Touring Havana like a Tourist

April 2 - 

We ate brekkies at Cafe O'Reilly across the street, they have such good coffee.... it's only for sale in the mornings in bags of beans or ground.  None left, so I have to wake up early tomorrow to get some to bring home.

A young couple was seated next to us and they asked Bill if he knew how to get to the beach, as he looked so well prepared.  Bill, in his wonderful self way, gave the guy our guide books to look at and leaf through to find out what he wanted to know.

We headed to the hop on/hop off bus stop at Parque Central and found that Tour 1 (T1) was the bus that was pulled up.  On we got!  10 CUC each and off we went sitting on the top of the double decker.  The commentary was not too good, mostly Spanish, with a little bit of English thrown in for good measure.  We could never tell where the stops were, because they didn't stop if there was no one to pick up unless you were very quick to get down stairs and yell, abierto, and then maybe the doors would open.

We took the loop about 3/4 of the way around and got out at the Necropolis and wandered around there.  We've seen a couple of cemeteries that are quite impressive, City of the Dead in Buenos Aires and the Cemetery in Savannah.  This one was huge, it had streets and calles and a chapel as well as open areas .  It was crowded, really crowded with graves, with people, just a handful.  We saw a memorial to bomberos who lost their lives fighting fires, the grave of Dr. Finlay who discovered that yellow fever came from mosquitoes or developed a cure, not sure which one it is right now.  It covered an enormous amount of acreage within the city limits.  There were families buried in small "double wide" plots, as well as shrines that housed generations of the family.  If it wasn't so hot and breeze-less, I could have spent longer there, it was very calming and quiet.  As it should be.  We went to the chapel, but found that there was a service going on, and then we saw all these hearses coming into the cemetery.  I guess Sunday is burial day. 

We went across the street to the 125 cafeteria.  Cafeteria's in Cuba are for locals and the prices are often given in moneda nacional not in CUC, this one gave both.  We got a strong beer and a sandwich, 2 of each, and the total came to 7,80 CUC.....less than one dish in a restaurant.  Food is not ridiculously cheap in Cuba in restaurants and paladars, but in cafeterias it is.  The issue for tourists, is that you may or may not be served, it isn't a racial thing, it's a tourist thing.  

We hop back on the bus and hit the Plaza de Revoluccion where there are iron images of both Che and Camilo hanging on the walls of 2 governmental buildings with Marti's monument at the back of what looked like an asphalt parking lot which was the Plaza.   

Che Guevara 

Camilo Cienfuegos

At the next bus stop we meet a young Polish guy who is on crutches and visiting Cuba.  Turns out he tore his Achilles' tendon playing football and will heal in about 2 months.  Yikes!  He did make a very funny joke, "I came to Cuba and found out my name was Taxi!".  

This is funny because whenever you walk on the street and a car drives by, the driver yells "Taxi" out the window at you.....

We got off the bus at Parque Central and went into the self-same Hotel on the Parque to cool off and get a drink.  We both were quite sun burnt and sweaty and looked worse for the wear.  

Jose Mari

Dinner was an interesting experiment, we went to Chef Ivan Justo's place again, and were given the sniff test, and failed it!  I made a reservation for Tuesday just to spite them.  We wandered down some of the streets in this part of town and came to a restaurant glut.  We picked Cafe del Angel Fumero Jacqueline.  There was a statue of an angle in the square, and lots of stray dogs and cats.  We sat down and behind Bill there was a table of 2 women and 1 man.  The man was very sweaty and decided to take his shirt off.  And he sat shirtless at the table.  If I were the owner, I would have run right out there and told him to leave or put a shirt on.  He eventually put a shirt on and went into the air conditioning.  All very strange....but not as weird as the kids playing in the square while we had our gazpacho and I had grilled salmon, and Bill had a fillet mignon.  These were clearly kids from the neighborhood who all knew each other.  At first, Bill commented "so this is what children used to do before the Internet and X-Boxes" .  

golden hour

However, after a while, there was a lot of cruelty.  One boy was clearly the butt of every one's ire, he was constantly hit, things thrown at him, generally treated terribly.  While there was another boy, who in a break in the beatings, decided to pee on the wall of the church across the street.  He wasn't discreet, he just climbed up and braced himself on 2 pillars and took a wee.  The entire group eating were slack jawed.  

The Cathedral in the Plaza Cathedral

Another nightcap at Ambos Mundo and then to shower and bed.  

  

Back to Havana

April 1 -

We are up at 9, brekkies at 10, and our ride is supposed to come at 11.  Ahem, key word, supposed to.  At 11:45, a call to the casa comes in, the car broke down on the highway, she can arrange for another if we like.  What were you going to pay for your ride she asks, 80 CUC we tell her.  She comes back and says that she found someone who will take us to Havana for the 80 CUC.  But they will be 40 minutes.  12:30 comes and goes, no ride yet.  Bill goes inside to say, lookie here, we need to get back to Havana, we can go down town and get the bus if this ride doesn't show up soon.  Just at 1 PM, up rolls a VW 2-door of dubious quality, and tahdah there is Frankie, our driver.

We take a detour to Pinar del Rio because he had to stop at his house, only to have what looked like a "disagreement" with the wife.  She's yelling out the door, and he's saying "no" and pulling away...sounds like they were on different pages about how he was to spend his Saturday!

3 hours later as we roll into Havana, it has started to rain off and on and I found myself thinking of my dad, and his admonition about driving at the beginning of a rain shower, it's really dangerous then, the road is really slippery because the motor oil is just wet enough to cause problems...that and his always yelling not to drive near the shoulders as that was where all the crap that can blow out your tire lives.  Dad, full of practical info, he was.

We wanted to have dinner at Dona Eutima's paladar which is just around the corner, and I had  read about it in one of the guide books.  Unfortunately, we didn't have reservations and ate at a place across the alleyway.  We did get a reservation for Monday.  Bill had a seafood plate and I had the grilled lobster.  It was ok, not fantastic, but identifiable as lobster.  

The black umbrella belongs to Dona Eutima's "little patio piece", we could see it, but no room at the inn!

After dinner, it was too early to crash, so we went to Ambos Mundo Hotel for a night cap and it turned out that the first of the 2 semi finals for the Final Four was on the tube.  So we stayed to see Gonzaga get into the finals.

I was drinking 7 year old Santiago de Cuba rum, and let me say, that shit was dope!  I want a hundred bottles of that!

Vinales, day 2

March 31 -

At 11:00 our guide arrives, well, it's not Alfredo, but his brother Willem, who is on a motor scooter and is going to guide us to where we will find our guide for the day.  We are assuming that it will be Alfredo, but it is Ishmael.  

He looks the part, tall, dark, looks good in a cowboy hat and best of all is wearing rubber boots with spurs on them!  How cool is that....as the day progressed, we realized that spurs were an accessory, not a necessity, since these horses were "automatico" in that they knew the route and exactly where

and when the stops were.  Our horses were named, Lucio (Bills), Mojito (mine) and a big beautiful horse for the guide, don't know his name.   You can see Bill on Lucio at left, and the head of my horse, Mojito, who had a strange habit of putting his head right up against Lucio’s butt….

We ambled along a dusty path for quite some time....Alfredo sold us the tour with 15 minutes of horse riding, which I was ok with, more not what I was looking for....but that is not what was happening, we were on the horses for about 40 minutes or so before we hit the first rest stop.  The Mirador,  coconut hut, swimming hole, etc.  We had about a 30 minute break at this place before saddling up again.  After the first 15 minutes, I was ok with the horse, Mojito was calm and easy going until later....

Saddle up muchachos, we ride again.  Getting on the horse was hysterical even for me.  The distance up onto the horse was tremendous, much higher than I expected so I needed a booster push which Ishmael provided much to Bill's chagrin, as he needed a booster push as well.

On to the Cueva de los Silencios.  At first, we thought, WTF, it's just a hole in the ground, but then the guide showed up and led us into the cave, handed out flashlights and off we went.  It was a very rocky floor and some very narrow passageways.  There were some very neat rock formations and stalagmites and stalactites as well as gorgeous bursts of sunlight through some hole in the cave roof.  We came out into the air and walked up a dusty steep path to where the horses were tied.

Boosted up again onto Mojito, who wanted to be in the lead, but Bill's horse, Lucio was not going to give it up.  In fact, the one or two times Mojito took the lead, Lucio would come up and sort of push us to the edge of the path (think thin strip of grassy stuff and then barbedwire fences.  Not my kind of a fun way to end up in a Vinales hospital.

my new friend

We headed to a coffee "plantation", which is a broad stretch of that word.  Here is where Mojito was renamed "Bastard", I pulled him off to the left toward a tree that looked ok to tie him up, and Ishmael said, "Mojito" and the horse started moving through the branches which if I hadn't put my hand up would have whipped me in the face,  Hence the new name...

It was a sales station for liquor made from local fruit, the guava, and some sugar cane juice.  There were 2 kinds, sec and sweet, we tried the sec, and it was pretty sweet, can't imagine how sweet the sweet version is.  The juice was about 38% alcohol, which is not too strong, proof-wise, 76 proof.

Then the hilarity starts when our "coffee" salesman tries to boost me up on the horse, I am laughing so hard that I fall across the back of the horse.  I slide down and Ishmael helps me up.  Still laughing, off we go to the tobacco "plantation".  At this point, we realize that these are all going to be sales stops.

The tobacco farm was different.  The young man who was our guide spoke excellent English so that our questions were understood and we could visualize the process of drying the leaves and the picking theory much better.  We went up to the cabin and his cousin came out with his dad and they rolled a cigar that we shared....much to my surprise, I really enjoyed it.  The cigars made with tobacco from Vinales are organic and fermented with a local process that doesn't use chemicals.  They also strip out the vein in the leaf after it's fermented because that is where 85% of the nicotine is located, therefore less nicotine is in the cigar itself.  

I smoked that bad boy all the way to where we dumped off the horses and all the way walking back into town.  It went out and I held onto that stub until we settled into a drinking establishment where I lit up again.  

Two days in a row we were unable to take the tourist bus that went around town.  It stopped running at 3, and damn, if we weren't there just before 3.  We went into the tobacco/liquor store and I purchased 2 pyramide cigars and then down the street a wooden holder.  Happy as a clam.

We got a taxi to take us up to the Cuevo Indios. 

He said that he would do it for 10 CUC return and he was happy to wait for us!  Deal.

This cave was much larger than the one we saw earlier.  The path was paved so it was easier to navigate and no guide necessary. 

The path led you deeper and deeper into the cave and you could hear water.  For the last 100 yrs of the cave, you needed to take a boat to get out.  It was very dramatic exiting from the dark and artificially lit cave into the sunlight while gliding on a motor boat.  

Our taxi driver offered to take us to see the Palenque do Cimerones  which was a huge natural opening in one of the limestone karsts that was set up as a dance and music club.  It was full of chairs waiting for the customers that evening.

 

We had dinner at El Olivo, because on our riding we rode past their organic farms.  The gazpacho was really tasty as were the croquettes, but the carbonara was pretty bad, as was Bill's lasagna.  I just wanted to march back to the kitchen and say,"look, here is how you make carbonara, no cream, salty hard cheese grated, pancetta, black pepper, and a whisked egg.  In a frying pan big enough to hold the cooked spaghetti, render the fat from the pancetta.  If it's pretty lean, add some olive oil.  Turn off the flame, add black pepper and wait for the spaghetti to be cooked.  After you have added the pasta, mix and mix, add cheese and whisked egg.  Mix some more, you want the heat of the spaghetti to cook the egg and finish with more black pepper and/or cheese.  Done!"

Back to the abode and sleep because we trek to Havana tomorrow.  

Vinales

March 30 -   Havana - Vinales

We had breakfast with Erik and Elvis.  Our cab arrived and we find that there are 3 in front seat and 3 in back seat...we decided not to make a big deal out of it.  What we found out was the guy sitting next to me in the back seat was a co driver and ended up driving the last 1.5 hrs of the trip.

The ride was fine, it was interesting to see the country side and how rural and urban living compared to each other.  Country life felt, at least to me, to be slower and more laid back.  

Which in Cuba is really funny.  Cuba runs on Island time, which means that if things get done, great, but if they don't, there is always manana.  I have adopted this, and feel that it would be much more helpful for urban dwellers to get into that mind set. 

Vinales is a quaint place, code word for small and dusty.  There are probably more casas here than in Vieja.  Every house has one or two apartments to rent out to visitors.  The casa that Bill and I are staying is somehow connected to Erik and Elvis, I don't recall the connection, perhaps brother in law, sister in law, third cousin's wife's nephew from their first marriage....I think you get the idea.  It is a small place with private bath, ac, fan, and reading lights.  

Immediately after arriving we were hit up for a tour.  Horseback riding, hiking, tobacco farm, coffee plantation, and a cave.  We bit and wondered if it was the right thing we did.  We will know tomorrow.  It was sold as only 15 minutes of horseback riding, which was fine by me, some hiking, some education, a cave, and cigars. Sounded good to us! 

We wandered around the town and had a  sandwich and beer at Cuba, a cafe on the main drag.  Exploring further around we decided to take the hop on hop off bus, however, it seems that today it stops at 3, which is what time it was.  Sigh.  

We took a cab up to Los Jazmines, a hotel with a great view over the valley.  There was a good band playing on the patio by the bar.   We had a couple of pina coladas and read our books,  took photos and waited for the your buses to pull out.    

                     

Got a cab back into town and dined at a big surprise, Paladar la Cubana. It was just down the dusty street from us.  What a gem of a place.  Friendly wait staff, huge quantities of food.  It just kept coming, at 10 CUC each plus beers it was a bargain and a half!  There were 3 types of rice, plain white, with black beans, and with pineapple. We split the entrees of smoky pork and fried chicken, both excellent, and were so full never touched the salad or fruit plates, which were both beautifully arranged.  We took an evening constitutional to walk off diner and settled down for the night...up early for our touring!

fruit place of papaya, pineapple and guava

pineapple rice

salad plate

black beans

So much food, we couldn’t possibly eat it all.

beans and rice

smoky pork

Enjoying Vieja, middle period

March 29 - 

We awoke at 10 and took our time getting ready for the day.  We made it out of the house by about 11:30 and ran into Erik and Elvis on the street.  They made fun of us for sleeping so late and wondered why we weren't heading off to the Playa.  Bill explained that we preferred street scenes and watching people than sitting on a beach burning.

We started wandering around but my stomach was starting to hurt, which told me I needed food fast!  We headed over to Victrola, a cafe off of Plaza Vieja.  There was live music for lunch and that band was hot.  I bought a CD.  Sitting next to us was a group of Italians who were shocked that the bar didn't take Euros, only CUCs.

As I mentioned the band was very good, and suddenly, I noticed that there were a couple of pairs of dancers on the tiny floor.  One couple were extremely good dancers.  The woman moved effortlessly and so smoothly and was partnered so well, they seemed like a single unit.  It was mesmerizing to watch.  They danced for 2 or 3 numbers and were joined by a pair of the Italians.  They just crowded the floor so we couldn't see the other pair.  Turned out the excellent pair of dancers were Cuban, which came as no surprise. 

Our wandering took us to a post office where Bill tried to explain to the woman behind the glass that he wanted colorful stamps for 20 post cards to the US.  She was really wonderful.  She got out a bunch of really pretty stamps for him.  Then he told her he was a collector and could she give him another bunch for his collection.  Again, she could not have been more helpful.  He then asked for change in moneda nacional, which again she was happy to do for him.  For her efforts, Bill gave her the choice of 2 of his foreign bill notes that he carried with him.  She was so amazed, pleased, and shocked, that she then gave a couple of very old stamps, "por los collecion".  I can still see her shocked look when we told her she could have 2 bill notes, not just one!  Like a  little kid, priceless.

We looked into a Museo Arabicos and wondered what it was.  A woman was explaining to me that the items displayed therein were all gifts given to Fidel by leaders of Arab countries.  There were models of several boats including one that was Fidel’s own yacht.  I heard this screeching out in the courtyard and sort of knew the sound, but couldn’t quite place it.  It was a bird of some kind….then once outside, aha, now I know, it was a peacock!

We wandered into an adult beverage dispensary, in other words, a bar because I was so parched.  We ordered a large bottle of water for me, and a beer for Bill.  I must have downed half that bottle myself!  There was live music there as well and some dancers too.  The band was good, but the dancers we watched a lunch were better.  The young woman, while very pretty, did not move with the same fluidity as the woman we saw at lunch.

On to the Museo de Numismatics which was virtually next door.  One great thing was that it was air conditioned!  Blessedly, for me!  The collections were marginally interesting.  The first floor contained ancient coins and medals.  Upstairs, were the coins of Cuba minted at various locations, some in Spain, and some in the US.  It was very interesting to see the most recent bill notes and the specimens for the convertible currency. 

Walking westward toward Centro, we found a hole in the wall selling soft serve ice cream.  It was some of the best ice cream I've had, period.  Full flavored, great texture.  Yum.  We walked down Muralla and then zigged down Amagura  before going into a church.  It was a very lovely church.  Not too big, not too small, just the right size for the space and it had a beautiful dome over the sacristy (?).  We didn't know what the name of the church was, still don't, but it was the first church that we went into  while here on the Island.

Across from the church was a group of benches, which we  took advantage of.  While there, I watched a young boy torment a small street dog.  He chased the dog, at first I thought it might have been his dog and it was being a "bad" dog.  It became clear that this was a game for the boy, not so much for the dog.  The dog settled down behind a fence, just out of reach, and the boy became bored.  He rooted around in a trash bin and found some plastic folders, which he immediately set on fire with some matches he picked up off the ground.  It wasn't that act that was surprising, it was how he chose to set them on fire.  He sat on the bench, and put the folders under his butt, mostly sticking out toward his thighs.  He then spread his legs wide, and proceeded to first melt, then burn the folders. I had visions of him slapping his crotch to put out the fire.  He then left the little park area only to return and root through the trash and find some bubble wrap.  I guess that was more fun that torturing the dog.  He then proceeded to dismantle a broken wheel chair by slamming it onto the concrete over and over again.  That stopped because the bubble wrap was calling his name.   Pop, pop, pop....relative calm and the dog finally slept.

I picked En del Entrente for dinner.  We ate on the terrace upstairs overlooking the street.  Well, we weren't that close to see over the parapet to the street!  We ordered the ceviche to share and Bill got the lobster tacos and I got the grilled chicken.  Everything was very tasty.  I had a michelada, using a Bucanero beer and their special spicy sauce.  It was sooooo good.  Bill was not a fan!

We wandered homeward and realized that we needed to buy some water for the room.   I also was jonesing for a night cap.  Stopping in the Florida Hotel, we used our wifi cards and heard some bad news that a friend's son had passed away.  No other info, so sad, so young.  Unfortunately, the wake was today, and we are here in Cuba, or we would have gone.

We went into the O'Reilly cafe and I had a shot of aged rum, and Bill, a beer.  Great head space to head home in.....

Then the weird stuff happens.   Erik, who has been fantastic so far, knocks on the door and is explaining to me that the price of the taxi has dropped to 70 CUC instead of 80, so far so good, but that there will be 4 persons in the cab....Bill exits the bathroom just in time to ask what is going on.  And then things get a bit hairy.  Bill is feeling taken advantage of, if we are being asked to pay 35 per person for the ride, but the others are only paying 25, that isn't fair.  He finally persuaded Erik that it is the principle of the thing that is at stake, not the money.  Erik calls his friend and renegotiated the deal so that we pay 30 each.  Turns out that there was a 5th person in the cab who ended up splitting the driving, which we did not know until about 1.5 hours into the drive.

It took a lot out of Bill, he is sleeping quietly as I am typing.  He hates confrontation, and as confrontations go, this was not a big one, but it was all done speaking Spanish and trying very hard not to sound like a jerk, he did not.

A crabby time getting back to Havana

March 28 -

Early Tuesday morning, we got up, had a delicious brekkies, loaded our beasts onto our backs and headed down to Cespedes Plaza to catch the bus to Havana.  We arrived at the square at about 8:30 for the 9:00 bus.  We were told by the doorman at the Iberostar that we should wait across the street in the park.  While waiting, we chatted with 2 other customers, Jane, from England, and Jeff from Nashua.  The scrum to get on the bus was rather intense, and Bill and I were unable to sit together let alone sit with our new friends....

Just after leaving town, we drove along a coastal road.  The road was literally covered with red clawed crabs heading away from the water into the scrubby brush.   We got a free treat of some wild life happenings.  There was a mass of crabs that were leaving the beach and heading into the woods, scrub land, out of the water.  The number was immense, but the crushed carcasses on the road way spoke to more numbers than were seen.  These suckers were quite large, fist sized or larger and at one point along this road were climbing up a vertical bank with ease.  A little further on, they had no difficulty  climbing the walls of houses.  The owners were sitting outside holding sticks and brooms which they used to swat them from the walls.  On some houses, they had already made it to the roof, which to my thinking was a Darwinian epic fail as they were going to be cooked by the sun if they didn't figure out a way to get down.  I'm sorry that I couldn't get any photos of this massive migration nor was there anyone on the bus who could explain what was going on.  My amateur naturalist guess was that they had laid eggs close to the water and were retreating back to their natural habitat.

The bus continued along at a moderate pace.  It seems that there is a bell or noise maker installed on the speedometer of the bus.  Anything over 50 mph and it goes off, thereby forcing the driver to slow down.  At around 1 pm we pulled into a rest stop/lunch break place and had a bite to eat.  We were told it would be a 30 minute break, it turned out to be a Cuban 30 minutes, which roughly translated to 1 hour.  

Back on the bus, and at roughly 4:30 we arrived in Havana.  Bill and I got dropped off at Havana Street and the Malecon.  After walking for about 15 minutes, we finally were in familiar territory.  We got to the Casa, had our reunion with Erik and Elvis, and hit the AC and had a short lie down before heading out to meet Jeff and Jane on the Hotel Inglaterra roof top bar.

After a couple of mojitos each, or Bucaneros for Bill, we headed out of the hotel to find some dinner.  We ended up at a place called the Pino de la Plata or something like that just behind the famous bar Floridita.  Its fame is attributed to Hemingway drinking there regularly and fully so that now they sell their daiquiris for a greatly inflated price!

It was about 8:30 or 9 when we arrived at the restaurant.  A tout outside said it was closed, which it wasn't so we headed in only to find that it was getting close to closing, and there were very little items from the menu that were still available.  Turns out Jane is a vegetarian, and she was having a devil of a time finding something that was available and did not contain fish or meat.

After dinner, Jeff headed to his casa which was in Centro and Bill and I walked Jane back to hers.  She was on San Ignacio a long walk from Plaza Vieja.  I felt better that we did walk her home.  She was very comfortable, I guess I wasn't.

We get home to Erik and Elvis' place safe and sound and slept deeply.