Digging & Dreaming

Day 17 - Friday 25th November - Havana

Friday was a semi-day off from WCMT stuff so Jo and I had the chance to spend the day doing things that were a bit more touristy. We started the day off with another huge breakfast at our casa before heading out into an uncharacteristically damp and gray Havana, onto muddy Centro streets as a result of heavy rain over night. There’s a cold front on its way over apparently…

Busy streets of Havana Vieja

Before we could start on the tourist stuff we had a couple of jobs that we had to do. Firstly we had to sort out bus tickets for our planned trip to Cienfuegos the next day. Inconveniently it wasn’t possible to buy these tickets anywhere in the centre of Havana so we had to head out to Avenida 26 in Nuevo Vedado opposite Havana Zoo. This was also a sufficiently long distance to warrant a taxi which would hopefully be Jo’s first trip in a vintage car. The fortunate thing about the whole experience was that our lovely vintage taxi was driven by an amazing gentleman called Juan.

For many years Juan had taught English which he learnt as a child in Havana at the bi-lingual school he attended in the days prior to the Revolution. By the end of his career he was mainly teaching English in medical schools to students and doctors. He said this was very difficult because he had to learn a lot of specialist vocabulary. He also found the pronunciation of these words very difficult as he had little access to recorded material to find out how they were supposed to be pronounced.

His car was a carefully maintained 1959 Olympic, which was clearly proudly cared for in very difficult circumstances. He explained that it was very had to get basic parts for cars and basic materials such as oil for the engine. Due to the scarcity of resources he, like many classic car owners, had changed the engine of his car to a Lada engine. He bought this second hand but it was still much easier to maintain than the car’s original engine. He did point out that there were still challenges to this as the engine ran on petrol which was expensive and had to be bought legitimately from the government, as supposed to diesel which was much cheaper and which was also available on the black market. The other big challenge for Juan was that he lived out on the coast to the East of Havana, two blocks up from the beach. This meant, commonly to many areas of Havana, protecting the car against the effects of salination and rust was an ongoing battle.

Revolution Square in Havana

At this point of the journey we passed Plaza de la Revolucion and Juan started to explain the story of Camilio Cienfuego. Camilio was the third hero in the revolution alongside Che and Fidel, though is probably the least well known outside Cuba. Juan explained that in Cuba Cienfuegos remained highly popular, despite the fact that he had been killed in a air crash at a tragically young age soon after the Revolution. His funeral was a huge occasion in Cuba and on the anniversary of his death each year people still sprinkle flesh flowers into the sea around the country in his memory. Juan, who clearly knew a great deal about the war, also explained that Camilio was one of the only people that Fidel truly trusted. For this reason he was a great ally to Fidel throughout the Revolution. Another story was that the young guerillas used to play baseball together and Camilio would always make sure he was on Fidel’s side because he realised that it would be very difficult if he had to compete against the leader! And that was just about where we ended our taxi ride. Juan gave us his number and said he’d be happy to act as our driver if we wanted to go on any trips in the local area when we got back to Havana.

Once we got out of the taxi I popped into one of the fancy hotels on the central square to check my email whilst Jo stayed outside and took some photos. Whilst I was online I took the chance to confirm the final details with Xiomara who would be hosting us in Cienfuegos, and also found an email from Cary Cruz at FANJ. Rather irritatingly she had been there yesterday when we went to visit and would have been happy to talk to us, though of course I didn’t know that at the time.

Then the jobs were done and finally we had some time to ourselves in Havana. As we were hungry we decided to have our first taste of peso pizza. This is basically a little pizza, which costs 10 NP. It is made freshly in someone’s kitchen and is sold through a hole in the wall, or a window, directly into their house and out onto the street. We put an order in at a stall on one of the side streets between Museo de la Revolucion and Habana Vieja. A young girl took our order but as soon as the owner of the shop found out that she was serving some foreigners she came out to talk to us. She explained that she was 63 and that she ran the shop with her son who was 40. She was very proud of the quality of the pizza that they sold and claimed that people came from all over Havana to eat it. They also served spaghetti and cheese, which is another popular fast food dish in Cuba. She explained that when she served it to local workmen she let them borrow plastic bowls from her, but when she served it to local people to takeaway she made the bring their own bowl or tub: “People all over this neighbourhood have my bowls in their houses,” she explained. “I don’t have hardly any left.” It only took five minutes for our food to be ready. When it arrived the owner offered to let us sit and eat on two chairs in her front room. We thanked her for the offer but declined and moved on because we were keen to see more of the city. We moved over to one of the little squares near the Museo de la Revolucion that we intended to visit after eating. Incidentally – the pizza was amazingly good considering it had only cost us 30p!

Peso Pizza - so wrong but so right!

The Museum of the Revolution is based in a glorious old building which was formerly a government building and that was a key battles site during the revolution itself. The building was heavily attacked and with the bullet holes on the walls inside as an unavoidable reminder of how bloody and violent the Revolution actually was in Cuba. Over two floors the museum offers and intense and roughly curated chronology of the Revolution and the subsequent political and social development in Cuba. The garden behind the museum includes a variety of cars and tanks used in the Revolution, and the Granma boat that famously brought Fidel and Che from Mexico at the beginning of the fighting.The most interesting thing about the museum was to see it full of school children and young soldiers on National Service, visiting as part of their cultural education.

After this we headed to the Malecón to sit on the wall and watch the sea. We bought mojitos from a café on the front, brought over the road to where we were sitting so we could drink them on the wall, and enjoyed the refreshingly cool sea breeze. The chef from the café who brought them over also stayed to have a chat (Cubans love to chat!) He pointed out the building where he had lived right next to the sea all his life. He was curious to know why I spoke Spanish and was happy to take the opportunity to express his love for his city.

“Havana is a city where people live on the streets and take very opportunity that is given to them,” he explained. “It’s a difficult life here because we haven’t got much but that makes people have an energy to get up and do things. Not to just sit back and let the world pass them by.”

In the evening we ate amazingly good (and cheap) noodles in China Town, then headed back to our casa to prepare for our trip to Cienfuegos the next day

Day 16 - Thursday 24th November - Havana

Another hot and sunny day – Jo’s first in Havana. We started the day with breakfast in our casa before heading out to explore our neighbourhood.

The first thing that struck you as soon as you went outside was how busy and vital the place was. Even early in the morning the streets were full of people going about their business. Our casa was at the top of Havana Centro, just below the Malecón so we wandered down through the neighbourhood getting a feel for the place as we went.

Havana Centro is often ignored by visitors to Havana. The neighbourhood began to develop in the 19^th century following the demolition of the city walls in 1863. The buildings tend to be between 4 and 5 storeys, built mostly as apartment blocks. It is for this reason that it is a very densely populated part of the city. Laid out on a grid pattern it is easy to navigate and mainly residential so it is the perfect place to get a feel for hoe Cubans live in Havana. Now, many of the buildings are in a tumbledown state with many empty lots where houses have collapsed or are collapsing. We walked on to one of the central squares before heading on to the Old Town.

El Capitolio - Havana

As part of my trip I had arranged a meeting with Roberto Perez at FANJ so at 1pm we headed out to their offices in Miramar, to the West of Havana. This is Havana’s upscale residential district, laid out in an expansive grid of shaded streets, lined by fine mansions. It is a real contrast to Havana Centro where we started the day! Most of the original owners of the houses left Cuba following the Revolution leaving some of the mansions to fall into ruins. 

The FANJ building in Miramar

When we finally arrived at FANJ it was a real pain to learn that Roberto actually wasn’t there as his travel had been delayed following a trip to Canada. Fortunately Roberto’s wife Michelle was there and showed us around the museum and talked a bit about the work that they were doing there. Michelle, who is Australian, had previously worked with Bill Mollison and was hoping to develop more international relations for FANJ.

FANJ are a civil, non-governmental, non-profit, continuing the legacy of Dr. Antonio Núñez Jiménez through research and development programs and activities that promote a culture of values ​​toward nature on the local, national and international levels in order to harmonize society and environment. Their aspiration is to create a Cuban society with a developed environmental consciousness that recognizes Nature as part of their identity.

They are now a recognized organization with experience and ability to work, committed to the Cuban society and the world in solving environmental problems, with a perspective that integrates the sociocultural dimensions throughout. It was fascinating to learn about the work being done at FANJ and to look at the collections that they have on show there, but the most interesting thing was to browse through the huge collection of photos that they have on site. Antonio Núñez Jiménez was a close acquaintance with the Castros and it was fascinating to see the intimate and relaxed pictures of Fidel and Raul that were included in the collection.

Photographic collections at FANJ

After that we walked back into Miramar and headed to a mini-market in one of the big hotels that is common in this neighborhood where we bought some water and a snack, which we decided to carry down to the sea front and eat there. We settled down by the water on a concrete bench and we were soon joined by a young guy called Lazaro. I had come to learn in Cuba that you shouldn’t assume that everybody is attempting to sell you something. And even if they are they usually soften pretty quickly when they realise that you can speak Spanish! Lazaro was a great example of this. He just genuinely wanted to chat about life in general and life in the UK. He was especially interested as he said that Cubans rarely met people from the UK who could speak Spanish.

Lazaro explained that he worked as a fisherman out of Havana. He was fascinated to know about the climate in the UK and more about what Manchester was like. He also asked the typical questions about Manchester United and football in general – I hate football but it can be a great conversation starting point in other parts of the world! He explained that lots of people in Cuba followed the big Spanish teams, especially Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Lazaro also gave me a 3NP note as a present because it features the face of Che on one side. I felt sorry that I didn’t have anything to give back to him as a memory of the UK, especially as I later learnt that it is very common for hustlers to try and sell 3NP notes to tourists as a souvenir of their visit. Then it was time to head back into town and say goodbye to Lazaro-

“Will you be coming back down here whilst you’re in Cuba?” he asked.

“Probably not.”

“Will you ever come back to Cuba?”

“Possibly one day.”

“Well if you do come back, come and say hello – I’m here nearly everyday.”

After relaxing back at our casa and tidying up we headed back into town to Habana Vieja where we sat out in front of one of the cafes and had pizza and salad with Cristal beer for tea.

On our way back to our casa we were stopped by a jinetero trying to get us to go to a salsa club. Once again his mood changed when I started chatting to him in Spanish and I had my second football talk of the day (he was another Barcelona fan) Then it was back to our casa to sleep for the night.