Havana - Day 2 of Cuba adventure February 25th 2017

Already my overwhelming sense of Havana is of a very busy, noisy city with a pervading smell of gas (from the cars I think) and of rubbish in varying stages of rotting. People just seem to discard their rubbish everywhere!

This was our first experience of a Cuban breakfast and it was very good indeed. We started with a selection of fruit - guava (which I am not keen on but Jim likes), pineapple, papaya, melon. There was also guava juice. Then we had an omelette with ham and cheese. There were bread rolls and a sweet corn bread and tea and coffee.

At breakfast we met Emma from England who was on the same Intrepid trip as we were. She and Jim and I had to transfer to the Base Guesthouse, Casa La Gargola which was about 16 blocks away. Jim and I had ordered a taxi for around midday so we offered a seat to her. In the meantime we packed up and spent about 2 hours exploring Old Havana.

This is the Drogueria Johnson (Johnson Pharmacy) on Obispo. It has lots of porcelain jars of potions and medicines. Its counter is beautiful well-polished wood. It still operates as a pharmacy but is probably visited more as a museum.

Hemmingway walked along Obispo. I wonder if he got cures for his ailments in Johnson Pharmacy.

This is the foyer of one of the hotels on Obispo. It might be Hotel Florida. It's also an art gallery.

This is Castillo de la Real Fuerza, one of the oldest European defence structures in the Americas and the first built to guard the city of Havana. The forecourt is full of cannons and mortars. Beyond the drawbridge is the Navigation Museum.

On a hilltop across the bay is a large sculpture of Jesus of Nazareth called the Christ of Havana. He has a great view of Havana!

Then we went into Plaza de la Catedral where the baroque mansions are very beautiful.  The curves and flourishes above doors and windows on the Cathedral itself are a great example of 18th century Cuban baroque.

Back on Obispo we made our way back to Casa Alexander in time to gather up our luggage and take our taxi to Casa La Gargola.

This is very much a feature of Obispo - most likely farmed puppies for sale.

Other sights en route:

And we found O' Reilly Street - definitely a connection with Ireland. More about that later.

In the midst of more beautiful though faded buildings there were lots of places like this.

With produce like this why is the food not good?

Meat being transported below our balcony at Casa Alexander.

The beautiful view across from our balcony














Our taxi was definitely an old banger from the past not very attractively turned out. Only three of the 4 suitcases fitted in the boot and the 4th had to take its position in the back seat between Emma and me. The fact that there were no seatbelts was a bit off-putting but we bumped our way to La Gargola notwithstanding. On arrival there were 2 long flights of stairs to negotiate with our luggage. Once up at La Gargola Jim and I discovered that Sarah and Charlotte would be staying there but Jim and I had to go 2 blocks farther on to our lodgings. So we had no option but take our cases in hand and descend the stairs again. Just as we exited Charlotte and Sarah, obviously well settled, passed by on a horse-drawn tour of Havana.

We checked in to Azul Habana, where our room was not ready for us but at least we could leave the luggage there. Back to La Gargola and Charlotte and Sarah were ensconced in their room and ready for a bit of touring on foot. It was close to lunch time so we were keeping our eyes open for a suitable venue for lunch.

On the way we were accosted by by Luis who, according to himself, works in La Floridita where Ernest Hemmingway enjoyed his daiquiris. Luis engaged Charlotte in conversation and, discovering she was from Scotland, told her he had friends there. When she asked where he said "in the capital". I thought that was strange - would he not have said Edinburgh if it was true? However, we were swept along with his agenda like idiots! Luis informed us that we didn't want to go to La Floridito as it was too touristy and that what we wanted was a real taste of Cuba and, in all honesty, we were not in disagreement with that. He decided that what we wanted was to go to a particular bar where one of the founding members of the Buena Vista Social Club was playing and celebrating his 90th birthday. And we found ourselves in the bar shaking hands with Amaranto Fernandez and wishing him a Happy Birthday.

We were seated and Luis started organising our food. We wanted something very light but all that was on offer was Creole plates - large portions of rice and beans with pork or chicken or fish. We finally agreed to sharing a plate between two. It was a bit unfortunate for our vegetarian Sarah(Luis's sister is a vegetarian too so he understood!). All she could eat was the garnish of raw cabbage as the beans and rice had chunks of fatty bacon in it! We also had mojitos. We noticed Luis was having a mojito too but hadn't copped on fully to the scam at that stage. After Luis left we were presented with the bill which was around 80CUCs - given that mojitos are generally about 2 CUC and each creole plate had been priced at 15 CUC we were well and truly conned. What a scam! And I only realised fully when I was googling Amaranto Fernandez for this blog.

We continued touring about, retracing some of our steps of the morning.

This was a group of young people performing some kind of recitation and song led by a large woman with a powerful voice.

And back to the Castillo de la Real Fuerza from where we walked quite a bit along the Malecon - the long promenade which stretches for 8km along the coast. We turned back into Old Havana where Charlotte and Sarah needed some money and joined the long queue at the money exchange. We stood with them for a while but the sun was so hot we decided to go and book in fully into our B&B while they waited to get money.

Street artist

Needless to say access to our room was via a long narrow staircase negotiated encumbered by suitcases.
The room was fine but a notice clearly told us that the sewer system did not appreciate toilet paper.

This was a little sitting area and we found the breakfast room which, thankfully, was not up any more stairs.
















Our welcome meeting was set for 6 pm so we made our way to La Gargola, a bit early, to meet our fellow travelers. We were 12 in all. Us 4, Alex and Wendy (English), Emma, Angela and Shannon (who had met a number of years ago on a trip to China but who were from England, Australia and Canada respectively), Graham and Andrea (from Australia) and Jennifer (from Australia). They all seemed very pleasant which was a good start. Our guide was Alexis (a Cuban from Havana). He was very friendly and spoke excellent English. After all the preliminaries Alexis suggested that we might like to have dinner together and this suited us all as it saved us splitting up and we were happy to have a recommended restaurant.

On the way we passed the Revolution Museum.

Contrary to our expectations we were placed at 3 separate tables so that meant that 3 separate groups were created which I think was a mistake but that's the way it goes. The food was just ok but we were beginning to realise that being wowed by food in Cuba was highly unlikely.

Charlotte and Sarah took advantage of an early night but Jim and I found a bar on the way home for a Cuba Libre or two. A nice finish to the day!