Destination #21: Fidel’s Havana (Cuba)

Wednesday 10 February 2011 – Wednesday 24 February 2011

Havana

Havana is a city where time stood still. The place is plastered with beautiful art-deco buildings but it seems that the last time anyone bothered to do them up was in the 1950s. All buildings seem to be in desperate need of a lick of paint and a pair of new windows (or just windows full stop). And it is not just one building, basically each and every one of them seems to be crumbling with time. But once you add a bit of sun, a bunch of colourful classic American cars, some Cohibas and a couple of mojitos, you actually have a fantastic city. You can see why they used to call Havana the Paris of Latin America. We loved it. 

Cuba is all about three guys: Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Ernest Hemingway. The Old City of Havana was clearly Hemingway’s domain. Every bar he once stumbled out of, serves his favourite drink, the daiquiri. His local bar was El Floridita, despite the fact that it is nowadays packed with tourists, they still manage to make a killer raspberry daiquiri. We also spent a couple of nights in Hotel Ambos Mundos, where Hemingway famously wrote "For Whom The Bell Tolls" after his drinking sessions.

In between sipping mojitos on the Plaza Vieja we managed to pick up some cigars at the Partagas cigar factory, one of Havana’s oldest cigar factories. They even throw in a tour where you can watch the 400+ workers roll Montecristos and Cohibas (with most of them trying to sell you some of their just finished products at bargain prices when the tour guide is looking the other way).

Also on our list was the Museo de la Revolución, the former Presidential palace, still riddled with bullet holes from a botched assassination attempt on US-backed Cuban President Batista in 1957. It is clear they are not too fond of Americans here as the remains of a shot down US spy plane is displayed outside, next to the 18m “Granma” yacht in which Fidel made the trip from Mexico to Cuba to kick-start the revolution in 1956.

Despite the fact we had a reservation, Hotel Nacional lived up to its reputation and basically told us to go and sleep with the fishes. Hotel Nacional’s claim to fame is that it hosted the largest ever get together of the North American mob in 1946. Organised by nobody else than Lucky Luciano with entertainment provided by a certain Frank Sinatra.

We were also in for an unpleasant surprise at the Gran Teatro de La Habana after having queued for over an hour and a half to see a performance of the infamous Ballet Nacional de Cuba. By the time we arrived at the ticket booth, all the tickets designated for foreigners were sold out – that would be all 25 of them - and the remaining tickets were for Cuban nationals only. We tried to go down the “investment banking route” and throw some money at it, but they didn’t want any of it. Communism clearly works here.

We finished our first visit to Havana with lunch at Edificio Bacardi, the über-kitch former headquarters of the rum manufacturer, whose founding family was unglamorously kicked off the island after the Cuban revolution. As a consequence, no Bacardi rum has been sold on the island for the last 50 years.

Varadero

After a couple of days in Havana, we jumped on a Viazul bus to Varadero. The contrast couldn’t have been greater. Vardero is basically Cuba’s version of hell. Over fifty all-you-can-eat beach resorts, predominantly populated by Canada and Russia’s finest.

We checked in at the Paradisus Princessa del Mar Resort & Spa, which boosts the only Japanese restaurant in the world that doesn’t have any chopsticks (the Japanese chef was called “Juan Carlos” which should have been an indication of what was to come). To be fair it wasn’t all that bad and we did what we came for: soaking up some sun. We also ran into a nice couple from Gothenburg who happened to own one of the largest spring manufacturers in Sweden, aptly called Gotsprings. You just can’t make these things up.

Santa Clara

We got another Viazul bus to drop us off in Santa Clara, this time in the middle of the night. Given a serious lack of hotels outside Havana, we made a reservation at a casa particular, a widespread concept in Cuba where locals rent out their 2^nd bedroom to tourists. Unfortunately for us, the owner of the casa that was supposed to pick us up – a bloke called Angel, who looked a lot like Fat James’ Kiwi mate Cameron but then with more hair - was fast asleep by the time we arrived and to make matters worse, his casa was fully booked. But not to worry, at 2 am he woke up his cousin who also had a room for rent and we made that our base for the next two days.

If the Old City of Havana is all about Hemingway, Santa Clara is all about Che Guevara. And he wasn’t even from there (he was born in Argentina). After fighting alongside Fidel and a short stint as the Alan Greenspan of Cuba (Fidel appointed him as Central Bank Governor after the revolution), Che moved to Bolivia to start another revolution. Unfortunately for him a Bolivian fire squad got the best of him in 1967. Initially secretly buried near an airstrip in the middle of bloody nowhere, his remains were re-discovered in 1997 and were returned to Cuba to be reburied at Santa Clara’s main landmark, the Monumento Ernesto Che Guevara.

We also splashed out on some cinema tickets – £1 each – to watch Tony Scott’s movie “Unstoppable” being played from a DVD player on a giant screen in Santa Clara’s only cinema. What can we say? It definitely was an experience.

Cienfuegos

When we stepped off our bus in Cienfuegos an over-excited messenger was waiting for us at the gate holding a sign with our names on it. He guided us to our next casa particular – a neighbour of a friend of a cousin, or something like that, well you get the drift – on his bike. 

Cienfuegos is situated at a bay and labeled a “French-flavoured city” by our Lonely Planet, whatever that may mean. We spent our afternoons playing cribbage in the sun on a terrace on the main square, while desperately trying to avoid a dodgy Belgian guy with a ponytail called Ronny who was looking to chat about anything to anyone.

Trinidad

Trinidad is probably the most eye-catching city we visited on our Cuban roadtrip. It is a colourful former Spanish colonial settlement, which seemingly never moved on from the 1850s. 

We stayed with a lovely family in another casa particular, again organised by the owners of the previous casa we stayed at in Cienfuegos (although this time there was no messenger on a bike waiting for us when we got off the bus). There was not that much to do in Trinidad besides having a stroll around, sip mojitos and listen to some music (everyone seems to be related to some bloke who was part of the Buena Vista Social Club), but that suited us just fine.

Havana

A long bus journey brought us back to Havana for our last couple of days in the Caribbean. This time we opted to stay in Hotel Saratoga, Havana’s one and only boutique hotel. The rooftop pool and bar with a view over El Capitolio itself was worth the stay.

Before making our way to the airport we squeezed in a visit to the Changa Mederos stadium for some baseball. We witnessed the most bizarre baseball game ever when Los Metropolitanos were held 9-9 by Santiago de Cuba at the end of the 9^th inning but then went on to win it 15-14 in the 10^th inning. Due to the confusing currency situation – there are two currencies in circulation in Cuba, one for foreigners, called Cuban Convertibles, and one for locals, called Cuban Pesos, in theory of equal value, but in reality the Convertibles are worth 25x as much as the Pesos – we made a popcorn seller’s day when we paid him 1 Convertible for a bag of popcorn for which the going rate was 1 Peso. He smiled all the way to the bank.

Cuba is a bit of a cultural gem in the Caribbean and probably the last chance to see communism at work. The place is safe, the weather is fantastic, the local population is super-friendly and the mojitos are dead cheap. And to make things even better, there are almost no Americans around (American citizens can be fined up to $250,000 for traveling to Cuba without permission). Only really bad thing about Cuba is the food. It is all about carbs and not the most tasteful. Rice, with beans, potatoes and some chicken seems to be the national dish. But the best thing about Cuba must be Havana. Havana has just such a chilled-out atmosphere that it is hard not to fall in love with the place. It is probably our favourite city so far.

Next stop: Destination #22: Skiing for dummies in Saas-Fee (Switzerland)