Day Tripping in Cuba

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Intra-Island Flight

To get to Havana (on the west side of the country) from Holguín (on the northeast coast) took an hour and a half in a turbo prop 30 seater, pretty much the way the crow flies. It’s a big country. I would love to visit more of it, especially the south coast. The excursion cost about US$180 pp for the day (less for children) – which included tour bus transport to/from hotel and airport, airfare Holguín-Havana return, guided van tour of Havana, lunch and even grilling the tour guide ;^) I think that was a very good price for the experience.

 

We started very early from our hotel. Playa Pesquero is a one hour bus ride from the airport at Holguín. Then it was an interminable wait and unbelievably sensitive security & identification checks for a small town intra island government operated tourist hopper, until we were finally boarded on the turboprop bound for Havana.

Once landed in Havana we were herded across the tarmac, through the rather gruesome Havana Airport domestic arrivals area (read: nasty toilets) and onto a small tour bus. It was quite something to careen around Havana, dodging horse drawn carriages and bicycles and pedestrians on the roadways, all vying with the 50’s classic cars and the antique open bedded cabbage trucks and the soviet-issue tin can coupes and the behemoth pink camel buses.

It’s a major coup to own a car in Cuba – most of the vehicles on the road belong to the government and are issued to various individuals or groups for various purposes. The only cars that are permitted to be owned outright by citizens of the country are cars that predate Castro’s Revolution (1959). I am not clear how long this has been so, or why this decree was issued, but the net result is that owning one of these old babes is a major status symbol in a country that attempts to conserve its worship for political heroes.

There is some distinction in wealth despite government policy. There are Cubans who have ties outside the country and so have access to the much coveted US dollars that make the world go around. And since the early 1990's, when Cuba began opening its doors to western tourists, everyday Cubans who have contact with the tourists have been recipients of what were previously illegal-to-possess US dollars, through cash tips. The concept of getting paid more for doing a good job was previously non-existant in a land where everyone is supposed to be equal. And even though the tips may seem like small potatoes, the cost of living is such that in Cuba, a Cuban can exist on US$10 a month, and anything extra will provide some degree of luxury. Despite the low wages, some patriotic Cubans I spoke to greatly pride themselves on the full public access, no matter how basic, to a place to live, education and health care.

Plaza de la Revolucíon

 First stop was lunch. Not a bad thing considering the early start (marginal brekkies offered at 5:30 am at the resort where we were staying) and the unnecessarily long total transit time due to the aforementioned security boondoggle. Then it was on to Plaza de la Revolucíon. It is the place where many of the great revolutionary rallies have been held. In essence it’s a big, not particularly attractive parking lot (is attractive parking lot an oxymoron? >;^), studded with loudspeakers. The infamous plaza is surrounded by a strange assortment of structures, including a building with a huge José Martí sculpture on its side, military statuary, including a very tall monument, and some rather cubist department and apartment buildings, clearly built post 1959.

We then drove through what once was the main residential boulevard in Havana – the place where wealthy Cubans once resided, plus movie stars, mafia kings, diplomats etc etc. After the revolution, many of the servants in these houses (who remained after the owners vanished, were banished or left the country) squatted there. To this day, more than 50 years later, the houses have been passed down (legally!) through the servants’ families, to the point that these old decaying ladies may now house numerous relatives of the initial squatter. Most of the houses are not particularly well maintained (likely no funds available for this purpose). In contrast, right next door in some cases, are some of the several well kept “western” international embassies in Cuba, flags proudly a-flying in the tradewinds.

Fortaleza de San Carlos
de la Cabana

Old Havana is simply charming. The early Spanish settlements in Cuba were built at Santiago de Cuba, on the southwest coast. However it was Havana that was better located at a crossroads for trade winds from Spain and South America. The Spaniards built an early garrison down the throat of the harbour in Havana. However, after several attacks on the city (the fortress was too protected to be able to detect invasion soon enough), La Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabana fortress was built out on a promontory, with the canons facing out to sea.

 

Catedral de San Cristobal
de la Habana

The Cuban powers that be have apparently seen the light on tourism. Key portions of Old Havana have been beautifully restored, and there are current projects being undertaken, although on a pretty small scale. For several blocks you can wind through the grand old streets of the city. You can see the hotel where Jimmy Carter stayed during his visit (which if memory serves was once the Spanish Governor of Cuba’s mansion), and you can visit the hotel residence where Ernest Hemingway apparently ate, drank, smoked, slept and wrote The Old Man and the Sea. There are open air book stalls and pretty gardens. There is a beautiful square in front of the old Spanish colonial cathedral where you can stop to drink a coffee or a Cristal cerveza, a great contrast from the bleak Plaza de la Revolucíon.

 
A few blocks away is El Paseo, a raised promenade shaded by some glorious old trees. Again, with the decay. Some of the trees have died and have been left to rot. In other cases, trees have been removed and not replaced. But still, it didn’t take much imagination to conjure up images of days gone by – of the colonial Spanish citizens of Cuba resting on their laurels, swapping slaves and sagas, reveling in what was surely once a splendid city. And then later, the mafia lords and movie stars and vice-seeking Americans of Prohibition days, who embraced Havana and her wanton ways, until Castro and his rebel forces put an abrupt halt to it on New Year's Eve 1959.

Havana Tourist Market

Shopping in Havana was a bit marginal, although there was a very large artisan market right beside the road that divides the huge seawall and Old Havana, and the ubiquitous little market in the old fortress, both of which sold cheap Cuban souvenirs, bric-a-brac and some original pop art. One of the most notable aspects of Havana was the complete absence of worldwide franchises like MacDonald’s, Burger King, Starbucks etc etc etc. To visit a large city and see none of those blights was refreshing. And, for this reason, and the parade of old cars and horses and carriages, it felt a bit like we had been transported back in time.

 

Havana Hero Statuary

 Not far from the waterfront and its very long sea wall promenade is the cultural center of the city, and Central Park. Surrounding the Park are the Museum of National Arts (two of them actually), the Cuban Ballet Company, some grand and infamous old hotels, and El Capitolio, apparently a spitting image (architecturally speaking) of the one in DC, which housed the House of Representatives and the Senate, prior to 1959, and is now a public museum.

Museo de la Revolución

 You can't visit Havana without being aware of the military presence there. These war toys are proudly displayed at Havana's Museo de la Revolución. The small boat behind the glass is the actual vessel that brought Castro and his henchmen back from exile in Mexico in 1959.

Presidential Palace

 This was once the Presidential Palace. Fidel does not live here. The tour guide was quite vague as to his residence. Fidel is reported to be a very private man, and has deemed that any (sanctioned) biographies (other than his autobiographies) will be published after his death. This grand old building is now part of the extensive Museo de la Revolución, adjacent to the buildings housing the war paraphernalia pictured above.
A day tour of Havana is only a small window into the complexity of the city and its attractions. I think the city is worthy of a longer visit, especially for folks interested in touring the surprisingly well preserved buildings, some of which date back to the Spanish conquistidors of the New World, and as well for people interested in the modern revolutionary history of a turbulent nation.