Arrival in Havana

March 15 -  

After 16 hours of sleep, we are ready to meet the day.  

Let me backtrack a bit.  We flew into Havana from JFK.  Aside from the snow storm the previous night, we were able to take off on time and had an uneventful flight.   We filled out travel visas and paid our money, loaded our bags onto a conveyer belt and headed to the gate.

On landing, we quickly made it through customs, waited for our luggage, handed in our health form and our customs declarations, and met our driver.  

He and Bill discussed whether to change money at the airport or via his "amigos" in town, for a better (illegal ? We get robbed?) rate.  We opted for airport.  The big WTF was that they only allow exchange of max $600 USD.  While on line we met another New Yorker who was a bit frazzled.  He didn't have the correct address for his casa, and in fact, I'm not sure he was going to have an easy time finding the place.  He did not know Havana basic geography.  Bill and I helped him see where it should be on a map and then left with our driver.  Let's hope he's ok.  He did say he was up for an adventure.

Our driver's wife, Mahala, was waiting in the taxi.  She was very vivacious and talkative.  I tried to converse with her, but my non-existent Spanish did not help. We drove through the southern part of Havana, skirting Vedado, and ended up on a portion of the Malecon, the seafront wall and road.  

Seeing the waves crashing over the sea wall was pretty spectacular.  On the western side of the Malecon, a lot of seaweed had be thrown over the sea walls, enough to cover the sidewalks and parts of the road.  We arrive at our casa particular (individuals renting out spare rooms), which  is on O'Reilly Street, between Cuba and San Ignacio Streets..  

It is a small room, but clean and has all the necessities, such  as a private bathroom with shower.  We even had soap and TP!  (We were warned to bring our own TP.)

We had an adult beverage last night at a cafe across the street from our casa and shared a plate of grilled pork and chicken.  I discovered a new way to make a Manhattan, with aged rum and a lime peel instead of a cherry.  It was very tasty and at 3 CUC ( a Cuban Convertible Currency, pegged to the US dollar .... more of n that later) to boot! 

This is a happy husband on the balcony of Cafe O’Reilly.  My spidey sense was broken for a bit, I didn't realize that we were so close to the wharf area, just a block or two off of the Cathedral Plaza.  Our casa was in the heart of Old Havana district ("Havana Vieja"). 

We wandered a bit in the other direction and got some churros from a fry-cart on the street.  We found a bank that would exchange USD for CUC and Bill exchanged some more money.

While Bill exchanged, I made the mistake of sitting down on a chair in the lobby of the bank.  All the gas went out of the tank...... we had been up since 3 AM.   We just went back to our casa and crashed, hence the beginning line of of this blog, after 16 hours.....