On Cuba: R&R is Fun!

This is my first rest and recuperation (R&R) trip from Haiti and I've never looked forward to it more!  As it turned out, both my friend, Alex, and I were thinking about going to Cuba, so we coordinated efforts and planned to meet there.  Alex travels a lot but despite having known each other for 13 years, I realized we'd never travelled to a new place together.

I was surprised to find a stupid grin on my face when I stood in line for Cuba immigration.  I was in Cuba!  The cholera epidemic in Haiti was a bit of a concern for me - would the public health-minded Cubans turn me away?  There were many immigration officers milling about maybe even two for every passenger.  Several of them politely asked for my documents.  The women's uniforms made me smile: they consisted of a buttoned shirt, a minuscule skirt, and fishnet stockings of all patterns.

I arrived a day before Alex.  The taxi driver was very friendly (being Brazilian makes me nearly as popular as the Brazilian soaps watched in Cuba) and offered me his nephew (a very serious man) as a companion and then asked me to go to a comedy show with him.  I decided to hold out for better offers.

Many families in Cuba rent out rooms to tourists to make a little extra income.  The casa we stayed at was on a narrow, shabby street, but inside, it was a wonder.  Art nouveau stained glass everywhere.  Chandeliers in every room and even in doorways.  Over breakfast the next morning, I met the other two guests, Beverly and Graham, a charming British couple who instantly took me under their wing.  We wandered down the Malecon (the 8km seawall) towards Habana Vieja (old Havana) and down a tree-lined boulevard with old, old buildings on either side.

Havana was not what I expected.  It must be an art historian's paradise.  I could spend a year studying the different patterns of wrought iron railings on balconies there.  But for every ornate building that looks like it came straight from Paris, there are ten that look like they had been through the Blitz.  It was more than peeling paint and dilapidated shutters.  Whole sections of mortar or entire walls were crumbling into piles on second floor balconies.  It reminded me so much of Port-au-Prince that my eyes kept searching for the stencils on the walls used in Haiti to access earthquake damage.

My new friends and I stopped for a coffee at a veranda of a hotel where a band was playing then wandered further down the old part of town with cobbled streets and majestic squares.  At one point, we sat on park benches and Graham dozed off while Beverly and I people-watched.

I left them in the afternoon and wandered back towards the Malecon to watch the guys fishing away their Sunday afternoons.  I got drowsy from all the non-exertion I had done and lay down on the seawall to take a nap.  I've decided that to nap alone in a public place is one my favourite luxuries.