For our last two days in Cuba we headed to Havana and the
Hotel National de Cuba. Hotel National is a spectacular building set in a prominent location on the sea front. Apparently built with Mafia money it has been very well kept, especially when compared with the surround buildings (although a little bit short of light bulbs).
The see front of Havana which we saw on our arrival was one long building site. Almost all of the spectacular looking buildings derelict and a lot of building work going on.
We checked our bags and after a brief struggle with the Tourist 'Information' desk (more on this to follow), we headed off to
Partagas Cigar Factory for a tour.
This was our first real tourist attraction of the holiday, the cigar factory is on
the edge of old Havana, and is set over a higgledy piggledy four story building. Our guide was a woman dressed all in white with a large pink flower in her hair.
She started the tour by showing us the room in which women sorted the tobacco leaves into similar size and colour piles, simple enough. By the next room she had started dancing, two rooms later she was singing. By the time we got to the rolling room things had started to become a bit strange, as she spoke to us she massaged the earlobe of the man sitting in front of her. She paused in her tour to pick up a massive cigar and began to trim and light it - I though that she would pass it around for us to smell, but no - it was just for her to smoke as she completed the tour.
In the final room one of the workers at the factory tried to sell us cigars which he had hidden down his pants. Brilliant.
One of my favourite bits of the tour was the stage area at the end of one of the rooms, this was used to read newspapers to the staff in the mornings and in the afternoons romantic novels.
Communism rocks.
The streets around the cigar factory turned out to be the worst part of
Havana for getting hassled, friendly enough but still quite intense. The rest of the city seemed to be better in this regard and on a few occasions we got shouts of 'Happy Holiday' from people driving past!
Back at the hotel we started to truly understand the meaning of
Kafkaesque. The lobby of the hotel consisted of a range of desks all with different functions, so you would queue at one and they would say "no, that desk over there". You check in at the reception, but check out at the cashier. The tourist information desk will give you information about some things but not others and they couldn't tell us
anything about the tourist bus that goes around Havana.
We ended up deciding to go into Old Havana for a look around the
World Heritage Site. Most of Havana is incredibly run down, buildings falling apart, piles of rubble everywhere. However old Havana has benefited from some major renovation work and lots of money from European NGOs and feels similar to a lot of southern Mediterranean city.
On our final morning we need to "do some admin". The astronomic level of bureaucracy means that a few things, breakfast, online check-in, changing money and finding out about the tourist bus takes much longer that you could ever anticipate. Four hours later, after almost getting on a bus to the beach, we were on the tour bus.
We finished off the afternoon with a beer on the veranda of the hotel over looking the sea before heading to the airport, laden with cigars and rum.
Cuba has been a fascinating place to come and visit, so many contradictions. In Valadero we could have been pretty much anywhere in the Caribbean, but Havana feels so very unique. Superb holiday.
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Location:Havana, Cuba
