Havana Mi Amor

Greetings from Boston where I am happily jogging around and flushing toilets at will (more on that later). I am just going to throw everything down on paper before I forget; excuse the prose.

Havana is a just a wonderful, gobsmacking morsel- a big surprise in many ways. It was way poorer than I imagined; but also had, at one time, a shocking amount of wealth (I didn't know that either). The buildings are the most beautiful things- really I can't describe. From 1492 on, Spain wildly (seemingly drunkenly) built one after the other of these limestone and marble beauties with inner courtyards of palm trees and iron. Picture black and white marble floors with stone statues surrounded by the pale pastel colored walls of the Caribbean. But then picture hundreds of years of hot sun and wind and no budget for repair, and what you are left with is something that makes your mouth drop. Really. We went to a restaurant called the Guardida-a few short months after Michelle and Barack did-and it is tied for third of the most beautiful buildings I have ever been in....right up there with the Hagia Sofia and a 13th century number in the old town of Zurich. And what makes them special (I hate that word) is not how they look, but how they feel. They transport you to another time..while lots of other places, equally beautiful, equally old, just don't.  It's as if you can feel the ghosts swirling around. I'm telling you, this dinner, with our over cooked fish and crummy wine, was worth the trip; one should go just to spend some time in this building.

In the old town, you see what Ernest Hemingway must have loved- long shiny bars of wood panelling, marble floors to dance on; and a breeze from the dangerous ocean that keeps everyone from swimming away.  Only now, the streets are dirty. I walked around in flip flops the first day and had to walk on glass and poo and rotting food. There is laundry hanging where it wouldn't be in Paris or Prague, and stray dogs are everywhere...but there is music. God there is music! It's just as you imagine. So you are walking along a hot street looking at the buildings that have faded into the most achingly beautiful grand dames. They make you want to age- they are that staggering- and you are looking down and up and everywhere, and then you actually hear the Buena Vista Social Club pouring out of the cafes and bars. It's too much.

One also notices the book stores; evidence of Cuba's famously well educated population. I went into every one I could: lots of revolution stuff, lots of chain smoking intellectuals. If only I could read Spanish. Tricia developed a wee crush on Che...he was rather handsome and his picture is more ubiquitous than Fidel's. The girls do like their smart bad boys.

At first glance, when you see the airport, you think you are in Kenya. You have to change money there- you can't do it in America, and no credit cards are accepted in Cuba. The line is about an hour; so between that and the wait for the luggage, it's about 2 hours before you get your freedom.  Then you get in a taxi without any modern conveniences (I didn't see a seat belt the whole trip, and one time the car didn't even have headlights at night). You see goats and garbage at first, and then we saw this strange looking revolution plaza or something..with a Soviet looking obelisk in the middle..some BS about "Viva La"...but the Cubans are so laid back, it's hard to imagine they care that much. Or ever did. Fine, Fidel and Che whatever floats your boat is the feeling you get. The muscly, scary brutalist architecture they got courtesy of the Soviets is of course hideous and strange...and it seems so Un Cuban. Having said that: there are pictures of Che everywhere, and of course Fidel whom they loved. But none of Raoul, who it seems they think is a bit of a tool.
Our guide was a young guy whose family is Spanish and came around the turn of the century to grow tobacco. Needless to say they were, and still are, the elites of Cuba. But when the revolution came, they didn't leave: they were hours outside of Havana in any case, so they were more sanguine about the whole kerfuffle. Castro took away most of their land, but each person got five acres, so they cobbled together, as a family, about 35 acres which they still own and run now. They all live in Havana, and go there on the weekends. He says 80 percent of the Cubans haven't been off the island- no visas and no money, but he has been to Spain. He said his friends all pestered him to tell him about his travels, but he just couldn't describe the way people think. He was as interested in our lives as we were in his- couldn't really get the whole boarding school thing, nor the single sex education which he thought was absurd.

We went outside of town to see Hemingway's house which i loved. Apparently he left expecting to come back; or perhaps to kill himself in Idaho, but in any case he left everything- books and a Picasso, everything. And the Cubans kept it exactly as he left it. It is up on a hill overlooking Havana and had a pool and a tennis court; all very colonial faded glory even in its day. Wonderful leather chairs from Africa, and animal heads and mahogany desks, just simply perfect-I could move in. You also see where he slept and wrote-even the tower where he apparently housed an 18 year old Italian journalist student with whom he had an affair, and who (according to the guide there) killed herself when she heard he had. I was re reading the Old Man and the Sea, and it really is a gem. I think everyone wants to be him- to live a large fearless life in the most interesting places drinking and smoking and giving the devil, who is waiting for us, the finger.
But then we go to lunch where we look suspiciously at the lettuce wondering if it has been washed properly. Sigh. Chuck and I had a few bites in honor of ol Ernest...I mean it was the least we could do.

After our last day, the guide, (Umberto Javier) escorted us back to the hotel, and then heard we were going to try to find this ice cream place. The ice cream story started with Tricia, super star tour guide herself who picked our hotel - a wonderful sort of bed and breakfast with rooms as nice as any I have ever stayed in, with breakfast in the garden. As you know, Thomas and I just throw money at the hotel problem, and sign up for any old five star; but those aren't really up and running yet, so we said we would go where the Sellmans went. Anyway Tricia always is keen to find someplace cool, and read about this in the FT- a renovated stately house with lovely garden, and huge bedroom suites, run by a Belgian. It's called La Reserva, and we can wholeheartedly recommend. Anyway, she had also read about this enormous modern open air building: a sort of soviet mid century blend. Frankly it looked like something out of the Jettsons cartoon. It is a pavilion that sells only one thing: ice cream. Apparently it was the brain child of El Jefe himself- take away their land and their travel privileges, but give them ice cream. In its day , it offered 40+ flavors. Now, our guide said, they are lucky to get five; and in the dark times after the Soviet money stopped, there was only one flavor on offer. So you would go, and wait in a long line, only to be given the option of one scoop or two of vanilla.
U.J. said, anyway the ice cream wasn't very good, and we should try this other place that was run by an Italian who could sneak the good ingredients in to the country somehow. So we decided to go...and he said he would come along.
Here is the most amazing thing about the people- everywhere we went, we met people who did not want our money. I am not kidding- they would approach us and we would gird ourselves, and they would just tell us something about Cuba, or the music or anything...but neither asked for, nor accepted when offered, any money.
The ice cream was pretty good...and on the way back an old man approached our guide to tell him and us there was a concert in the next block in this large garden of some small but grand edifice. He was rushing to get there himself.
So we go.
People People People....it was like something out of a movie where four gringos find themselves by traveling in a third world country-  the spontaneous dancing scene at the end before they go back to Cincinnati and their dull lives. Here is the scene: band is rocking, and locals of all ages, but lots of old, are ripping it up at 4: 45 pm on a Wednesday. The same guy who told us about it, refused any offer of drinks, and then without being asked, shooed people away so we could sit. There was an 80 year old woman with one tooth who weighed maaaaybe 65 pounds, grinding with another old guy who was in a chair. I am not making that up. She had a little bow on her head, the kind that babies do before they have hair and she had no teeth (ok one) but she was INTO it....the well dressed black men, one of whom had most of his teeth, but they were all gold, took a shine to me...I hate to brag. Thomas was not going to dance, nor was Chuck, so Tricia and I had to find company with the locals. My heart belonged only to the little one and I kept trying to dance next to her.  I even sent guide over to buy her table drinks, but he ended up buying them himself because he was worried they would be offended by our American bucks. See what I mean? you can't buy them anything!
So five rum shots later we had to get back for our dinner resey, a dinner that I was so not hungry for..but the setting was gorgeous: a factory with a tower next to it and a roof top bar. They are really into roof top bars...but no locals can go to any of these places, they just do not make enough money. A salary of a government worker can be as low as 50 bucks a month, and even with the necessary black market work they do, there just isn't enough. So they stay home, and dance.

The food overall wasn't anything to write home about: it is so tough to get good ingredients, and they are not apparently farming them. Also wine lists are either 450$ for a bottle, or pretty simple stuff. But they will get there- and the settings are so amazing. The design of these new places- the narrow stairways leading to a roof looking at the sea, the tiny restaurant that serves the best ceviche with perfectly beautiful wooden tables, the ivy covered walls in the factory, the restaurant on the river behind the sea.. all  are so wonderful, you are happy just to sit there. And you get a nice piece of fish, so it's fine. But Boo asked about the food, and it is not a foodie destination place for sure.

Ok I have to start there...pictures will be up soon. Have to drive to Choate today (yes the one that is in the papers..) to pick up first born at his tennis match. Tonight and Easter a trois in Boston. yay.
more soon.

Viva la Revolucion!
xxxx