas but frankly, it was a little sweet for my liking. I needed to continue my education in rum. (Jo ho ho and a bottle of rum?)  I ordered a shot of Havana Club Especial based on Barbara’s recommendation. Delicious!

There was talk of night club attendance but I needed to sleep off the remaining migraine effects of weirdness. So straight home to Casa Isabelita.

In the next exciting instalment of HockTales, I watch a cowboy roll cigars at a scenic  tobacco farm full of animals and cute houses, take a boat through a cave, try my hand (feet at a salsa lesson) and hit the Vinales night life.