Cuba - Day 5, January 7th

Today was the day for major walking - overall I think we must have walked over 11 or 12 Km.

In order to avoid the hottest part of the day, we started as early as possible on our walk to the Plaza de la Revolución - about 4 to 5 Km one way on a very hot and humid day. It took us westward out of the main tourist area along streets (Avenida Simon Bolivar and Avenida Salvador Allende) bustling with people and vehicle traffic. Here, even more than in the tourist area around our hotel, we were clearly foreigners among Cubans involved in day to day life of the city.

Along the way we passed a locomotive restoration area in the shadow of the Capital building, and a bit further on there was a cigar "factory", in which real Cuban cigars were apparently being rolled as we passed! An aside - the jintero who hawk cigars on the street, not surprisingly, are selling poor grade stogies, so don't buy.

In the photo below the cigar place is on the right.

While on Avenida Simon Bolivar about half way to the The Plaza de la Revolución, we passed a beautiful church, Iglesia del Sagardo Corazón de Jesus, which we noted as a likely stop on our return.

The Plaza de la Revolución is a huge open paved area where, in the past, hundreds of thousands of people have gathered and stood for hours listening to the oratory of Fidel Castro, or, when he visited Cuba in recent years, the Pope.



The south side of the plaza is dominated by an imposing monument comprised of a tall phallic structure which towers above a very large statue of José Marti shown in the photo below (more about Marti later). If you click on the photo below and look closely you can see a couple of people who provide some perspective on the size of the statue.

Surprisingly to me there was no sign of a memorial to Fidel Castro. The plaza is located in an area which is populated by government ministry buildings, far removed from the Capital building which is well to the east in central Havana. Two of the government buildings on the north side of the plaza provide the surface for large images of two key figures in the revolution - Che Guevera and Camilo Cienfuegos. (a bit more about Cienfuegos in another post)


 There were two or three tour buses there but I was surprised at how few visitors there were.

On our return, as planned, we stopped to visit the church with the beautiful spire and renown stained glass windows which we had passed on our way to the Plaza de la Revolución.

It is a lovely church both inside and out and I did get a couple of photos inside but, as we were unaware of the reputation for stained glass windows at that time, I failed to get any good photos of them.
















Not far past the church we walked through a small park where I noticed this wonderful array of colourful vehicles parked along the street - the purple, green and blue ones were in place and just as I was about to press the shutter, the yellow one slid into its spot - perfect! And the red peeking through from the other side of the street nicely rounds out the rainbow. By the way, if you look at the building across the street you will see that it lacks windows and a roof, a not uncommon sign of deterioration in some areas in Havana.

When we got back to the Parque Central we went to Hotel Parque Central for beer and water hoping to savour these on the roof top cafe and bar after our long hot and tiring walk but, as we were not guests at the hotel, we were denied access. So, we had our drinks in the main floor bar and used the wi fi access.



Then to a tiny second floor paladar restaurant nearby for lunch (we are not sure what to make of it, but all of the paladar restaurants where we have eaten so far, have been on the second floor).

Next we went to to take some photos at the fruit and vegetable market we had visited earlier (a couple photos are in an earlier blog) and on to the Museo de Arte Nacional which, unfortunately, was closed.

 As our plans had been thwarted and we were both quite tired from the walk, we decided to return to our hotel.

When we went into our room we found this towel swan on my bed accompanied by a card saying "Sweet Dreams". The previous day when we returned to our room after the room service folks had been there, we found, fashioned from one of our towels, an equally creative hand fan which, unfortunately, I dismantled before taking a photo. This time I did not make the same mistake!

The service at the hotel was generally good even when I left some things behind when we changed rooms. They retrieved them for me quickly. But the shower was not so accommodating - the pressure was completely unpredictable and the temperature of the water varied from cool to cold, even though a sign warned us that the hot water temperature was set at 50 degrees celsius! Apparently the shower required some wake up time as Bob, showering later, seemed to have better luck.

After rest/naps Bob looked through the Lonely Planet book to find a recommended restaurant for dinner and, with a couple in mind we set out to find the first choice which was reasonably close to our hotel. It was closed. So we decided to look for the second choice and, en-route encountered the folks who were attempting to lure people to the Giraldillia restaurant where we had had a very good meal a couple of nights before. We wanted to carry on to the place we had in mind but began to realize that it was quite a long walk so were susceptible to a restaurant recommendation by a woman among the Giraldilla folks and she actually accompanied us through some very dark streets to a (second floor) paladar restaurant, El Cubano, several blocks away. According to her, it is run by a friend and serves excellent food for a very good price. It was a tiny place with only 3 or 4 tables and squeezed into one small corner was a group of 4 musicians (apologies for the fuzzy photo - they just wouldn't stay still) who, it turned out, were excellent and clearly the best and only good part of our experience at this place (we even bought a CD which we thought was theirs but, it turns out, it was not this group at all).

After a bit of difficulty getting our meal sorted out, the food was slow to arrive and left a good deal to be desired. Fortunately, the music entertainment was excellent because the next morning we realized how unsatisfactory the experience was as our GI problems, destined to last several days and seriously curtail our activities, began.