Feb 22, Central Habana

     After our day in Viñales, we decided to do another day in downtown Havana. This time, a walking tour of central Havana. We had breakfast in the Villa and then taxied down to Central Park. The central square is probably the most beautiful part of Havana, with marvel statues and colonial-style architecture surrounding it and the capitol in the background. Our guide was Daniella, probably our favourite guide on the trip. She was brutally honest about her situation, the country’s situation, and the place that Cuba is going forward. We arrived at the park and were greeted by a couple guides and many other tourists. There was a group from Spain that looked as if they were pulled from a google search for stereotypical stupid white tourist in Latin America that would be easy to pick pocket. One of the guys was wearing a neon green Hawaiian shirt and a huge fanny pack. They sorted out the groups and it turns out we were the only ones going on the central Havana tour, everyone else was going on the colonial old town tour. Our private tour started at the capitol with Daniella explaining the historical and present political systems and presidents that rule Cuba. She immediately told us about the revolution and economic disasters that took place in a half-century later. Her interpretation was one of continuous mess-ups by a government that could not be voted out of office and did not come to clear conclusions when making economic decisions. Just a mismanagement of the resources that Cuba possessed from the 80s until now. She gave us the example of Fidel Castro’s sugar plan, where he hoped Cuba would produce 10 million pounds of sugar in one year. In doing so, the economy was specialized, with tons of farms and land being burnt down to plant sugar cane. Most of the fields that were burnt are still not fertile enough to grow anything else to this day. 

    After the capitol, we headed into Chinatown, which doesn’t really have many Chinese people in it to this point. She gave us a good rundown of the ethnicities in Cuba. Many of the Chinese that came in the late 19th century often married into families of Afro-Cubans or Europeans. To this day, there are only a couple hundred full Chinese-Cuban people that still live in the area. Chinatown was one of the craziest neighbourhoods I had seen in Havana. So many people were walking around, and lots of shops and stores were all pressed together in tiny streets. While we were in Chinatown, Daniella talked to us about people who leave Cuba. She said the vast majority of people all have the idea that they will one day leave the country. The main reason that people in Cuba get degrees and go to post-secondary is so that if they leave, they have some kind of formal education. Going to school to become a doctor, however, is one of the easiest routes in Cuba. Doctors tend to make a government minimum salary, which is $17 a month. For this reason, nearly every single person needs to supplement their income by working in the tourist industry or receiving money from family abroad.

    We stopped at a restaurant that Obama visited while in town and got to meet the owner and use the same bathroom as Obama. We walked past a giant hospital right on the ocean and then up to the historic Havana hotel. It was built in the 1910s by the government with funding from the mob. The hotel is still in its original condition, with everything the same as when it was built. There are pictures everywhere of the many celebrities who visited the hotel pre-revolution and the few who have visited since. We said our goodbyes, and Abi was able to talk about Taylor Swift with Daniella. We both very much appreciated the honesty about the country and her feelings toward the future. After the tour ended, we walked around for a while and then went to a Mexican restaurant for some fajitas. We each had a beer and then called it a day in town. We caught a cab back to the villa that night. We came home, and I exchanged some more money for pesos, and we went for dinner. I ordered chicken tenders and ended up getting a bowl of chicken in boiling water. Some of the food translations have not been spot on.

View from Central Park

The Capitol

Restaurant in Chinatown Obama Visited

The Classic Havana Hotel