Sunday January 11, 2015 to Saturday 17 January, 2015

A week in Havana. The first couple of days in Havana we spent preparing for our next leg of the Grand Adventure. We needed to book flights, clean our bikes and panniers.

It took us two days to book flights, confirm and print the e-tickets. Lindsay at Flight Centre, Barrie did all the hard work for us. Confirming the cost of the bikes and baggage allowances for us and getting the best deal. We spent two days going backwards and forwards with emails. It probably would have only taken us an hour anywhere else in the world, but due to the limitations of the internet in Cuba, it took us two days. Thanks Lindsay for all your hard work.

The bikes took us four hours to clean from front to back – rubber to rubber. We are not sure how strict the Americans are going to be when we bring the bikes in. We knew the Aussies were going to be very strict when we landed there from New Zealand. To be on the safe side we scrubbed the tyres, and cleaned the bikes from top to bottom and front to back. They look like new bikes, apart from all the dings and scrapes they have received over the last year.

After two days of preparing for the next leg, we were able to explore old Havana.

Obispo Street is one of the main tourist shopping areas, Obispo leads on to the main square of Plaza de Armas, then by walking around the Plaza, you can walk along the waterfront which leads to San Francisco de Assis and back up Muralla Street brings you to the Plaza Viaje. The whole area is very compact and you can quite easily “do” Old Havana in a couple of days or like us, you can take your time and go down the little side streets and see market stall holders, find quiet little parks and church sanctuaries, even a Jewish menorah in a park.

There has been a lot of investment in the main tourist area leading from the water, west to Cuba Street and north to Obispo Street.

We spent a day investigating the museums and churches along these streets. A lot of the old Spanish Colonial houses have been converted to museums.

We followed Obispo Street to the end, and found a street market selling books and coins. We spent an hour or so wandering around the market and then headed back to the casa. There is also a fort at the bottom of the street and the water leading out to the Ocean. We saw a very large ship heading down the narrow straits. It seemed to be moving quite fast, but slowed down before it got to the mouth of the harbor.

Walking along Obispo we noticed it was moving day. They were lowering various pieces of furniture from the third storey down to the street. There were no safety barriers to prevent people from walking up and down the street underneath where these large pieces of furniture were being lowered to the street.

We spent one day going over the bay to the Fort and lighthouse located in the Casa Blanca district.

We took the ferry over the bay which was supposed to be one peso each. The ferry master wanted one CUC each, Ralf gave him one peso each, he let us on with no argument. This day was a little disappointing for us, as there was dual pricing for everything. To visit inside Che Guevara’s house, the fort and the lighthouse would have cost 6 pesos for Cubans and 6 CUC for foreigners for each building – this is a 240% mark-up.

I would never complain that residents get a deal but to be charged 240 x the price for being a foreigner is a little excessive. This is the problem with the dual currency. Ralf commented that most people would not have noticed the difference because of the way it is shown on the boards, unless you spotted the MN next to the Cubans price and CUC next to foreigner, you would assume that the top price was in Spanish and the other in English.

We decided not to go inside the buildings, as we could walk the grounds for free. However, we had decided to visit the fort back in Old Havana and see the exhibits, that was only 3 CUC each. It was a maritime museum.

One of the issues we find annoying is that the “security” at these museums and buildings follow you around giving you all sorts of information. Which is very nice, then they give you a sob story of having three grandchildren to look after and could you give them some money.

While we were at the fort and lighthouse we met a young Canadian cyclist. He was going to go to Vinales but had been told, it was dangerous to cycle in Cuba. We told him what we had done and told him about the cars and trucks giving you plenty of room even if they often don’t give each other much room. We suggested meeting later so that we could show him the route we took and give him some of the casa addresses we had stayed at.

We met later at the Plaza San Francisco where the bears were located. His family were originally from Egypt and he liked the representation of Egypt. I think he appreciated the help we were able to give him. He was going to be using the same maps as we used, so he should be o.k.

We spent some time in the Plaza San Francisco where bears were being unloaded for an exhibition called the United Buddy Bears. We spoke to the originator of the idea and the organizer. The bears represent the Art of Tolerance. “Each bear shows the individual design created by different artists on behalf of their native countries. The international artists’ different styles are joined together in one work of art, spreading zest for life”.

The Buddy Bears stand together “hand in hand”, symbolizing the future vision of a peaceful world. Each bear stands for the people of the different countries and their culture, yet not for political systems.

“We have to get to know each other better…, it makes us understand one another better, trust each other more, and live together more peacefully”.

On Thursday we went back to the Square after all the Bears had been positioned. Ralf spent a couple of hours taking photos of all the bears. I wandered around and listened to the comments of people who were looking at the bears. Most people were very disappointed in the Canadian bear. When we were speaking to the organizer he indicated that the artist wanted to represent Canada in pixels and if you look hard enough you can see the different regions. Apparently you have to stand back from the bear to see this. Ralf and I and a number of other Canadians commented you would have to stand on the other side of the harbor to may be see this vision. Of course English tourists commented that their bear was a little bit boring and didn’t like the east meets west slogan, or the fact that the bear was “wearing” the flag like a sari and with a hijab.

All the Cubans loved their bear.The gallery below represents the bears of the countries that we have visited up to date on the Grand Adventure. I have included the US, as we did fly through LA to get to New Zealand and that is our next stop.

It is a great display and it was fun to see the reaction of the kids hugging the bears.

One of the other things we have enjoyed seeing as we walked the Old City are the street artists. We have seen them in other countries and really enjoy watching them. Whenever you give them money, they often change their position. This one gave Ralf a piece of paper which gave a quote from Lao-Tzu (Chinese philosopher)

“He who dominates others is strong; he who masters himself is mighty”.

This one gave me an imaginary rose, he gave the kids a candy. I would rather have had the candy!

In Cathedral Square there were a lot of artists painting the cathedral and the buildings in the square. This group were all painting water colours.

It has been over three months since we were in Spain and I had my haircut. I thought I could put up with the “wings” until we got to the US, but no, it was driving me crazy. Now this was going to be a risky affair. I haven’t seen a Cuban woman with short hair, how would they deal with my mop and the fact that my Spanish does not extend to “I have this odd whirl of hair happening at the back, it can be difficult to cut”. I am not sure how I managed in Madrid, but I thought this might be a different experience. It was. I sat in the chair and she just started cutting. No questions as to how short or how I wanted it cut, just cutting away. I stopped her at one point because she wasn’t using scissors per se,she was using a kind of pinking shears and definitely not cutting enough of. Anyway, I told her how short I wanted it around my ears and my fringe and let her have at it. For $5.00 I wasn’t going to complain too much. It doesn’t look too bad, (from the front), fortunately my hair does grow quickly. Ralf also got his hair trimmed and beard trimmed, his looks really good.

The other thing we needed to get done was to get our cycling sandals and my off-bike sandals repaired. The soles of myoff-bike sandals were flapping in the wind and needed to be glued. I went to a little hole in the wall Cuban cobbler and he glued the soles back on and then sewed them. For $3.00, the soles won’t come away from the sandal for a long time. The only problem is I can feel where he did the sewing, I thought it might rub on my feet, but after a day of walking around, it doesn’t rub at all, great job. I definitelydo not need to spend money on new sandals in Florida. He couldn’t sew the cycling sandals as he doesn’t have a machine. The sewing on my shoes was done by hand.

The funny thing was, as I was waiting for my shoes to be sewn, I noticed the cobblers shoes desperately needed some work done on them. I pointed this out to him, he laughed and said he works on shoes all day, he doesn’t have time to do his own.

We took the cycling sandals to another cobbler. About $2.01 for bothpairs of shoes, again I can feel where he sewed them, I am not sure this fella did as good a job on my shoes as he did on Ralf’s. We will have to see when we start cycling again.

The food and restaurants have been a bit of a hit and miss affair. Fortunately we have found one little restaurant down the street from the casa, which has consistently good food and good service. The wine is ridiculously expensive, but I asked if I can bring my own bottle and he said I could.

We stopped at a churros stand and bought some churros and then went down to the chocolate museum and had hot chocolate. Mmmm hot chocolate and churros. Of course the next day I woke up with a migraine. Nothing to do with the rich chocolate, it was a rainy overcast day! Ralf worked on the pictures of the Buddy Bears.

Ralf worked on some photos, but was distracted by Maria and Adriana. He volunteered to take some photos of the casa for Maria and the website that Maria uses for online bookings. Maria now thinks Ralf should be selling his photos to National Geographic as he is such a good photographer!