Rum, Cigars and Ancient Cars

Destination, 1956, or is it 1856, 1756, or 1656? That depends on where you happen to be looking in Havana, Cuba.


Andrew and I flew in from Cancun, for a few days of Latin Jazz, old cars and older buildings.  The first thing to strike you is the imposing Soviet-esk airport terminal.  You know, that kind of big imposing architecture you see in soviet era buildings - only shrunk down a bit, to fit the more modest needs of a trade embargoed tropical island.  The next thing you notice is that the grandness abruptly stops as you leave the airport and is quickly replaced by run down housing blocks and abandoned factories in the outskirts of Havana.  


But then you pass the Plaza de la Revolucion, the place where Fidel used to like enthralling his subjects with 6 hour speeches, you start heading into the old city.  With a rich history as a trading hub that includes sackings by French pritateers (1555), the Brits (1762), then as the playground for rich Americans and the Mob in the 1950s, before hitting the stop button in 1959 when Castro et al hit town.

 

We spent most of our time wandering around the narrow streets of the old town, marvelling at the architecture which varies from classical Spanish mansions - like the hotel we were staying in, through to art deco delights in the newer part of town where the mob casinos used to be.  While the architecture is great, the place has a very run down feel.  The government is working hard to restore buildings - in fact that seemed to be about the only industry at work in the old town, however it is a big job and I assume money is still tight given the ongoing trade embargo.

The other very visible effect of the embargo can be seen coughing and spluttering around the streets.  The old cars, in every state of repair are 50s vintage classics, often patched together with wire, bog and what looks suspiciously like house rather than car paint. They are great, even if a little out of tune.  In fact, most of them have Larda engines since they can't get the parts for the original engines.


The other thing to notice - or not notice, as the case may be, is the advertising.  Or lack of it.  There are very few billboards or advertising of any sort around.  Even in the state run white goods store we peeped into, there was a vast display room with only about 3 fridges in it - Harvey Norman this aint.


Despite the obvious hardships, the people seem relatively happy - or is it resigned to their fate?  One thing is for sure, they are keen to get their hands on hard currency - the thing that greases the very active black market - which means plenty of offers to buy cigars or to visit a salsa party.  These approaches became very familiar to us in no time.  


It usually wen like this:
"Where you from?".
"Australia."
"Ah, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide," accompanied by a look how clever I am grin.
"uh ha."
"you want to buy good quality cigars cheap?"
"No thanks"
"you want to go to a salsa festival?"
"No thanks"
repeat about 20 times a day.


On our first night we ate at what I think was a government run restaurant down by the harbour.  My advice is don't bother. The food was pretty average and expensive.  On the other nights we ate at a little Paladar which are these tiny (legally only 12 seats) private homes where they do a much better job with the rations.  Overall though, I wouldn't put Cuba on the top of my list for eating.


After dinner, the best thing to do is to wash it down with an ale or a rum at one of the many bars.  The local beer is quite good, and the rum legendary.  So is the music.  Chris put us onto a great little bar with a great live band belting out Latin Jazz beats.  Very nice.

I couldn't speak about Cuba without mentioning the cigars.  As neither Andrew or I smoke, we felt a little fraudulent not buying a bunch of cigars.  While we didn't partake ourselves, it was kind of funny seeing so many local chugging away on cigars which ranged from cigaret dimensions to things that were the size of a pipe.  Seeing little old ladies puffing on huge fat cigars was funny.


Surprisingly, I didn't notice too much propaganda around (in the old city at least).  That of course changed when we visited the Museo del la Revolucion.  As the name suggests, this place has a blow by blow account of the revolution and all the great successes since - it even has the boat that Fidel and co sailed from Mexico on (in a huge glass box guarded by several army dudes).  Reading the descriptions on some of the photos was interesting.  If a revolutionary was killed, he was a hero murdered while performing heroic acts.  However, the enemy were