Old Havana

Viva!

The Cuban Capitolio building.

Lada Police car.

Sitting on that plane to Havana, after 10 years of dreaming about Cuba, it was all about to happen. I still couldn't believe it. I'd done a little reading about the country but was still quite unprepared - and I wouldn't really have an opportunity to learn much on the go there due to the whole limited internet thing. This time I was really jumping in the deep end - at least I wasn't alone and I could speak the language sufficiently. I didn't really have a travel plan either, other than it was 14 days here and I had to fly from Havana to Europe - this one would be a make-it-up-as-I-go trip... the best kind right? 

The tales are true - a classic car at every intersection!

Entryway to an apartment in Havana.

Waiting for a bus in the city.

Landing at the airport was just like stepping back in time - something that you feel all the time in Cuba. The old decorations, signs and just everything about it screams 1950s, it's like you've stepped into an episode of 'Mad Men.' We got through customs and passport control (got my stamp!) and went outside to get a taxi to our hostel - the worst time in a new country where you always get ripped off and hassled. Being walking dollar signs, people approached straight away, before we had even changed our money. Something I knew about beforehand but was still unsure of was the money situation - there are two currencies in Cuba right now. There is the Cuban Pesos (Moneda Nacional or CUP) which the locals use, 25 pesos to the US dollar, and the Peso Convertibles (or CUC), worth 1:1 with the US Dollar and used by foreigners. We're not really allowed to use the local money, but things are changing here and I actually used it quite often for small purchases like coffee and snacks. Using my best haggling/persuasion/lying skills, I played off the taxi drivers against each other and got the trip down from 30 CUC to 20 CUC. More money for rum I figured.

The 'Classic Cars' of Havana - these ones are just for tourists with money (not me).

A Lada 2107 - very popular car here, but probably not by choice.

A real car - A 60s Pontiac.

The drive from the airport to our hostel was an interesting one. It was about 9pm, so we couldn't see much, there weren't many street lights or cars on the road. The cars on the road were as you would expect - old Chevs and Fords cruising around, dull yellow headlamps (no modern bright-as-day lights here) and full with families. Laurel and I were like kids in a candy store slash dog with it's head out the window - it was a cool ride. The fact about the cars here is not what everyone expects I don't think. There are cars for tourists in the centre of Havana, charging $40 per half hour for a classic car tour of the city, but most cars here are owned by real people, families, that reply on them to live. The trade embargo put on Cuba hurt them, no longer able to import new cars and appliances for example, you just have to make do and keep it running. The cars you see driving around are 1950s and 60s tanks but they aren't a gimmick - all have had their engines changed to diesel (last longer and more efficient) and are handed down from father to son to grandson. If you have a car here, you can be a taxi (or 'collectivo' as they call them here), driving people around for about 50c a trip, which is a lot of money here and consider how many people you fit on the bench seats and how many trips you can do, picking people up along the way. Our hostel was somebody's apartment in a big but brightly painted building, right next to the big baseball stadium. We headed out for a $1 beer and a sit in the plaza, pinching ourselves. We chatted to a few locals here and discovered how friendly Cubans really are - the trip was starting off very well. The view from the balcony in the morning was also quite spectacular - a view of the Capital building in the distance.

The Capitolio building seen from our hostel on the first day.

Inside a Havana church.

Colourful buildings.

A bit of a back story is needed for Cuba so you get to know the country a bit, as it has had a busy history, a changing one and one that will be very different very soon. Columbus was the first European to land here back in 1492, the Spanish colonists turned up in 1511 and Cuba became an agricultural country, mainly sugar cane. The country stayed under Spanish rule until the Seven Year War, involving Britain, France and Spain, and Havana was captured by the Brits in 1762, but later returned to Spain as part of the peace treaty that saw an exchange for Florida. Cuba had their first revolution in 1868, led by a sugar planter, named Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, who freed his slaves to help with the fight for independence. The 1868 rebellion resulted in the Ten Years' War. Two thousand Cuban Chinese joined the rebels. The United States declined to recognise the new Cuban government, although many European and Latin American nations did. Slavery in Cuba was abolished in 1875 and was completed in 1886, and Jose Marti formed the Cuban Revolutionary Party in 1892. After the Spanish American War, Spain lost their territories in North America (including Puerto Rico) and Cuba finally got it's independence in 1902, but America meddled in Cuba's affairs from the word go - in the constitution they reserved the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and to 'help them' with their finances and foreign affairs. Batista was elected in 1940 and was President until 1944, only being allowed one term. He ran again in 1952 and lost, so he staged a coup and got the top job back, with the help of the US. Under his dictatorship government, Cuba developed, but only for the relatively wealthy and a bout a third of the country remained quite poor and unemployment was also high. He stayed in power until the famous Cuban Revolution (1953-59) with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. The rest most people know, but the revolution didn't finish in 59 with the overthrow of Baptista - it is still considered to be a revolution now and propaganda posters are everywhere.

The 'Big 3' - Party Founder Julio Antonio Mella and Revolutionaries Camillo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara.

Havana Vieja.

How 'the other half' live.

During the Republican Period, from 1902 to 1959, Havana saw a real period of development. Cuba recovered from the devastation of war to become a well-off country, with the third largest middle class in the hemisphere. Apartment buildings to accommodate the new middle class, as well as mansions for the Cuban tycoons, luxury hotels, casinos and nightclubs were built in the 30s. Walking around the city today, you can see that it was once very wealthy and beautiful, a playground for rich Americans, but is now crumbling away everywhere you look. Home to 2.1 million people, it is still beautiful but way past it's day. Building have that grandeur but no paint, bricks missing or the whole inside of the building completely destroyed. The Capitolio building was built in 1929 and looks just like the Capital building in Washington DC - no accident either. We found a 'casa particular,' or private house, to rent 2 blocks away from this building and right in the middle of where the 'real' city is. It's a residential area and full of locals - the tourists usually have hotels and stay around the restored 'Habana Viejo' part of town (Old Havana), and I think they are missing out. We headed out for a coffee, which we found numerous places selling it and it only cost 1CUP (5c), a pizza for 15CUP (70c) and lots of juices and other goodies. These things in the tourist part of town would be far more expensive - it's one of those things that seem cheap to you until you find out how much the locals pay - but we were true backpackers and knew the tricks! We spent the next few days wandering the streets, taking photos, eating cheap meals from local restaurants ($1.70 compared to nearly $10) and enjoying everything that makes Cuba and Havana so special.

A 'Black & White' Lada taxi on the streets of Havana.

Stars and Stripes clothes is all the rage here.

Some good old boys making some good old music

Most people here don't actually earn very much money. We were constantly told that, even if you are a doctor or engineer, you only get about 40USD a month - a pittance. On the other hand, from what I understand, the Government gives you monthly allowances for most of your necessities for food (including rum and cigars of course), but this is not really enough. It's not easy though - you can't just go to the supermarket and pick up your favourite brand of cheese - you get 1, maybe 2 choices of brands and sizes. The pizza we bought here in Havana, at several different little pizza places, all tasted the same - 1 brand of cheese and tomato sauce. They just don't have an option - trade embargoes from so many countries stop the 'luxury' we have of being fussy at the supermarket or even having a huge shopping mall. Fashion is basically limited, which I don't mind at all as I think it's a huge, greedy slave-trade most of the time anyway, as well as being a waste of time and money keeping in fashion, so people wear what they have or what they can get and don't have an outfit for everyday like most Westerners. Mobile phones are small 'dumb' Nokias and The Internet is quite limited - no Internet in houses, only expensive hotels for foreigners, but you can buy vouchers in certain WiFi Hotspots (which are new), but only the locals are supposed to get this, but money is money and someone always sold it to us (3CUC/hr). Cars that break down are fixed with what's on hand, which is a good thing that they are old too. If something is broken, you fix it and keep on using it - Cubans are very handy when it comes to these things as they have to be, not like us who just buy a new one and dump the old one in landfill.

Hey yourself buddy!

People watching is national past time.

A man and his car in Havana.

Laurel and I spent 4 days in Havana before we moved to another city, and still we hadn't seen everything. It's a big city and with confusing buses (that are only 1CUP - 7c or the same as a coffee here) we walked most of it. This is a great way of seeing the city though - you really get a feel for it! We spent time during the day either in Havana Vieja with the tourist, enjoying the sights and the buildings but staying away from the expensive food and drink, or near our 'house,' but that got a little tiring too as a lot of people would beg. When Cubans beg, they don't just ask for money, they are really quite inventive. The usual story is a father who doesn't have enough money to buy milk for his 3 kids, so he talks to you for a while, then tells you about how he's a doctor but has no money for milk and then asks you to buy him some. It could be a scam but I think that sometimes it isn't - but it gets tiring nonetheless and I stopped doing. It's also always someone's birthday and he wants you to go and have a beer with him - you're paying of course. Alive and interesting, so far I was loving Havana and Cuba, nearly ready to move on to the next place but not wanting to leave this crazy yet vibrant city yet. I was on a time limit however - that's what you get for booking tickets ahead of time, something that I was not used to.

It's all part of the Havana experience!

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MyUncleTravellingMatt. May 2016.