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| Spanish fort to store Mayan gold |
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| with Linda and Chris inside |
With guide books in hand and Google translate at the ready we started our sightseeing at the fort, a stronghold for storing Aztec gold from South America for the Spanish fleet to carry back to Spain. Around the cobbled square we came to Calle Obispo which is one of two well known destinations for the tourist. Here we found a group of musicians and dancers on stilts, even on stilts their rhythm was undeniable. Along Obispo the shops are unchanged in appearance for a hundred years with painted signs and tiled walls; a barber which claims to be the oldest in Cuba, a pharmacy with the wooden drawers and traditional glass bottles, a lace shop and one of the numerous hotels which claim Hemingway as a regular patron. He must have done a lot of drinking in a lot of bars.
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| in the old city |
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| music everywhere |
We strolled around the back streets, music seeming to come from every room, every restaurant and every corner, past the cathedral whose doors were closed, past a bar offering salsa lessons to foreigners. We had coffee in a shaded arcade serenaded by three talented ladies playing classical arrangements of popular songs on violins, wondered at the lines of cerise Cadillac taxis and beautifully restored classic American cars.
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| cathedral square |
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| Chevy taxis |
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| Museum of the Revolution |
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| a glimpse of history |
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| waves on the Malecon |
We were too late in the day to visit the Capitol building but strolled around it. It is an almost exact replica of the Capitol building in Washington, but bigger. Not much bigger, just a couple of metres longer, a couple of metres wider and with the second largest interior statue in the world. Unfortunately my guide book omitted to disclose which is the largest. We did see the huge gold figure through an open door and it's impressive. Havana's Capitol was built in the 20s as a nod to the US when Cuba had close political and economic ties.
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| Castro's MV Grandma and missiles |
Another building from the former age has been repurposed to house the Museum of the Revolution. The grand 19th century Governors house now has a Russian tank from the 60s which it says Castro took command of and fired a shell from, possibly something involving the Bay of Pigs invasion. The museum had also closed for the day so our visit was limited to reading information boards written in Spanish and gazing through the fence at the outdoor collection of Russian rockets, a bit of Sputnik, the fuselage of an American spy plane and in it's own glass sided room, MV Granma which brought revolutionaries Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and 60 men from Mexico in '56 to start the revolution by ousting US supported President and all round oppressor, Batista. Batista finally fled Cuba on 1 January '59 and settled in Portugal leaving the island for the new man, Fidel, to run.
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| The Capitol building |
Havana is fascinating. The historic buildings have been restored. Their are plenty of foreign visitors, but look behind the glitz and shiny international hotels, past the pink Cadillacs, upwards and around corners and you see everyday life continuing. In the centre of the city there were traditional produce markets, people apartments with crumbling facades, a spiders' nest of electric wires and lines of washing on the balcony, windows without glass or wood to protect from the elements or to deaden the ever present music. Walking the little streets we would have to press against the wall as a big dustcart squeezed along. Finding a rubbish bin to put your ice cream pot into took ten minutes. A rubbish bin, and presumed collection, is something we take for granted.
For me Havana is a city of contrasts and well worth visiting for its exuberance, its joie de vivre. What it did (refreshingly) lack on Christmas Eve was any Santas or Jingle Bells or any of the commercialism we get force fed at home. Hurrah for Havana and Happy Christmas!
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