Havana’s infectious atmosphere is not the Caribbean of the holiday brochures
Jocelyn
has been dancing the salsa in pulsating, sultry Havana since she was five.
I, on the other hand, have been attempting to persuade two left feet to vaguely co-operate for just five minutes.
Though it feels like a lifetime.
It would be fair to say my dance lesson is not going well.
I should, perhaps, have had a potent mojito cocktail to give my Strictly Come Dancing effort a bit more of a Strictly Rum Dancing flavour.
Jocelyn
is a charitable teacher, kindly pointing out that I am a man and therefore supposed to lead. And that I’m supposed to be going backwards,
not sideways.
Or forwards, not shuffling on the spot.
Or was it backwards again? Who knows?
Even benevolent Brucie would be hard-pressed
to say I was his favourite at the end of this rather ropey routine.
“Smaller steps,” Jocelyn keeps telling me.
“Smaller steps.”
Frankly,
I’m just trying not to fall over. I don’t know what Strictly judges Craig, Darcey, Len and Bruno would make of me.
I am a dance dunce.
Still there’s much more to this astonishing city than incompetent salsa by a leaden-footed Brit.
Sights, smells, tastes, sounds… Havana is a throbbing, throwback that puts your senses on a huge overload.
How about the striking visual assault as you first see this extraordinary old Spanish colonial wonder?
Preferably
arrive in a 1950s American open-top taxi from the airport, as I did on a
whistle-stop trip last autumn with Virgin Atlantic.
You’ll soon notice there’s much more of a South or Central American feel to Havana, than a Caribbean one.
Everywhere what were once quite lavish buildings are in various states of decay, ranging from being ‘in need of a little TLC’ to
‘we’ll need to go to El BQ’ to ‘seriously in need of the wrecking ball’ though some restoration programmes are under way.
No, this is not the Caribbean of the holiday brochures – all sparkling azure seas and sugary sand.
Yes,
of course, there’s that elsewhere on the island of Cuba (and actually quite close to Havana) but this is a proper city of more than two million people and while it’s not 24/7 it’s pretty close.
Take
the traffic, for example.
The local Habaneros (it’s Habana here, not Havana) are enthusiastic users of the roads and of the vehicle’s horn, though it’s not so much the amount of the traffic as its variety that is
astonishing.
Cuba’s closeness to, then decades of communist isolation from, its vast neighbour to the north means there’s a huge number of those post-war US gas guzzlers still on the streets.
Plus there are plenty of utilitarian,
boxy Eastern Bloc cars and lorries and curious fibreglass buggies that look like they’ve escaped from a 1960s theme park.
Which all adds to the atmosphere in two ways.
Noise. Undeniably, there is a hum of the internal combustion engine day and night in central Havana.
Smell. It’s fair to say, there’s a good whiff of Venezuela’s finest petroleum about the town.
Havana
doesn’t exactly have a London- style emissions control zone.
Mayor Boris Johnson would take one sniff here and be straight on the phone to his fresh-air tsar to tell him to get on the next plane (assuming he could get a mobile signal, but that’s another story).
Which
all goes some way to explaining why I was sitting in an open-top Buick taxi being driven through something of a fug of fumes to another of Havana’s ‘atmospheric’ attractions – the H Upmann cigar factory.
A
tour of a cigar factory in Havana really is a must, even if you don’t smoke (and they’re not smoky), to see where 400 skilled workers produce 15-25,000 Cohibas (Fidel Castro’s choice of cigar), Montecristos and Romeo y Julietas a day by hand, to the strains of, in true Cuban tradition, the news from the state paper being read out to staff each day.
Yes, there’s a shop for bargain smokes. And, no, the tobacco is not rolled on women’s thighs.
I
was staying at the splendidly restored Saratoga Hotel in central Havana, which has a lovely rooftop pool area with a view of the extraordinary jumble of lower rooftops.
It’s handy for the sights, including the magnificent Capitolio, the old seat of government before the revolution, which is now a science academy. It’s also handy for the old city and a walking tour of this Unesco world heritage site is a must.
As is a stop for a traditional Cuban lunch of lamb, black beans and rice (around £4-£5) at the terrific Dona Eutimia restaurant in a side street close to the cathedral, which is also a must-see.
And
for dinner, I’d recommend La Guarida ( laguarida.com
), the city’s best-known paladar, or Cuban restaurant, located on the top floor of a dilapidated building and reached by flights of gloomy stone steps that pass the open windows of apartments.
The food matches the atmosphere and
experience (around £18, a bit pricey by Cuban standards).
I
also tried Starbien for lunch, a trendy spot run on more commercial lines in the Vedado district.
With gorgeous stuffed peppers for about £2.40 and £6.70 for tender filet mignon with green pepper sauce, it’s easy to see why it’s a success in the modernising Cuba.
Indeed,
now that Fidel Castro has loosened his iron grip and his brother Raul is in charge, things have eased.
Cuba is still a communist country but entrepreneurs are being encouraged.
I went to an urban farm (much more interesting than it sounds) where, rather than just supplying the state –
although it still has quotas to meet – it can also sell any of the remaining produce to hotels and restaurants at the market rate.
It’s doing very nicely and keeping a few hundred people in work.
The farm is organic, too, since decades of trade embargoes meant there were no fertiliser imports.
Of
course, in Havana it’s hard to escape the iconic men who are so heavily
associated with the city: Fidel, of course, his fellow revolutionary Che Guevara… and Ernest Hemingway, who lived here for 20 years.
A tour out to Finca Vigia ( hemingwaycuba.com
), which translates
as lookout house, his restored old property 10 miles east of Havana, is
a popular excursion.
He bought it in 1940 for $12,500 and penned For Whom The Bell Tolls and The Old Man And The Sea here.
You can’t go into the house but the windows are open so you can peer through at his artefacts, the typewriter he used and,
bizarrely, a pickled lizard by the loo, apparently the preserved winner
of a fight with one of the writer’s cats.
Admission to the grounds costs about £2 and by the souvenir stalls at the entrance there’s a chance to try a glass of pressed sugar cane juice made by two locals using a machine straight out of a torture chamber.
Guarapo is a refreshing sweet drink that also makes a good mixer with rum.
On
the subject of booze, it’s fair to say Hemingway was a thirsty chap and
the drinking dens he frequented in Havana are practically shrines for Cubans and tourists.
So, if you want a Hemingway-style guzzle, check out Floridita (there’s a bronze statue of our typing tippler) and mojito-friendly La Bodeguita del Medio.
They will be busy.
As will the legendary cabaret club Tropicana ( cabaret-tropicana.com
, from £45) where the drinks are free-flowing.
I spent most of the evening there hiding at the back to avoid being press-ganged
into another salsa lesson, this time with a young lady who appeared to have forgotten to put on most of her clothes.
The
time to leave Havana in another vintage car was approaching, but not before a quick visit to the amazing 1960s Coppelia ‘ice cream cathedral’
– created by Fidel to provide gelato to the masses.
It
looks like another sci-fi movie object and it’s a shame that us tourists are allowed only in a small area for foreigners.
Integration with the capitalist westerners clearly does not extend to a chocolate scoop.
There
was just time for a quick photo stop on the famous Malecon, a wide road
flanked by a sea wall that runs for five miles across the north of the city.
It’s a key spot for the locals to stroll, chat and watch the waves
crash into the wall’s rocky perimeter.
Even
if you can’t dance the salsa and simply strolling around this fascinating city is more your cup of guarapo, Havana is rumbelievably good.
Get there
Virgin Atlantic flies twice weekly to Havana from Gatwick with fares from £792.27. virgin-atlantic.com
, 0844 209 7777.
Rooms at the Saratoga Hotel in Havana start at £114pn. hotel-saratoga.com
.
Tourist info
: travel2cuba.co.uk
.
Time zone:
UK -5hrs
Currency:
Cuban Convertible Peso £1 = 1.62
Best time to go:
Year-round destination… unforgettable
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