06/04/2019 – Exploring Havana, Cuba

We start the day with breakfast by our host Susannah – coffee, guava juice, omelette, toast, butter, honey, cheese, banana, and mango. It’s a delicious and filling feast and we are served with her best china dishes it seems (I later spot them in her display case in the living room). We get our stuff together and walk through old Havana towards the big cemetery. Our first encounter is a dead dog in the street across from where we are staying, which is a bit of a grim shock and it is still in the street when we get back many hours later. Aside from this, in general, the streets are fairly clean, especially since there are hardly any public bins, but I think that is because not much goes to waste here.

The atmosphere is quite different today, perhaps because it’s a Saturday. There are more people around and there is even more of a buzz. The walk takes us through areas of Havana we haven’t seen yet. It took us around 1 hour 30 minutes to get to the cemetery – it was a bloomin’ hot day, and we later discovered we are both pretty pink despite sun cream. The cemetery is absolutely huge and full of white tombstones. I believe some well-known Cuban politicians are buried here, but that’s all I can say really – we get about 10 metres in and get stopped by some security wanting us to pay entry, so we sack it off, more interested in finding a nice ice-cream! Our plan is to visit the heladeria Coppelia – apparently it’s a park with an ice cream café where Cubans go and queue for the best ice creams in town. We wander into the park and get directed by a couple of people, then scooped up by a security lady who takes us up into an empty room with a man and a freezer. Even we can see they are trying to mug us off! We excuse ourselves and leave with no ice cream. As we find our way out of the park we, sure enough, see queues of Cubans buying fancy ice creams. They had definitely tried to blag us into buying some tourist rip off version! Josh and I are too fed up by this point to join the queue so we continue walking down to Malecon. Malecon is a promenade, the ocean on one side and rows of colourful Cuban buildings the other. There are uncountable old Cuban cars driving past, huge beautiful shiny cars full of tourists having sightseeing tours of Havana. The drivers with empty cars go past and beep their horns at us shouting taxi? taxi? all day long.

Various Cuban cars around Havana.

It would be impossible to blend in here! We sat and rested on the sea wall, where there was a huge pelican soaring above us and diving for fish, then continued on back to old Havana. We stopped at one of the big hotels for a soft drink and glug of water and were serenaded by a traditional Cuban band. Then we walked back to our casa, ate last nights leftovers and chilled in our room for a couple of hours to try and cool down. As we left our room later on, I realised we had had our air con on the warmest setting for the last two days! Game changer! We chat with Susannah who says she will save some of her grannys bean stew for us to eat tomorrow, but refuses any money for it. Josh and I walk to Calle Brasil and find Café Dandy - recommended to us by Hattie. We eat some food – tacos and spaghetti, which were delicious. It seems a pretty hip bar/restaurant and it’s the first time we heard English people. In fact I don’t actually think any Cuban punters were in there. It felt very holiday though, lots of people drinking mojitos and a man smoking a cigar at the bar.

Outside view of cafe El Dandy

Inside view of cafe El Dandy

After dinner we headed down the road to plaza vieja, recommended for its bars, cafes and good vibes! We get an ice cream to share and stroll around – suddenly we are no longer a minority and the place is full of tourists. We manage to find our first fridge magnet, a cigar! Then we head back to the casa, play some cards and get ourselves into bed, with the new a.c. things are a lot more comfortable. (Except my side of the bed is right next to it and I’m freezing under the duvet, meanwhile Josh is beside me sweating out!) We eventually agree to swap even though I am reluctant to go on Joshs sweaty side of the sheets!