Day 5 - Old Havana

Our first stop of the day was to hunt down a CADECA to get us some much needed MN peso. Though in theory, foreigners are supposed to use primarily the CUC currency, the reality is that about a third of the time, we needed MN/peso.

And as luck would have it, soon thereafter, we passed by the stunning Hotel Florida ($230/night) when Rich noticed a crowd of people outside on their cell phones. This is a sure sign that the hotel has wifi (most residents/businesses do not have wifi access). We were able to buy a $4.50 wifi access card (the hotels will sometimes sell them to non-guests, provided that you agree to not use it within the hotel...hence the crowd of people right outside the building).  We bought an hour of access for $4.50, and spent 2-3 minutes sending a quick text to my family letting them know that we were okay. Unfortunately, we lost the entire remaining balance of the card since we were unaware of how to properly log off.

Our agenda of the day was to cruise Old Havana, so once we left the Hotel Florida, we spent the next 4-5 hours walking around. Though our final destination was Plaza Vieja, we had a few churches we wanted to visit as well.

The lobby of the historic Hotel Florida

Most of the streets are pedestrian only, but you do a fair bit of dodging them Bici taxis (bicycle taxis).

Our first stop of the day was the Catedral de San Cristobal de la Havana and the Plaza de Catedral...which was the same church that the Obama's visited shortly after landing in the country on Good Friday (more on this later). Now that I'm studying architecture with my students this term...I can proudly identify the exterior of the cathedral as Baroque. Not because I can visually remember and recognize characteristics from that era, but because I read it. ;-) Some things never change...forty one years old and still having to cheat and read the Cliff Notes...sniff.

The interior is made up of coral, and supposedly, you can spot fossils within the coral.

From there, we wandered around nearby Plaza de Armas (the city's oldest square, dating back to the 1500s). Our first stop was the Castillo de la Real Fuerza with its cannons and castle-like structure (it is now an art gallery).

One of the buildings (the ground floor is a restaurant) in Plaza de Armas.

From Plaza de Armas, we walked in the direction of what we hoped was the Museo del Automovil. However, after asking at least 4-5 different local residents/police/employees and searching for the better part of an hour...we were stumped. It's either moved or is no longer open. I was really hoping to check out a few of the more famous vehicles there, such as Che Guevara's Impala (that he drove during the Revolution) or his comrade Camilo Cienfuegos' mint-green Oldsmobile. I mean, c'mon. A mint-green Olds? What's not to love?

After glumly abandoning our plans for the Museo del Automovil, we stumbled across a few other gems...

Iglesia y Monasterio de San Francisco de Asis is known for its bell tower views of the city. It was built in the 1600s and is also of the Baroque era.

I believe this is the Havana Club...the actual drinking establishment versus the brand of rum that you couldn't walk 50 yards without seeing. Clearly, the Cubans are very proud of their rum. I definitely got it. Every single bar and restaurant and store was plastered with the brand name. Apparently it is a globally-recognized brand nearly everywhere rum is easily obtained (with the obvious exception being the the US).

At this point, we detoured into a few neighborhoods to hand out toys/treats to children. Though most of the main plazas and former palaces were well maintained and painted, it quickly became apparent that the surrounding areas were crumbling, poorly maintained and in desperate need of paint. The buildings (all from a wide variety of architectural periods) have clearly had better days, but you could still easily see their former grandeur through the gray, rusted and peeling facades. I can only hope that as the city prepares itself for the onslaught of visitors, that it seeks to restore rather than rebuild.

Plaza Vieja is mostly renovated Colonials and probably the liveliest of the Plazas in Old Havana

This bronzed sculpture in Plaza Vieja is a mystery not just to me, but apparently the world as well.  I've always been the dumb clod who misses the symbolism in novels and paintings and sculptures, and this nude woman holding a fork on the back of a chicken is no exception. ???

The highlight of the day was visiting the Iglesia y Convento de Nuestro Senora de la Merced...the sight of many weddings there. It's easy to see why. It's like the embodiment of a giant Faberge egg to me. In churches like these, it's hard not to feel humbled and gracious and blessed.

Once we left the cathedral, we walked in the direction of Central Havana...

If I could have set these wee little chicks free somewhere and known they'd survive, I'd have bought the whole box. :-)

El Capitolio, or the National Capitol Building (the seat of the government until the Revolution) is ironically enough, a dead ringer for the US Capitol, don't you think? It's now more or less a gallery/museum, but was under repair while we were there. I have a special knack for visiting historic buildings while they are under construction. :-(

I wasn't a huge fan of Central Havana (I much preferred the quaint, cobblestoned streets of Old Havana). However, I did adore the lines of classic cars waiting for passengers to cruise around town or the Malecon (seawall), and the Parque Central Area. While in the park (which wasn't very large compared to its American counterpart), we were able to locate the infamous 'hot zone' of some very heated exchanges. Apparently, residents gather there to debate a very controversial topic- baseball. ;-) It was pretty intense! Men, and even a few women, were angrily yelling and wildly gesturing with their arms to make their point to the crowd circled around them.

After some time getting acquainted with Central Havana, we headed back to Old Havana to wind down.

I'm a sucker for freshly made caramel flan! Rich had ice cream and coffee...our tab for dessert was $2. ;-)

We wandered an outdoor artisanal flea market off of Obispo Street a few times to check out the local arts and crafts being made. I found the paper mache to be the most fascinating locally made craft.I also found a crocheted dress for my niece, a carved wooden box for Rich, and an Andy-Warhol inspired Che magnet for myself. I couldn't resist.

Sugar cane juice is a pretty popular beverage there, so we had to try it. The man behind Rich used that green machine to manually smash/pulp the sugar cane. It wasn't bad!

Over the course of the day, I kept going in to the stores to check them out. Along with the older cars, assessing Cuban staples and their supply was at the top of my list. I'd read so much about their stores prior to the trip- namely that most things were either not available, or in short supply. There was no variety. If you wanted to buy deodorant, that you could find it, but in one variety (so too bad if you didn't like the smell). We'd been told that traditional grocery stores were basically non existent, and that most stores had only a handful of a certain category of items. I.e- there's a store for bread, a store for poultry, a store for dry goods, a store for liquor and cigarettes...but that there was no 'grocery store' or 'convenience' store per se.

This was all very consistent with what we saw. Not including the tourist trap stores (which dominated the main visitor shopping areas), we entered about a dozen 'local' stores in residential areas to get a better sense of what they were like. This store below is a perfect example of most stores that we saw:

-Items were always behind a counter/glass counter.
-There was always a decent supply of each item, but only maybe 20-30 different types of items.
-Most of the larger stores, such as this one, appeared to be state-run (prices were fairly consistent, and reasonable in MN/peso prices since they were geared toward residents.
-They were never air conditioned...ha.
-Because of the limited amount of goods, there were never any carts or baskets.
-Many shelves were bare...signs of prior days of glory, or perhaps hope?

In the case of the store below, they had items like soap, toothpaste, cigarettes and alcohol (the latter appears to be a very inexpensive stable sold in nearly every store).

The other shelves contained a few varieties of soup, but that was it. Fresh produce was usually only available on carts or tiny little hole in the wall stores...but to be honest, because the fruit it not GMO and is manually grown the traditional way (vs hot houses or mass-produced with fertilizers and pesticides)...most looked pretty bad. Tiny, bruised, of mediocre-taste to my spoiled, Hawaiian taste buds. Fruit was cheap, but there was also very little variety and I can't say I was ever served a piece of it, or saw it in restaurants much.

The stores don't exactly encourage lingering, overspending or excitement. There was very limited junk food/candies (I saw mostly Trident gum and an occasional variety of chocolate while here, largely marked up), zero knicknacks and few toys (I saw them 2-3 times, but it was the very worst things from China that you could imagine. Flimsy, plastic, tacky and...insanely expensive. I never saw a single Hot Wheel, jump ropes, dolls or hair ornaments (we'd read the latter is highly desired, so we'd brought over a 100 little hair bows/bands to hand out). I'm quite certain all the Hot Wheels cars we shared will be shared among children for many, many years to come.

Of any country we've been to thus far, this one probably topped the list of "Most spartan" in terms of supplies and goods available for purchase.

Our walk back home that evening had us passing out more treats to the local children. Though the occasional person would ask us our name, where we're from (the standard opening before offering to give you a tour, get you a taxi, take you to a great restaurant, etc.), most people were perfectly helpful and polite when their offers were declined. In fact, they are quite possibly the least pushy touts I've ever encountered in my life. Their collective energy/spirit felt a lot like home to be honest (which isn't a stretch given that we both come from isolated, chill islands).

Visually, the neighborhoods we cruised to hand out toys (off the beaten track) may have looked unsafe- they were old, crumbling, peeling...windows and doors often covered behind rusty, metal bars...but the reality is, they were and are quite safe. Crime is low in Cuba (for many reasons). I've often felt that Communist countries, provided you walk the straight and narrow as a visitor, are among the safest in the world. Cuba was no exception. Though we'd read so much about the artificial inflation of restaurant tabs, switcharoos with currency to confuse foreigners, etc. We never once experienced such 'mark ups,' nor did we ever feel pressured by touts. A simple 'no thank you' was all you needed to end any interaction (which is not often the case in other countries). In China, we were followed for a half mile once by a man who kept thrusting his postcards in our face before Rich nearly had to go all WWE on him.