Hello from Cuba (10) – A Country Excursion
After my walk through the Vedado neighborhood, my friend Pedro came to look for me since I had suggested a short excursion with a rented car to get to know the countryside. Unfortunately, his wife and his sister-in-law were unable to attend because his cousin was in town. Havana can feel a bit claustrophobic as transportation options are limited and even a basic taxi ride to the Playas del Este (Eastern Beaches) is quite expensive.
And it’s also good to get away from the city, which can be quite congested and polluted with exhaust fumes from all the old vehicles. I can’t imagine what the air must be like here in the summer when it’s 35, 40 degrees Celsius with 80, 90 percent humidity. All the locals talk about the extreme heat of summer and it is best to visit outside of the months of June to September, even October.
Also, August and September are very prone to hurricanes which are an added complication, which is why many buildings have thick duct tape crosses attached to the glass. The tape prevents the glass from breaking when hurricanes hit the city.
Renting a car is always an interesting experience. I rented a small skoda at the Hotel Habana Libre for about $46CUC for 24 hours. If there was no damage and the gas tank was full upon return, there would be an additional $30CUC for insurance and an additional driver. Being in the rental car was strangely liberating because suddenly it was possible to overcome all the limitations of public transport in Havana and you could go wherever you wanted.
My friend Pedro is an experienced driver and loves to drive, so he drove and we headed east along the coast. We pass through Cojimar, Playas del Este, Playa Guanabo and stop at the Bacunayagua Bridge that forms the border between the provinces of Havana and Matanzas. The bridge is over 100m high and the view extends through the forests to the ocean in the north and inland there is a lushly vegetated valley (Yumuri Valley) with a range of medium-sized mountains in the background. There is a small basic restaurant and tourist shop on the bridge and we stopped for an hour or so. We also saw a very large iguana, apparently it was the offspring of the mother iguana which is apparently twice the size. The animal must have been almost 10.15 inches long, including the tail.
We then continue east, passing Santa Cruz del Mar, where there is a large rum factory, to Matanzas, the capital of the province of the same name. We took a little walk around the city and didn’t stop, but the city has a couple of nice squares with monuments and statues. The architecture is definitely much less impressive than in Havana. After Matanzas we headed inland to a small mountainous area called “Escaleras de Jaruco”, from where we had a beautiful view inland and out to sea.
On the way back, we stop briefly at Playas del Este to capture the sunset and then head towards Cojimar, a town famous for its connection to Ernest Hemingway. Apparently, the town is still home to an old man who was the inspiration for the novel “The Old Man and the Sea”. The old man is apparently still alive, probably around 100 years old and used to receive visitors (for a small fee), but his health has deteriorated in recent years and he no longer receives visitors. We wanted to have a nice dinner at a Paladar in Cojimar, but one was fully booked and the other so expensive that we decided to continue.
After our arrival in Havana we decided to go to a pizzeria near the Central Park since I had a craving for pasta. The food here can get a bit monotonous and I love Italian food so we headed to an air conditioned ice cold pizzeria where they had just run out of spagetthi. We tried another fancy Italian restaurant across the square but it had higher prices than some of Toronto’s best restaurants and we decided to return to Chinatown as they also serve pasta.
There we tried to park the rental car, but in doing so we had a small run-in with the local traffic police. They claimed that my friend was not wearing a seatbelt (although he had one) and ended up fining him 10 local pesos (about 40 cents or so). Apparently it can happen very easily that a local Cuban gets pulled over and the police issue a fine and there’s not much you can do.
After a very substantial pasta dinner (for less than $7 for 2 people) we return to the hotel which is very close to the University. There was a big concert in front of the steps of the university and there were thousands and thousands of young people singing and chanting to the sound of a quite famous Cuban pop group (“Hard Currency”) that plays very popular music for young people with nuances. The atmosphere between the people, singing and dancing in the street, it was amazing. I ended up going to bed around 12 and the concert music stopped around 12:20am and the big crowd dispersed.
Early this morning I woke up to the smell of exhaust fumes from some of the passing buses and old cars. Since today at 11 am I had to take the rental car, my friend arrived at the hotel early and we decided to visit the Miramar area, also called “Playas”, on the western side of Havana, passing the Almendares River. Miramar is a very exclusive area with many foreign embassies, exclusive hotels and congress centers. In Miramar there is also “Marina Hemingway”, a nautical center with canals, berths for yachts and private residences.
It’s very strange, but Miramar actually reminded me a bit of Fort Lauderdale. In general, Miramar, because of its more modern architecture, some of which is in very good condition, reminded me a lot of Florida. We visited a public sandy beach in Miramar that is surrounded by a variety of public recreational buildings, most of which have been abandoned and are in dire condition due to lack of public funding for their maintenance. It’s a real shame to see so much of the beautiful architecture here crumbling and my teacher said that in the future it may be cheaper to tear down much of the old architecture and rebuild from scratch than to try to preserve the old architecture. particularly in Old Havana.
Since I had to return the rental car at 11am today, we filled up the tank and even though we had only traveled about 250 km, the cost of gas was $36 CUC (which is equivalent to about 45 Canadian dollars or so). ), which was quite a bit more than I expected. We did a short tour of Nuevo Vedado, then passed by the National Sports Center, passed by the Central Committee (the Cuban government), and promptly returned the car at 11am with no problem.
This afternoon I have been invited by my friend to come and meet his family at a private dinner. I am looking forward to the experience of spending time with a Cuban family and from what I have experienced so far, Cuban hospitality is truly amazing. I’ll try to pick some flowers from the market and bring back some of the Canadian souvenirs I brought from Toronto to reciprocate the favor. It will be interesting to see Cuban life from inside a Cuban home…