Having not slept well again, I scraped out of bed with a headache and completely knackered.
I joined Jude, Tony(Snr.) and Jen on the terrace for breakfast. This is my first ‘tour’ experience and learning to live with different personalities could be challenging. So far Jude is never wrong, poor Tony(Snr.) is as deaf as a door-post, Tony(Jnr.) knows everything and Jen is delightful but she speaks so softly you can’t hear a word. We’ll see how this plays out.
From the terrace, the view over Old Havana is beautiful on this perfect, sunny morning. I had eggs again today, and, just like my brain, they were served scrambled.
Walking Tour
The group took a half-day walk through Old Havana, led by Maggie. It was bloody hot – I’m thinking it will take time to acclimatize. We took in sites around the old city but it was hard to digest all of this through my sleep-deprived haze.
The architecture here continues to amaze me. It encapsulates the history of Havana. The beautiful Spanish Colonial buildings that had fallen into disrepair and now being restored; we are told that 3,600 buildings have so far been restored, but the work goes on. And in the architectural mix, from their support from the ’60s until their collapse in the late ’80s, the Soviet brutalist style provides a stark contrast.
Around Plaza Vecchio, a central plaza in the old town were the ‘photo ops’. Various locals, wearing Caribean style clobber, and the wrinkly, toothless ladies older than Jesus, chugging on massive cigars. They all made themselves available for a small fee. Now I suddenly realise that all of those cool photos in tourist brochures are all set up, I felt conned! And a little naive. I didn’t oblige, maybe I should have? Cuba is very poor, they see their salvation in tourism!
Continuing on to the Plaza de Armas there is a flea market selling all the regular stuff, books, posters old cameras, buttons, postcards etc.
And then here you can find the touts, this time posing as Artistes. For a small fee, they will draw your portrait with a sharpie on a scrap of paper. Of course, if you want transport, a dancing lesson, Cuban cigars or something else less savoury, they can arrange that too.
Before lunch, we make a quick visit to a Print Makers’ Studio where Modern Cuban Art, Propaganda and Marvel Comics happily blend. Suddenly I feel hungry and I need a 500g steak.
After our city tour, we had lunch (which unfortunately did not include that 500g steak) in a small but ‘tour-group-prepared’ cafe in Plaza Vecchio. I’m feeling uncomfortable and ‘exposed’ being in a tour group. The experiences so far seem a bit contrived.