La Habana, Cuba.

Kara says:

Cuba. Finally!

Karl's been bonding with his old friend, Che, and strengthening his communist roots although his Vietnam T-shirt has remained conspicuously absent. Viva la revolucion!

Spent the first couple of nights in the fancy schmancy hotel we had to stay in to get our visas. Is this not straight out of a Doris Day & Rock Hudson film? It had just opened as the Havana Hilton in 1958 when the Castristos took over (Jan 1st 1959) and Fidel initally ran the country from a suite in the suddenly renamed "Habana Libre" hotel.





We brought Christmas with us, photo of Karl with the tinsel and tiny christmas tree.



Havana is fabulous. Lively, tropical, beautiful buildings - some crumbling, some not. Salsa music everywhere all the time. Friendly, helpful people (our guidebook calls then "the Irish of the Carribean" and I think it might just be right). Cocktails. It has it all. The architecture is a combination of colonial, art deco and ......stuff that looks like communist Russian buildings, i'm sure there's a technical term. Most buildings are crumbly to varying degrees but in the old town UNESCO and the government and putting lots of effort into restoring buildings so there are pretty, newly painted versions. And there really are old 50's cars all over the place! Mostly still a bit the worse for wear and many used as communal taxis for locals but some are very fancied up and used as taxis for tourists. Most of the cars that aren't from the 50's are Ladas from the 70s and 80s (USSR was a good buddy back then).







Then we moved from our fancy hotel to a B&B in the older part of town where we ended up with an enormous roof terrace with a view over the town (the universe is feeling guilty about the extra week in Santiago I think). Discovered how you answer doors here. We rang the bell. No apparent answer. Then an old guy sitting on the footpath opposite ('cause that's what old guys do here) called out to let us know the apartment owner was peering out from a window in the 5th or 6th floor. We yelled "we have a reservation". They disappeared. Then reappeared and threw the key down into the street, we retrieved it and let ourselves in.



Went to see an old fort. Havana was the rendevous spot in the 16th century for all the boats heading back to Spain laden with treasures from the New World. So it needed a big fort to keep the pirates away from all the loot. Photo of Karl keeping watch for pirates (of the Carribean), arrr.




Also went to see a cigar factory. Very impressive. The effort that goes into each one is incredible. I expected that, yes, they're handmade but in a super-quick production line kind of way. But each one is treated with tender loving care - roll, roll, no it needs a bit more leaf here, that bit there can come out, roll, roll, roll, no not quite right here, ah that's better, there we go. Each maker (and only 25% of student cigar-rollers succeed) makes roughly 90 - 110 cigars per eight-hour day (depending on the quality of the cigar, some take longer than others to make). That's quite a bit of attention to give a cigar. Then they go the quality control person and to the machine that suctions them to check that the draw is right (every single cigar!). Then to the people that order them by colour so that, despite a pretty big variation in the colour of tobacco leaves, all the cigars in your box will be pretty much the exact same shade. So off-putting when they're not. Then the OCD brigade takes hold and puts the labels on and puts them in the boxes - labels in exactly the right spot, all cigars lined up exactly evenly in each box, ooh, that one's not quite right, take the label off and re-adjust ever so slightly, back in the box, that's better, all looking exactly even now, lid on, ready to go. It's crazy. You could just not afford to pay for this much effort in a developed Western country.



We have also had some daquiris in the home of daquiris, the "Floridita" bar (thanks Mary & Aisling), one of Hemmingway's favourites. And we've had the occasional mojito too. I'm a little worried about Karl. See photo of him having an afternoon snack. I'm not sure exactly what Rambo WOULD do but i doubt that it would be to order flan with pink ice-cream and a girly cocktail.