Cuba

What a place to see. 

Near the Marina at Cienfuegos on the south coast is a Moorocan inspired building initially to be used as a Casino but now a restaurant.   One afternoon whilst strolling around we found this ‘masterpiece’ of architecture and for $2 each could go in see the building, listen to music and get a rum and coke.  This was a bargain as opposed to the thoroughly inedible meal we had in the centre of town for $30.  We even found a Mercury car for sale in the street for $15,000!! Gringo sucker price – the real one would most likely be half that.   We see lots of these old cars in the streets along with the more recent Russian branded Ladas and other makes.

Havana is a place with a lot going on.  They are very enthusiastic abut renovating buildings in the old town and upgrading infrastructure in the streets.  There are building works everywhere and some are completed such as a square that once had an ugly 50’s carpark in it and is now restored to its original along with all the buildings surrounding it.  There are still lots of buildings in various states of decrepepitude  and there is a special names for those buildings that just cant stand up any more and suddenly fall over.

 It is an easy town to get around and is not yet full of tourists.  Wait till the Americans come though and it will probably change to something worse.  The one gain with the Americans coming might be that the food will get better in the restaurants.  They are a happy lot of people and are quite stoic given the hardships that they have had to put up with over the last 50 years.

Trinidad another city that we visited is described as having gone into a somnolent and life threatening coma early in the 19^th century and thus has been saved in its original form.  It was the centre of the sugar growing area and was devasted by fire and fighting after the two Wars of Independence.  It is now a tourist centre but not in the awful overdone way these places can become.  In fact the whole of Cuba is still not overly done by tourism yet.

The cars must be mentioned.  Even though I am not interested in cars per se, I was blown over by the old Chevvies, Mercury Buicks and other makes that ply the streets with people hanging out of them – being used as private cars and as taxis.   The other form of transport in the towns is not an evil smelling oil polluting bus but a horse and cart with 6 or so people in the cart.  The buses do exist but not to any great number.   Also the streets couldn’t cope with the traffic.  On the country roads, me still get around by horse as well as the horse and cart.