January 22 – January 25 2019

My trip to Havana was a bit of an aberration in the broader trip. I guess mostly because it wasn’t part of my overlanding trip in my car from Alaska to Ushuaia but flying in to a new place as a regular tourist might do. It is better described as a holiday within the broader adventure. But I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to visit Cuba again after loving it so much the last time I went several years ago with my family. And Cancun makes a great jumping off point to get there.

To me, Havana is a magical world from the past where time seems to have stood still. The architecture is old and incredible. The streets are filled with music, drinking, people, bright colours. It feels exactly as though you’re in the very trading port that would have been filled with pirates several hundred years ago, only the pirates are gone and a new generation of people now inhabit the largely unchanged city. The political system is dysfunctional and it is fascinating to talk to the local people about how it works (doesn’t work). For a car guy, seeing so many old cars is amazing, as is asking them to pop the hood and see either the original V8s (less common) or the relatively new four-cylinder transplants they’ve swapped in to afford to drive them.

It’s crazy how many buildings are in this state. And it’s not just in the outskirts, buildings like this exist within 100m of El Capitolio (the most important political building in Cuba)

The view from our casa and a typical landscape of Havana. Buildings can often be nice inside but rarely from the outside (a function of the way housing is provided and subsidised by the government)

I only spent three days there so it hardly requires a blow-by-blow account. But some highlights include:

Dinner at La Guarida. This is slightly outside out of central Havana where most tourists spend their time. It’s a beautiful marble floored building that I think was once a hotel but is now a combination of accommodation for locals, small businesses and the restaurant. The food is top notch, prices are offensively cheap and the setting on the deck outside is second to none
Seeing Cojimar which is the setting for Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. I must have read this book a dozen times or more so to actually go there and match my recollection from the scenes in the book to the actual town was quite a treat
Getting out of tourist area into the real Havana and just walking the streets, watching the people and how they live, looking into the windows of the apartments and buildings and getting a real view of life there
Hadyn was sick for a lot of the Cuba leg which afforded me a chance to bar hop and meet dozens of locals, bar tenders and foreigners, practice my Spanish and try to understand more about this magical place
The clichéd city driving tour in an old 1950’s car. I’ve done this before but it was just as good the second time. What was common to both times was the tour guides are informed, speak good English and are brutally honest. In this instance, we had a sports journalist as a guide who did tours on the side in the car that had been in his family for three generations. He was educated and intelligent which allowed us to really pick his brain on how the system works locally and what is broken in Cuban society. The answers to my questions consistently baffled and amazed and makes you wonder how there hasn’t been a second revolution given the state of the country

Cojimar, the setting for The Old Man and the Sea

Hadyn enjoying a Bucanero (one of the countries two nationally produced beers) while getting lost in the real Havana

Some thoughts on Communism, Life in Cuba and it’s People:

Fidel passed the torch on to this brother Raul and died. Raul installed a puppet leader but continues to control things from behind the scenes. The US threatened to open up trade with Cuba but didn’t follow through. Very little has changed from what I can tell in the three years since I was last in Cuba. People earn USD$15 a month regardless of their position – be it a CEO of a company or a shopkeeper. They are paid in pesos but everything for sale is priced in convertible pesos (what you’d use as a tourist and tied to the US dollar). Home ownership is now possible and you can finally buy and sell houses which seems like a step forward but no one has the money to do so. Ultimately, the government gives you a house to live in but you don’t necessarily have a say on who you live with and buildings are dilapidated and cramped. In short, the system is broken.

Talking to locals, they are all very aware of how the system is failing them and how other countries thrive, relatively, under different political structures. They know from their black-market capitalist pursuits that that there are more fair ways to earn money and get ahead. Yet at the same time, despite the poverty that their system delivers, it seems to me that the Cubans are happy people.

Sure they will try to scam you and make an extra buck. I don’t mind this at all, it’s just a natural reaction to their government-enforced poverty. I find myself indulging them. At one point, I ended up on a ‘walking tour’ of Havana with a couple locals. Besides being great informal tour guides, they walked me to a restaurant to make a reservation where they no doubt got a kickback, treated themselves to a round of drinks on me and then tried to arrange a liaison for their prostitute friend and I (which is where I had to call it a day and head home). Being aware of this and knowing there was always an angle, I would have been happy to hang out with them all day. I enjoy the randomness of seeing what comes next and just following the rabbit down the rabbit hole. I just love getting amongst the locals and away from the well trodden tourist spots.

I found myself chatting to dozens of locals and being fascinated that they were partly outraged at the system, partly accepting of it, but otherwise generally happy, friendly, open to sharing their city with foreigners and always with a smile on their face. I feel like there’s a lesson in here for the rest us about not entwining what we have with our happiness and our perspective on life. I guess this is why I love Cuba so much.