My first four days in Cuba were spent in Varadero, which is a beach town for those who don't know and who I haven't already told. That was pretty sweet really, 21km of white sand and superblue water. Varadero is on a peninsula, which at its widest is only about 500m wide. You wouldn't want to be there in a tsunami, it's pretty well completely flat. Even if there was a big storm you'd be a little concerned. But it is really beautiful and the weather was pretty nice while I was there. The only way you can tell it's not summer at the moment is that there's generally a bit of rain later in the afternoon, but seeing as how it's so flat that you can see right out to sea, you get a good half an hour warning that there's rain on the way.
These fellas were everywhere!
There's not much to do in Varadero aside from sit on the beach or swim, so I did a lot of sitting on the beach and swimming. I did walk up and down the Primera Avenida a few times in search of food, and I rode around on the tourist bus one afternoon, but unless you're particularly interested in the architectural properties of the Varadero hotels, there's not a lot else to look at or do. Even their biggest shopping mall only took ten minutes to walk around, and most of the stores in it were selling the same touristy stuff.
I do love the mannequins with the padded bums though. Something you wouldn't see at home!
The places I'm staying at are called casas particulars, and they're private houses that rent out rooms to tourists. The one I stayed at in Varadero was great. The owners, Carlos and Mayling, speak really good English and are very chatty and hospitable, and Mayling's cooking was far better (and cheaper and bigger) than anything else I found. And I had my own room with AC and a double bed and it's own bathroom… pretty good deal all round.
To be honest, I was really pretty unhappy for most of the time that I was in Cuba. I was really sad to be on my own, I was sad about all my friends in Canada who I'd just said goodbye to, and I was really sad about Grandad. And when I go from lots of exercise to very little exercise I always have trouble sleeping and an emotional crash out. It wasn't a good scene. I'd had some idea that might happen I think. I'm glad I had decided to just hang out by the ocean for a few days.
When I got to Havana, honestly I was terrified of the place. It's very run down and very noisy and very dirty and seemed very big, and tourists get hassled a lot. I'm never overly relaxed when I get a lot of people staring at me in a street, or men walking too close behind me and making kissing noises or talking in my ear. It took me a few days to realize that although they hiss, whistle, make kissing sounds, call out, and anything else they can do to get your attention, it's actually not only directed at foreign women who are alone, they do it to anyone and everyone. Although I'm reasonably confident they don't call out hey beautiful lady you want taxi? boyfriend? sex? to their friends. Then again, I could be wrong.
Plaza de la Catedral. There's washing hanging out the window of the building next to the church!
I spent most of my time in Habana Veija, the old city. Havana is unusual because the locals live right in amongst the tourist attractions. You go to la Plaza de la Catedral, and there are people hanging out of the windows of the next building over. Or you walk down a lovely street with all the buildings brightly painted and looking fresh and with a nice cobblestone surface to walk on, then turn a corner and find yourself in a potholed street with rubbish everywhere, a bunch of kids kicking a ball against a wall, groups of adults sitting on the curb staring at you, and buildings that haven't been repainted since they were built or had any proper repairs done since the 1950s. It's such a roller coaster, it's exhausting going from one extreme to the other several times in an hour.
Apparently it's quite common for several families to share one apartment. Cuban apartments aren't all that spacious to begin with. My casa particular in Havana was an apartment, and at one point there were five of us there and we were having to climb over the furniture or back out of the kitchen to get past each other. The building I was in was fine, but there are so many in the city that are literally falling down. I saw several buildings where the roof had collapsed and the doors were hanging off at angles and all the windows were broken and patched with pieces of plywood, and there were people still living in these buildings. They just move down a level so they still have some kind of ceiling. And this is right in the central city. Dad, you were right, we don't appreciate how good we have it, not just in NZ but in most of the countries I've visited so far.
Havana was everything I expected and nothing like I expected, all at the same time. It's difficult to explain. There are so many amazing cars (expected), and all the buildings are stunning (not expected). Most of the cars and buildings are pretty beaten up. I think it must be a very difficult place to live - for a start, it's so crowded and noisy. We're used to houses that we can seal right up, but they have shutters instead of windows and that sort of thing so noise carries a lot more. All media is heavily monitored, including Facebook. Things like towels and scissors are hard to come by. There seem to be a lot of people who spend a lot of time sitting in doorways, I'm not sure what's going on there but I suspect it's an unemployment issue. The power cuts out quite often - it happened to me twice in ten days, both times at night. Internet access is for the rich only, and then it's a slow dial up connection and only available at certain times of the day.
The thing I found the most fascinating about Cuba was the graffiti and government signage around Havana. Almost all the graffiti I saw was pro-socialism... Which leads to the question, who put the graffiti there?
I did the tourist bus tour in Havana as well. The day I went, the hurricane must've been right overhead. We drove along the Malecon (along the waterfront) and the waves were crashing against the sea wall. One was so big that the people sitting on the top floor of the bus got soaked, and it came down the stairs. The road was closed from that point onward.
Again, there wasn't much that was really that fascinating to see around Havana, but here are some of the pretty buildings (some of these were taken from the bus and some from the ground... see if you can guess which are which!).
And of course, me being me, I went to the car museum. That was cute.
Walking back to my casa on my last full day in Havana, I walked past an accident scene where a girl had just been hit by a bus, and (unusually for Cuba) a young guy with a handgun in his pocket, both about a block from where I was staying. So as you can imagine I was up and at the station for the 10am bus back to Varadero the next morning, and another 24hrs later I was on the plane back to Canada. Still unsure how I felt about the whole place really!
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