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JAMES
A bit out of synch again with the blog updates, but in our 4 days in Havana, we only came across one internet cafe - inside the poshest hotel in town, charging £4 for 15 minutes. We passed up that opportunity and had a Mojito instead.
We were both really sad to have left the Cayman Islands after such a cool time there, but at least we were looking forward to Havana - probably the most different place we would visit on the whole trip. We'd obviously seen the photos before of the crumbling buildings, the old American cars, and locals smoking the big fat cigars, so were keen to see whether that was an accurate representation. It is also a really poignant time to visit, I think. With Barack Obama potentially being elected as the next US president today, and with Fidel Castro living on borrowed time (if indeed he hasn't died already - you never know whether you can believe the propagandists) things could change rapidly in the coming couple of years. A relaxation of the US trade embargo, combined with a new Cuban leader would be a recipe for all the crumbling buildings to be repaired / rebuilt and filled with McDonalds and Starbucks. It was really refreshing to spend 4 days in a place, and not see anything of Starbucks, KFC, Tesco etc. You could only even get Coca Cola at 50% of the cafes...
It was an utterly fascinating place. We spent a great morning at the Revolution Museum, . Having read the guide book on the plane over, we knew the basic facts of what had happened, but it was a real insight to see their slant on it. It was a very Communist / Revolutionary style museum - lots of propagandist phrases like "tireless fighter", "unstinting worker" and "Yankee expansionists", and lots of talk about "great plans", "housing programmes", "moral not monetary rewards for work" and the State's responsibility for this and that. There was also the very Communist practice of having a lady of more senior years sat on a chair in each room. I am not really sure what they are there to do - they certainly didn't look like they wanted to give us any insights into the exhibition! I guess they are simply employed to be there because for that self-fulfilling purpose - to be employed. To me, as a fully fledged Rightie, that is one of the key reasons why communism simply doesn't work. By needlessly employing people to do thankless and unnecessary tasks like sitting in a museum room staring into space all day, the government may argue that these people are employed rather than unemployed. If the government had an unemployment problem on its hands it would have to find an economic solution to it by developing its own industrial capabilities or attracting foreign investment. Actually, by the time they do that, the old museum ladies end up serving frothy Cappuccinos to all and sundry from the Starbucks that populate every street corner. Maybe not such a good idea.
But anyway, it was an interesting few hours learning the recent history of the country, although you could tell that the building was slightly bigger than it needed to be. With a bit too much space to fill, by the end we were looking at the numerous spoons used by peripheral revolutionary figures, so we knew it was time to move on...
In terms of stereotypes, some are true, some are not. The buildings in old Havana are crumbling and falling down, but are stunning nonetheless. In its heyday, the place would have been absolutely gorgeous. And there are plenty of 50 year old American cars driving around, some of them in remarkably good condition. But there are also plenty of modern cars as well - if you count Lada Riva as a modern car. I am not sure I really did think every car would be an old American one, but there were probably slightly fewer than I expected. Before we went, everyone we spoke to said Havana was brilliant, the people are amazingly friendly, but the food is crap. To be honest, we weren't all that struck with the people. Those you see in the photos (women in brightly coloured clothes, old boys smoking big fat Cubans) etc are all posed for the tourists, for a good fee. Cubans do not dress like that every day (again, not sure I really thought this would be the case!). We didn't find them particularly friendly - in fact most of them were quite dour and miserable, which in my experience is another prevalent trait of Communist states! There were a few people on the make, and plenty of people trying to get us to take a tour with them / have a ride on their horse drawn cart / buy their cigars. Many was the time there was a shout of "Hey Amigo, where you from?" "England? Ah, my brother lives in Manchester" - I never realised there was such a well established Cuban community in the North... and if one more person made the joke about their horse & carriage having "free air conditioning" they would have been in for it...
The food was awful though.
Overall, I think we both came away with the same feeling. We had enjoyed the city, it was certainly interesting, and we were glad to have visited, but we just didn't particularly feel the love for the place. And I feel a bit bad about that. I wanted to love it. I don't like going places and not loving them (and I have been fortunate enough to go to lots of place and not disliked any of them - well, apart from Playa de las Americas in Tenerife which is Hell on Earth). We certainly didn't dislike the place, but we didn't feel really upset to leave in the way we did about Peru, Cayman and Florida.
Oh well, we can hardly complain can we?!!? Signing off now to go to the airport to fly to Hong Kong. What a hard life we lead...
KATIE
I think James has pretty much covered it all, but since I'm writing this bit from Hong Kong I can tell you that we found out on the plane yesterday that Barack Obama has indeed been elected as the new US president. On the basis that closing Guantanamo Bay was one of his objectives I'm sure things are going to change.
I was disappointed with Havana, mainly as I was expecting to love the place and it definitely fell short, can't necessarily say why but I just didn't feel the love. It was a great place to visit, the architecture is amazing, and my God, it would have been a stunning place in its day. Having said that, there is something about the beautiful but crumbling facades that is stunning in itself. Although not so stunning if you have to live there I'm sure, particularly as I'm certain most of the buildings are not structurally safe!
I adored the music though, every bar and restaurant / cafe you went into there was a different one playing and they were without fail, absolutely brilliant. The one bit of dancing we saw on the last day was brilliant too, but the lack of dancing anywhere else surprised me, I thought the Cubans loved it!! The Revolution Museum was fascinating and incredibly interesting to learn more about Cuba's history - if not quite so interesting to see lots of random shirts and spoons which apparently once belonged to one of the many revolutionaries that fought for the cause over many years. Some quite bizarre sights. And lots of old Cuban women in skirts far too short for their age. It seems all the uniforms, whether they are in museums, galleries, restaurants etc all have mini-skirts which just about cover their bums. Now I have nothing against short shirts, I have some myself, but when they are on rather overweight 60 year old women with far too much bright and garish make up on it is slightly disturbing....
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