The day trip to Havana (Cuba, Part II)

The van picked us up at our hotel at 9:00 am. Although our driver did not speak English, he did his best to point out interesting sights, such as the highest bridge in Cuba (which we drove over slowly, to the dismay of some who are afraid of heights), the longest bridge in Cuba, and various industrial installations.

Once we arrived in Havana, our driver took us first to the giant status of Jesus, even though this was not on the tour guide approved list of destinations. There we enjoyed the view, and did our best to fend off hustlers who tried to sell us flowers and pesos. Well, most of us did. One did buy flowers and another did buy a 3 pesos note for $1 USD, which is worth about 12 cents. It had a nice picture of Che Guevara on it.

We then made our way to a fort, the name of which I can't remember. Rod paid the entrance fee and went in to explore the fort, but was told to hurry because we were afraid of running out of time for things that were on our schedule. The rest of us looked at the giant stogie, then wandered around a little bit and waited for Rod to come back. Tamara happened across the Cohiba Coronas Especiales she was to get a for a friend, but decided not to buy them because they were incredibly expensive and she thought that perhaps that was the tourist rip-off price.

If I remember correctly, the next stop was at a cigar factory near old Havana, where we saw this old guy making cigars. At first we though he was just wrapping tobacco leaves around finished cigars, you know, for the tourists, but we did eventually see him start one from scratch. The factory itself was closed due to holidays, so this was all we got to see of the cigar production process. I bought a box of 25 Montecristo #4's here.

We then left our driver and embarked on a self-guided walking tour of Old Havana, courtesy of Tamara's Lonely Planet Cuba book, which I am lucky to have on my desk at this moment, since I can't remember the names of any of the places. This was both the most frustrating and most interesting part of the trip. Tamara had made extra maps and passed them out, "in case we got split up." What she really intended was for the group of ten to split into smaller groups where everyone shared interests. Instead, everyone ended up trying to stay together, and the divergent interests slowed things down so much that we didn't get more than a quarter of the way through the tour before we aborted due to a lack of time.

The tour started out at Catedral de San Cristóbal de La Habana, where I saw street performers who seemed to be between shows. We wandered up a side street to an art gallery. Outside of the gallery, I took this picture of an old guy reading his news paper. We had lunch on the patio of a fairly upscale place, where the prices were about on par with a trip to Moxie's here. The pasta was very good, but the beggar who hassled us while we were waiting for our food was not.

We continued on to the Plaza de Armas, which hosts a large book market most days. We toured the Museo de la Ciudad, which is on the western side of the plaza, and contains notable sights like dead guys and a creepy Jesus statue (which I did a terrible job of photographing unfortunatly).

It was here that we learned about the museum scam. When you buy your entrance to the museum, you can pay an extra USD and have a guided tour. We elected not to do this, and found that the caretakers that are stationed all over the building are more than happy to let you into the roped off areas and point at interesting things. When you are ready to leave, they ask for tips and make noises about all their babies. One said something about babies to me, and I think I looked very confused. Rod took it to mean that I was being asked for a, ahem, "donation," and turned it into a running joke. If you want the full story in all it's hilarity, you'll have to ask him.

Shortly after that, we decided to go back to where we left our driver, since we were running short on time. We told him we were going to stay in the area for a while longer, and them broke up into two groups. Tamara, Cathy, Mary and I went back into old Havana, and the others went to the flea market. We hurried down the streets and made it to Plaza de San Francisco de Asís. Here there is a church, San Francisco de Asís, which used to be Roman Catholic, but which is now largely abandoned, as I understand things. Apparently a Protestant service was held in the church at some point, and from there on the Catholics considered it defiled, and refuse to hold services there.

On our way back to the market to meet up with the others, we passed Museo del Automóvil, which is a car museum. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to tour it. Once we were all safely back in the van and on our way, Rod was heard to remark about how he could easily spend three or four days touring old Havana alone. The rest of us enthusiastically agreed.

We made our way to another cigar and rum shop, where everyone loaded up. The shop was completely nondescript on the outside, with only a small sign above the door. Inside, it opened up into quite a large, well appointed room. Sherri has pictures...

After that, we were off to the Napoleon museum, where they charge $5 for the privilege of taking photographs. I paid, but there was some confusion, and the curator was summoned. We eventually got it sorted out, and the curator, who spoke very good English, showed us around even though we had not paid for a guided tour. I asked her what the connection between Cuba and Napoleon was.

It turns out that there is no official connection. There was a somewhat delusional fellow who believed himself to be the re-incarnation of Napoleon, and dedicated his fortune to buying up Napoleon artifacts. The building the museum is housed in was the home of an Italian lawyer and his wife. They left Cuba shortly before the revolution and never came back, which was probably a good idea if they wanted to keep themselves in the style to which they had become accustom. The government had seized their house in a fit of economic equality after all.

The curator was very helpful and did not ask for tips, but everyone tipped her on the way out. Since the Napoleon museum was so close to the University of Havana, some of us walked over there, where I took some rather bad pictures.

We then made our way to a large, famous, and fantastically decrepit cemetery, the name of which I cannot recall. There we met Bevis and Butthead, a pair of "security guards" who didn't speak any English but made an attempt to be helpful and tell stories in exchange for tips. One of them showed us the sole that was coming free of the rest of his boot, and tried to get us to give up our shoes. They were pretty annoying, especially since we mostly just wanted to look at the fantastic statues that marked some of the graves.

There was one grave in particular that Tamara wanted to see; that of Carlos J. Finlay, who made some contributions to the medical world.

The next stop was the Coppelia ice cream shop. The Lonely Planet Cuba book goes into great detail about buying ice cream here, and councils against going to the little tourist stand out front. Unfortunately, they only take Cuban pesos in the main part of the shop, so we had to go to the little tourist shack. We chilled out for a while, and then went to see a monument to Jose Marti and the Cuban pentagon, which I neglected to photograph. Then it was off to dinner, where Tamara found great amusement in this fruit pig.

The final destination of the evening was the Tropicana show. Sherri, Ruth, Mary, Cathy, Alana, Tamara, Travis and I attended. The rest had a nap in the van. The show was a bit of a boondoggle. It's an outdoor venue, so we knew there might be trouble when it started to rain while we were making our way there. While we were being seated, the stage hands were mopping the stage. It started to rain lightly immediately after that, so we had to wait for the rain to stop, and they mopped the stage again. The show finally started, but stopped about a quarter of the way in due to rain. We waited, watched the mopping, and the show resumed.

I think the girls enjoyed it quite a bit. I was largely indifferent. Travis is a professional stage hand and attended mostly out of interest in the lights and stage. He came prepared though, and I sure was wishing for a pair of earplugs like the ones he had.

I think we made it back to our hotel somewhere around 2:30 am. It had been a long day. Tamara did a great job of herding cats.