Havana Hotels

Our tour today was the ‘mobster’ hotels. It was primarily a tour of the public rooms of what used to be 5 star hotels but are now run by the government. The hotels' age are showing. We noticed as we went through the city, that what used to be the homes of the wealthy, are now apartment buildings. Some in good shape, but many appear drab and in disrepair. The average person makes on $40-60 per month, so they really can’t afford to upgrade their apartment. In general, there has been little new construction since the revolution and many of the building in the downtown area are empty and shuttered. 

We had lunch in a private restaurant. Only 10% of the businesses are private, and almost all of them require outside financing (usually overseas relatives) to get started. Of course, before the revolution, 40% of all business were foreign-owned.

Hotel Seville's Courtyard

The Hotel Seville was the largest and tallest hotel in 1934 with two casinos. It was owned by Battisti who also owned all the horse race tracks in Cuba. We also toured the former Havana Hilton and the Havana Libre, currently the tallest hotel in Cuba. There we tried a Cuba Libre, a rum and coke, which was created here during the Spanish American War, as well as learned how to make (and consume) a daiquiri. Our last stop was the National Hotel. Here they had a large exhibit in the bar of famous people who had visited the hotel

National Hotel's visitors

We ended with some trivia: the Cuban flag was designed in 1850 to be similar to the Texan flag, because they wanted to be independent just like Texas.

Our visit to Cuba was short, and while it was interesting, I'm not inclined to go back. Interesting to hear the story of the country from several perspectives, one focused on recent improvements, the other from how things are still pretty tough. If we were to go again, I'd prefer seeing more of the natural beauty of the country and less of the cities. For example, we know that their coral reefs are the best preserved in the Caribbean because when the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba lost their cheap source of fertilizer, so they had to become organic farmers before it was popular. The reefs have seen the benefit from the reduced use of fertilizers.  

All day in Havana

We had our last sea day yesterday. We’ve got quite a streak of trivia wins going, I think our team has won trivia 10 times now. Our best ever! Our best subject is geography. One quiz was to identify 15 countries by their shape. We completed 14 of 15 is about five minutes and then argued about the last country. We learned that you could turn your paper in and if it was wrong, you could try again. So we did, our best guess was Panama, and we were right. A few days later, the quiz was to identify the 49 countries from a map of the continent of Europe. We identified all 49 but got two countries in the wrong order. No one else had over 30 countries identified. The other highlight was our evening show, the Barricade Boys. These 4 singers had met doing Les Miserable on London’s West End. Their voices were powerful and brought tears to my eyes. I’d gladly pay to see these guys again, and bought their CD.

Today, we docked in Havana harbor. Currently only one of the three docks is active, so they can handle two ships. The other two are in total disrepair, with a plan to eventually fix them. Our tour is a nine hour bus tour of the city with a walking tour of old Havana at the end. Our first major stop was Revolutionary Square with tributes to Jose’ Marti', writer, poet, and Politician who fought for Cuban Independence from Spain. Our guide explained that in 1898, America joined the war against Spain with Cuba largely because of the USS Maine blowing up in the harbor (which at the time was thought to be sabotage but appears to more likely have been an accident). But Cuba didn’t get independence, instead they became a protectorate of the U.S. (This is when we got Guantanamo Bay Naval Station and the right to invade Cuba in the future). Restrictions were put on Cuba to only trade with the U.S. Cuba went from one colonial power to another.

Revolutionary Square

Our next stop was the Christopher Columbus cemetery the oldest (1871) Catholic Cemetery in Cuba. We found many interesting tombstones to bar tenders (the creator of the daiquiri) , businessmen, and baseball players as well as a monument for fire fighters.

As we went through the city, our guide impressed us with what as really been good since the revolution as well as pointing out how difficult life has been with the U.S. Embargo. A few highlights: The number one export from Cuba is medical services: either students from other countries studying medicine in Cuba or Cuban doctors and nurses going to other countries to practice and sending money home. The second most important is tourism (Canadians are their primary tourists). Cigars are fourth.  Education is free through University. Before the revolution, there were only three universities and most of the country was illiterate, today education is free and compulsory through age 15.

Lineup of Classic Cars

Cuba is known for its classic cars and they are beautiful, most have been retrofitted with diesel engines to keep them running. Of course, the U.S. embargo didn’t allow the U.S. to sell new cars here after the revolution. But when Fidel took over, there was no way to sell a car in the secondary market, so most of the cars, remained in the family for all these years. Today, most of these cars serve as taxis for tourists. Transportation is a huge problem for Cubans, there are not enough buses for the population and taxis cost more than your daily wage.

Famous guests at La Bodequita del Medio

We ate lunch at the La Bodequita del Medio, a famous haunt of Ernest Hemmingway and home of the Mojito, just off of Plaza de la Cathedral. We had a nice sampler plate of Cuban dishes. The spices were interesting and quite mild.

After lunch we had a chance to sample the 3 famous commodities of Cuba: rum, coffee, and cigars. There are 27 different brands of cigar produced in Cuba, we sampled Winston Churchill’s favorite: Romeo and Juliet. Well, actually only 2 on our tour tried the cigar, the rest kept theirs to take back to the U.S.

Our last bus stop was at El Morro Castle.  The large Spanish fort that protects the entrance to the harbor. This stop ended up being disappointing, it was primarily a shopping point to buy cigars, and we saw only a little of the fort. As promised, we ended the day with about 10 of us walking the old colonial city, seeing more of the key squares. Our guide seemed to get more adamant about how great Cuba could be if the U.S. embargo would come to an end. I’ll admit, it makes no sense why we’ve kept this embargo for 60 years, when we’ve made up with Japan, Germany, and Vietnam, but we did get tired of hearing the message. We were tired and happy to spend the evening on the ship, rather than go out to see a show. But we heard good things the next day about the show at the Tropicana Club. 

The Colonial City

Cienfuegos, Cuba

Yesterday was a sea day, a relaxing day playing trivia with Mary, Andy, and Sunny; a little sun on deck, and a lot of reading. Today’s port was Cienfuegos on the south western side of the island. This is primarily an industrial town today with a population of 100K. It was founded in 1819. It was interesting to see that even though cell phones seemed prevalent, there were still many public phones in the city. We journeyed outside the city to the Botanical Gardens, founded by an American in 1901 on an old sugar cane plantation. He started it as a research center for sugar cane. The gardens is primarily an arboretum with trees from throughout the world. We learned that there are over 90 species of palm trees in Cuba, 70 of them endemic. The stripper palm tree starts with leaves all around it, but as it grows more of the truck becomes visible. We also saw an 85 year old ebony tree, it takes over 200 years until the wood can be harvested, making it a expensive wood. The seed takes 9 months to mature and is covered by a brown dust, making it look dried out, to discourage animals from eating the seed. We also saw several variations of Brazil Nut pods, one looking like a muffin tree.

Muffin Tree

Our guide was excited because Cuba is rewriting their constitution. She attended a meeting earlier this month to have it explained and asking for the people’s input. She was personally interested in some provisions creating animal rights and gay marriage. The referendum on the constitution will be in February. Government has become more representative since Fidel. The people elect their neighborhood representatives, who in turn elect provincial representatives, who then choose the national representatives.

Valle Palace

We had lunch at one of the local hotels and then had drinks at the Valle Palace built in 1917. Each of the towers of this building is a different style: Arab, Indian, and Roman. In the afternoon, we had a concert by Coro Cantores De Cienfuegos, an acapella choir.  They have toured the world in various competitions, including Montana in the U.S. 

We took a brief tour of the city, ending up in San Marti square, the spot where the town was founded. Surrounding the square are government buildings, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, and the local theater, which is undergoing reconstruction for the 200^th anniversary of the city. It’s unusual feature is a stage with a 7% slope to help the audience see the entire stage, but imagine the challenge to the actors!

Opera House

Cozumel, Mexico

We boarded the Empress of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean ship, on Sunday in Miami. The ship has only 1600 passengers, a small ship by today's standards. The best part is that the promenade deck did allow you to walk completely around the ship. The worst part for us was the entertainment, of the 8 shows we saw, four were comedians, and most nights there were no bands playing music or allowing one to dance.

Our first stop was Cozumel. Mary, Cindy, Sunny, and Andy decided to walk the town. They ended up having a few tall margaritas at Senor Frog's. Since Cindy doesn't drink much, everyone else had more liquor then they needed.

Secret River 

Meanwhile, I decided to try some caving at the Secret River on the mainland. The wind was blowing strong, so we had rough seas trying to ferry to the mainland. Once there, the team really took good care of us, providing lunch, water, shoes, wet suits, head gear, mining lamps, and a great tour. We descended into the cave and began exploring one of the five different caverns open to the public. It was absolutely gorgeous. At times we were walking on a trail, other times we walked in water (72 degrees), and a few times had to swim to the next spot. The formations were interesting and varied. We also encountered tiny blind shrimp and some blind catfish, but missed out on blind spiders. We did have the mandatory time where we turned out all the lights. I highly recommend this tour if you're not squeamish about caves and tight spaces. My only complaint was that the price of pictures was high $25 for one, $99 for a set of about 20, most of which were of you going through various parts of the cave. Some of the pictures were really interesting, but I wasn't going to pay that price.