CUBA

with Catherine & Alex

31st January - 9th February
2011

HAVANA
 
Monday 31st January. We arrived last night at Havana after a 10 hour flight from Gatwick. A taxi brought us to our hotel, the Savilla which is very comfortable. We are now five hours behind UK so all woke early and had breakfast at 7.30 then went for a walk after breakfast. This is a central pavement called the Prado outside the hotel which reminded us very much of Barcelona.
The town is full of statues of benefactors from the past. This one is of Jose Marti, who was a poet and one of Cuba's fist martyrs.
After  session with our travel rep we went for quite a long walk and found lots of lovely open squares.  We also looked in at some shops.  Very little was on sale and all heavily guarded.
This is the Capitol Building  but we understood that they are quite empty inside.
Many elegant buildings line the streets but so many of them in bad conditions.  This building is an old theatre.
There are lots of these old big American cars around.
Not far from our hotel is the water front and entrance to the harbour.
The entrance used to be well guarded by this fort.
These little buggies act as taxis rather like the TukTuks that we saw in Sri Lanka and Thailand.
The Square of the Revolution  is in the middle of the Military zone and often used for big parades. In the background is yet another memorial, again to Jose Marti.
More old American cars.
A typical street that we walked through.
This is a life sized statue of Jesus Christ on the top of the hill looking down over the harbour.
Even the women smoke cigars.
No houses have gardens to dry their washing.
Dinner at the end of our first day in a lovely upstsairs restaurant.  This is a Paladares, a private restaurant that Fidel Castro allowed to be set up during his "special phase".
Tuesday 1st February.

Not far from our hotel is this rather strange Museum of the Revolution with objects  including the boat that brought Fidel Castro back again to Cuba.
This museum is alongside the original Royal Palace.
The Bacardi building which is most ornate and originally occupied by the Bacardi family.
Another lovely old car.
We had a ride in one of the old American cars which was bright pink.
The driver took us to see this square (Parque de Miramar) which had some kind of monument in the middle but we never discovered what it was.
In the square was a ficus tree that drops roots from its upper branches and envelopes everything else growing around it.
Alex showing you the size of these roots.
Then in the evening we were taken to see the Tropicana show.
Two hours non stop of music and very energetic dancing mainly by very scantily clad young girls.
We were given a glass of champagne, a bottle of Rum and a can of Coke. Catherine was given a red rose and we were each given a cigar.

Tomorrow we leave after breakfast for Trinidad.
 
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