Cuba and Habana

And so begins the final leg of our epic adventure. Cuba, the place of so many myths, restraints, uncertainties. We have heard a lot of things about this country and all of it unable to verify, mainly because of lack of knowledge from people and the internet. So what will we find? 
Our first stop is Havana (or Habana if you're local).

We had a series of 2 short and easy flights from Costa Rica up to El Salvador and then on to Habana. We arrived early afternoon and once at our Casa Particular accommodation (more about these later), we decided to get straight on it and hit the streets. The first thing that struck me about Habana was the sheer size of the urban sprawl. Yes it is a capital city and supposed to be big, but the place is really big. Also something that in had overlooked; the island of Cuba itself is big. Most probably the largest Caribbean island and also only 90 miles from the coast of Miami.

So out we headed, lonely planet in hand and our first afternoon to explore and get lost in this wonderful city. We were only 5 blocks away from the infamous Malécon (like most of central America the road systems are set up on even "blocks" of Avenues and Streets). The Malécon is a 4 lane road that hugs the coast, runs flat and follows the coast around Habana. It runs from Old Habana, past Centro Habana and onto Vadado Habana. The buildings lining the Malécon are in various states if disrepair (like much of the surroundings), but it is a wonderful setting and a great introductory walk in to the main part of town. 

Now apart from the buildings in was most looking forward to seeing the old cars. Having heard many stories about the USA embargo on Cuba since the late 50's, therefore restricting the country doing business and obtaining anything relatively new, the place was to be a time warp. Yes this is true in part and non-moreso obvious than the cars. The majority are old 50's Fords, Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillacs. Some in a very poor state of repair and only just chugging along however, there are also the cars that are the pride and joy of their owners and have been kept or restored into mint condition. Most with the obligatory sound system playing various shades of Cuban music. Everywhere you look there is a car going past, sitting in a side street or ferrying people round as a taxi. It was great to see and highlighted something that 
we would see more of in our time here. The fact that although these cars are old the Cuban people fix things and keep them going. This extended to most things and their resilience to just carry on and repair, bodge or fix anything to keep it working.
One of the funny things is that inspite of all these wonderful old cars, the next range of cars that are popular are....Ladas.....not as impressive, but resilient at least. 


So into Old Habana and the start of a few days of walking the streets, getting lost, turning down side streets, back alleys and main boulevards. Just exploring and getting under the skin of Habana.


Second to the cars in Habana is the buildings and architecture. Wow! Now i know that there would be some good buildings to see, but again the sheer size and number of them is staggering. Every street you turn has a row of ornate buildings and the next and the next.

The majority of the building styles are either in the colonial style of the early 1900's or art deco. Now there is more Art Deco in Habana than you could shake a stick at. Forget Napier in NZ or Miami, this place oozes it. Some truly fantastic sites and as you can imagine my camera took a severe battering whilst in Habana. It was wonderful to see the mass use of many architectural styles. But the thing that struck me the most, was that down the back alleys and side streets where people live, it is just a house or common place for them. They might be living in a colonial townhouse with 12 foot high doors sat in 24 foot ceilings (seriously), but to them it was all around them, the ornate balconies, friezes, facades; just there, with their washing line strung up against it. However with the mass of buildings also comes the disrepair and the lack of funds to maintain it.

Ok. Enough about the cars and architecture. We spent a good 2 and a half days just walking round Habana, enjoying the sights, sounds and of course Mojitos. Well it would be rude to come to a country that exports this much rum and not try a mojito! So we did set a little challenge to try as many mojitos as we could (all in the name of research you must understand!).

Whilst walking round Habana we also came across a random car park. Well when say car park I mean train park. In the true Cuban spirit of keeping old things and mending them, there was smack bang in the middle of town (and no where near any rail way lines) a graveyard of old trains. A weird site, but fun to walk round and take some photos. We also took in some of the other main sites in town including a tour of the Havana Club factory.

We also were not certain about what to expect about the food. We had heard it was bland....we weren't disappointed. The Cuban cooking is basic to say the least, but we were prepared. Most meals were the basics of rice, plain salad and plain meat. "seasoning" came in the form of salt or pepper. One funny moment stuck out early on and put us on good stead for the rest of our trip. When at a nice little place for dinner I ordered something from the menu and the guy came back and said there was not that on the menu tonight, along with x, y & z. Then he said with a smile "Welcome to Cuba man!" and that summed up most experiences and was recited to each other a lot. But we knew what to expect and from then on enjoyed each meal (well almost all).


So after walking our socks off and having the excitement of feeling like we had really arrived in Cuba, we were ready to explore the rest of this country. Our next few weeks would take us only half way across the country (as I say it is massive, I think even bigger than the state of Florida).