Tuesday, June 2, 2015: Havana, Cuba

The seaview out of my window this morning was indeed very nice and impressive. What was much less impressive was the fact that it was gray and rained most of the day, at times quite heavily. Due to the rain I was the only one in the huge splendid pool after breakfast.

We ventured into town in the early afternoon, purchased bus tickets for the trip tomorrow and went to the Hotel National in the Center of Havana. The National is one of Havana's old neo-classical hotels. It was built in 1930 and has been one of the city's major hotels ever since. The entrance hall isa grand marble edifice  with brown tiles on the floor, very neo-classical. But to be honest the entrance hall reminded me of the waiting room of an upscale trainstation. Well, this is a little unfair I guess.

There is a historical part of the hotel which includes the great ballroom and a bar. Adjacent to the dining hall was the quaint "Churchill bar" with pictures of the great man on  the wall. We couldn't quite find out when Churchill actually visited Havana. No one seemed to know though they did display the exact menu that Churchill ate when dining at the National. We overheard a young man from London admitting to some woman with a very English voice that he had never ever heard of Churchill and didn't know who he was.

There was  another bigger bar which displayed pictures of the great and the good who had visited the National in the distant past and the more recent past. Putin and Hollande were among the visitors as was former Brasilian president Luna and various UN chiefs. The German and British leaders were absent as were, of course, any American dignitaries (apart from actors and singers in the 1930s to 1950s).  Fidel Castro seems to have wined and dined many foreign visitors in the Hotel National, if the displayed photos are anything to go by.

The everyday hustle and bustle of the hotel was briefly interrupted by the departure of a bride in aflowing white wedding dress.  She had picked a bad day for her wedding: it was lashing down when she left the hotel.

Thus, we had no choice but to stroll round the center of the old town in the rain. Fortunately  we found shelter in a classic cigar shop and factory behind the impressive Capitol building. The Capitol looks just like the one in DC, but it's completely closed off and in urgent need of renovation which had actually begun it appeared. After some searching we found the bar Hemingway frequented often when he lived in Havana all those years ago. And what a bar it was. It was not unlike an Irish bar though quainter and, not surprisingly, more Caribbean. The lively atmosphere was similar, however, and a very good Cuban band played upbeat music. I bought one of the band's CDs. We stayed for quite some time and, speaking about Irish pubs, we met a very pleasant couple from Dublin who were touring the island.

In the evening we went to the Buena Vista Social club and enjoyed the show there: great Cuban music performed by a 10-piece band, plus several male and female singers. Most of the performers were well into their 70s and the star of the band, Ignatious, seemed to be in his late 80s. But his singing was great and his demeanor made it quite clear that he knew that he was the star of the evening. We had a good time. The original band must have been established in the 1930s; today only a few of these large bands still exist I believe.

The taxi driver on the way back suggested that we go by a disco club called "Bimbo" with lots of beautiful girls he explained. I hasten to add that we gave it a miss. Somehow the name of the bar wasn't that appealing. The driver was a nice guy who, like a few people before him in the afternoon, moaned about the state of affairs in Cuba and deplored the bad economy. He didn't see much of a difference between Fidel and Raoul in terms of improvements to the Cuban economy and was not that hopeful that entering into diplomatic relations with the US would make much of a difference. Not least he complained about the travel restrictions and the near-impossibility of getting a passport to travel unless you are quite rich. And of course few Cubans have the money to travel even if they manage to get hold of a passport. It all reminded me a lot of the former East Germany where travel restrictions were the foremost issue that in particular young people found highly frustrating. The dilapidated buildings and the poor standard of living of most ordinary Cubans is also not dissimilar to the state of affairs in the GDR in the 1980s. Can further parallels be drawn between the former GDR and current-day Cuba with an eye to the future? I'm not sure. Perhaps.