La Habana (or Havana to the rest of us!)
We didn’t have very good first impressions of La Habana as it is called in Cuba. It probably didn’t help that we arrived fairly late and felt like we were paying a lot of money for a hotel room and for a taxi to get from the airport to the hotel. Being charged US$445 to take out CUCs 400, when a CUC is supposed to be equal to a dollar, didn’t help either – tourist tax to get money out of the hole in the wall…
Havana felt dirty and grubby and we were forever being hassled as we walked down the street (where do you come from? do you want to buy some rum/cigars/both? come into my restaurant…), but that was only one evening.
We returned to La Habana after visiting Amaia in Varadero and it grew on us. There are 4 parts to it – embassy area, government workers area, Central Havana (where the locals live) and Havana Vieja which is fake Havana for the tourists, ie all the buildings have been restored, all the shops are Western shops, locals are generally not welcome…
We enjoyed wandering around fake Havana and Central Havana and comparing the two – both had a laid back and happy feel. We also visited a cuban cigar factory, which was interesting. Very manual work – and the conditions aren’t great – very hot inside. There were about 200 or so rollers, they make the cigar from start to finish and they have to pass through various quality controls before they make it into the box to sell (draw of the cigar, whether the label is on correctly etc).
We enjoyed sampling the mojitos made with local Havana Rum, but didn’t really get the chance to eat in a local restaurant (not sure they really exist apart from fast food type joints), so made do with expensive tourist ones – which means they can get hold of all the ingredients for the tourists unlike the locals who often can’t get hold of what they need. There was always some form of music being played / about to be played and it lead for a nice atmosphere.
We were surprised that cable/satellite TV was around, but again only in the tourist places (hotels, casa particulares – B&B type accomodation). But neither of us reallly understands the draw that Cuba has to some people, I think it has become too western now, and yes there are loads of old american cars driving around, but there are also quite a few new ones too…
Tags: Chile, Cuba, Havana, Travel
Jenni
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