2 Days in Havana

Here's some more pictures of my two wonderful days and evening at the Tropicana in Havana.

Plaza Vieja - the old town square - across the street from where our ship was docked

Our car for the morning!  1953 hot pink Ford, with white leather interior.  Perfect for Snort.

 

Hotel Nacional de Cuba - from the 1920's and still considered one of the nicest hotels in Havana, located along the Malecon, the seafront boulevard

The U.S Embassy building - can you hear me now???

 The old Riviera hotel - built by mobsters in the 1950's.  There's an abandoned casino out front (see below) that was the hub of action back in the day.

Entrance of Fusterlandia, the quirky neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, near Mira Mar (the swanky neighborhood), where local artist named Jose Fuster lives and "works".  He considers himself a cross between Picasso and Gaudi.  He sculpts and fashions his art by broken pieces of glass and creates murals by combining his painting and his ceramic glass work on neighborhood homes and fences. 

I shouldn't be smiling while pointing to Che.  He was an absolutely evil human being.

 Some local craftspeople make art from old 33 vinyl records.

The local river that runs through Havana.  Definitely not potable water!

City hospital

I just really loved this purple umbrella

A typical apartment building

Love these classic cars

Colorful neighborhoods.  Color doesn't hide the decay that is visible everywhere.

 I guess I have a thing for umbrellas........

Brian, Louise and I riding in the 53 Ford.......

Uh oh, policia!  Looks just like our motorcycle cops at home!

 Dominoes in the park




Inside the Old Square - Plaza Viejas

Catedral de San Cristobol - Cuban Baroque style architecture

Outdoor cafe in Plaza Viejas

School boys and girls

Inside a tiny restaurant, where our tour guide, Abel, cools off from the 95 degree temps outside.
Snort and I settle for an ice cold brewski.  And a plate of Ropas Viejas, a local Cuban dish.  Pulled beef with vegetables and a spicy sauce, served with rice and beans.  Oh, and a mojito.

Chess, anyone?




I came upon this woman sewing in her front room, in old Havana.  I asked for her permission to take her picture.  In some ways, this picture pretty much sums up Havana for me.

Some new sculpures in "New Havana" neighborhoods.

This is the National Capitol building - "El Capitolio".  Look familiar???

Famous bar "Floridita", where Hemingway used to like to hang out.  Of course, any bar was a good place to hang out according to Ernie.

A local pharmacy

 

I'm pretty sure the above picture is the Teatro.

 The one below is part of Parque Central.  Oh look, another umbrella.......  !!


Our "People to People" experience was a visit to a Senior Center located in old Havana.  A group of 5 women did a rap song for us.  They were sweet and full of vim and vigor!  The center also provides counseling for victims of HIV.  A small museum home is next door to the center.

These are pictures of the Colon Cemetery, established in 1876.  It is the 3rd largest in the world.  It holds 1 million graves and, due to potentially overcrowding, some people are buried here for only 3 years, before their remains are unearthed, cremated and placed in small boxes, housed in a storage building.  If you can afford to pay for a plot, or already have a family plot here, you can "stay."  But if you're poor, (aren't most Cubans poor???) the government will "do you a solid" and let you be buried here for the 3 years for free.  After that period, it's either pay up or burn up.  Classy.

The main entrance, with a giant archway partially modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris

 
A Catholic church inside the cemetery, located pretty much in the center

This is a stunningly beautiful memorial to a group of firefighters who lost their lives in a fire in 1890.  Atop the memorial statue is an angel carrying one of the firefighters to heaven. 

The guide told us what the significance of the nun and the stork was, on one of the corners of the firefighters monument, but of course I forgot........ The monument also has the faces of the 28 firefighters carved along the bottom on each side of it.

 This grave is also well known and it's story a bit unique.  A young couple fell in love and married, despite their families' objections.  In 1901, the woman gave birth to a baby and within minutes, both the mother and baby died.  They were buried here, the baby at the foot of the mother.  A number of years later, when another family member died, they opened the grave to add the new family member and found the baby was in the mother's arms.  They believed a miracle had occurred.  So now, people come from all over to pray at this grave and ask for their own miracles.

Revolutionary Square

 Along the Malecon

An old stadium never repaired and left to abandon

Another form of paid transportion

Crumbling buildings are everywhere in Havana.  I guess the government has better things to do.

Huge statue of Christ.  But not as tall as the one in Rio.

Beautiful panoramas of Havana and our ship, from the Christ statue.

You can see the Capitol Dome from just about anywhere in Havana.

I loved this sculpture made from a tree.

El Morro, Fortaleza de San Carlos. 

Evening view from the ship of Old Havana

Sailing into Cuba

Havana

The sail-in to the port of Havana is pretty. There's a fairly narrow opening into the harbor with an old fort, lighthouse and a large statue of Christ on one side and city buildings on the other side. Along the city buildings side is a 5 mile malecon, or sea wall. 

As we got closer, I could see how run down and decrepit-looking many of the buildings were.  Peeling paint everywhere, broken windows, half-demolished buildings were regular sights. And that was just on the sail-in. 

We were to spend one full day and late into the evening in Havana, then a cruising day along the coast before reaching our second Cuban port of Cienfuegos. Those plans were changed, however, when, during dinner, after we'd spent our day in Havana, the captain announced that there had been an oil spill in the bay at Cienfuegos and our stop there had been cancelled due to safety reasons. Cienfuegos is a tender port which would make getting in to the dock on the small tenders a problem due to the spill. So. That meant another full day and evening in Havana!

It is a rare experience for an American citizen to get to visit Cuba directly from the United States. It used to be that you could go, but you had to go to another country first, then fly to Cuba. Obama changed that a few years ago. And now Trump has modified that. You can go direct now, but you have to sign an affidavit that you will engage in a "people to people" experience on an organized tour lasting from 5-8 hours. Those 10-page affidavits that you sign are required to be turned in before you can even sail on the ship from the original embarkation port, and then the papers are sent to someplace in Washington D.C. where some poor soul there organizes the papers, and the government can audit you at any time. You must keep a record of your tour for up to five years. Seriously. It's just the dumbest thing ever. I see absolutely no redeeming value in this whatsoever. 1,300 people on our ship. That's 13,000 pieces of paper. And that's just one ship, one cruise. Multiply that by dozens more trips and ships and you end up with mountains of paper. Good grief. 

On the flip side, though, if you visit here, you will almost certainly appreciate your home country even more. Because Cuba is a mess. A socialist mess. Yes, kids get free milk until they're 7 years old. Yes, education through university is free. Yes, healthcare is free. Yes, literacy is one of the highest in the world - 99.8%. But, and this is a big but - the government owns virtually everything. Until just a couple of years ago you couldn't own your home. Banks don't loan money to you. You earn very little money so to save to buy things takes a lot of time. Many people participate in a thriving but illegal black market. Everything here is old. There's no hardware stores around the corner. No dry cleaners. No dishwashers. No new parts to fix things. There are no McDonalds or other fast food chains. There are no Coca Colas, no Sprite, no A&W Root Beer. They have their own brand. Their Coke tastes nothing like our Coke. Same with Sprite. 

Their main exports are labor - they send doctors, nurses and dentists to disadvantaged countries - places worse than Cuba. They want to make sure their labor comes back after their 2-3 year assignments are up. They also export rum, tobacco (cigars) and coffee. And now tourism is starting to grow. 

There are two currencies. Local pesos for the people and convertible CUCs (pronounced like kooks) for tourists. They charge a 3% exchange rate for all countries except the U.S., where they charge an additional 10%. The conversion is about 1 to 1. The prices for tourists are terribly inflated. A local wants a mojito? It's $2.50 pesos. For a tourist, it's 7 CUCs. Most places won't take anything but CUCs. No credit cards exist. There's no phone service for our phones. If you press hard to have them accept the dollar, some might. But then they raise the price even more to cover their extra 10% they will have to pay at the bank to change to their peso. 

Many people are friendly. Some are not. Some are wary. Our guide said that people in Cuba think that Americans think they are bad people. And that makes them sad. They want us to come visit. They are hoping that by bringing our tourist dollars there, the government will begin to do more for them. Put air conditioning in their homes. Pay them more. Let more private businesses open. Fix the dilapidated buildings, make places safe to live in. 

Raul Castro has slowly been lessening the control. But only a little. I think there's a long way to go, still. 

I took a lot of pictures. It pains me to think that I can only post 4 at a time. I may wait to post the majority of them until I get home in a week, so that I can post directly from within my blog.  I need my computer for that - my iPhone won't cut it as I can't grab the photos. Technical stuff.