Varadero & Havana
Thursday, March 12, 2020
The day started with a breakfast prepared by our Airbnb casa particular hosts. The first course was a fruit plate consisting of papaya, bananas, watermelon, and pineapple. Next up, was toasted cheese sandwiches (we omitted the ham since we’re pescatarians) and scrambled eggs. This was the only cheese we were able to have the entire trip as it was not available anywhere. They also offered us coffee (which we politely declined as we’re not coffee drinkers) and served some sort of juice that was good, but we were never able to figure out exactly what it was.
After checkout, we walked to Parque Central, which was not a nice public park. The concrete walking paths were all torn up like they’d been recently jackhammered. Meanwhile, some workers lay on benches in the shade taking a break while school children played Candy Crush on their phones. We intended to go to a nicer park, Josone Park, but didn’t realize it was 9 blocks farther east and were too tired from carrying our luggage.
Across the street was a circular shopping mall, Parque de Las 8000 Taquillas. It’s main function seemed to be serving as a tourist trap. Natalie wanted to use the bathroom, but it was 1 peso (we found later this is typical), so we headed back to the hotel where the French tourist karaoke session took place. Kevin had mojito #10 while waiting. Walking back to the meetup point there were 9 buses lined up to take tourists back to Havana. NINE! Shortly after, our car arrived and we headed back to Havana.
We dropped our backpacks off at the apartment, but we had a job to do before heading out again. You see, Natalie didn’t realize you weren’t supposed to flush toilet paper. Instead, you’re supposed to just throw it away. Well, this was two days after us both using the bathroom in the apartment..two days of toilet paper and a bunch of #1 from both of us sitting in the bowl due to the water restrictions. She found a large ziplock bag that she turned inside out to use as a glove, reaching inside to pull it all out. She placed it all in a plastic bag Kevin was holding and out he went to the garbage dumpsters on the street. It wasn’t a fun experience, but we’re thankful there wasn’t anything else in there. And after being cleared, it had no problem flushing. Whew!
Toilet successfully unclogged, we set off walking about five blocks to Plaza de la Revolución. On the northern side of plaza, you’ll find the 358 ft tower of the José Martí Memorial. Martí was a Cuban poet, philosopher, professor, journalist, and publisher who is a national hero because of his role in the liberation of the country. Across the road from the memorial, are the offices of the Ministries of the Interior and Communications, whose facades feature matching steel memorials of the two most important deceased heroes of the Cuban Revolution: Che Guevara, with the quotation “Hasta la Victoria Siempre” (Until the Everlasting Victory, Always) and Camilo Cienfuegos (everyone in Cuba likes to joke that it’s Osama bin Laden) with the quotation “Vas bien, Fidel” (You’re doing fine, Fidel). The plaza is also home to one of the great spots to find restored classic cars, take pictures, and go for a ride around the city.
From the plaza, we walked more than a mile to Doña Juana Restaurant, where we stopped on our first night. We really enjoyed the rooftop surrounded by greenery, hanging market lights, and the overall chill atmosphere. Once again, we had the appetizer of tostones and malanga with our strong mojitos (Trip mojito count: Kevin 11, Natalie 10), along with an actual meal. Since every meal in Cuba comes with salad, white rice, and rice and beans, we opted to share a main course of lobster, fish, and garlic shrimp. We got a lot of food and 4 mojitos for $35!
Afterwards, we had the restaurant call us a cab as we had no idea how to walk back to our apartment with the limited street names in our guidebook. The cab driver was going to charge $10 and we thought that was too much, so we decided we’d give walking a try anyway. We had a Lonely Planet guidebook (which was missing the foldout map of Havana) that we borrowed from the apartment, so what could possibly go wrong? Well, what should have been a 20-30 minute walk turned into walking the wrong way multiple times, stopping to look at small maps in the book by streetlight or iPhone flashlight, backtracking, and asking for help from three different people on the streets throughout our mini-trek. And you know what? People couldn’t have been nicer. A sweet, older woman (who spoke minimal english) walking her dog tried to help us first. Another we flagged down pointed us in the right direction, but everyone was so kind and happy to help. One gentleman tried to explain to us where we needed to go, and when we couldn’t understand just said to follow him, and he led us a good distance to a street we recognized and could find our way from there. We finally made it back two hours later. Never once did we feel unsafe, even though the areas may have looked that way. It was an eye opening experience to feel a sense of comfort through the kindness of strangers.
Takeaways from this day:
-Don’t try to negotiate the taxi price when in Cuba
-Don’t hesitate to ask locals for directions
-Cubans are some of the kindest people on the planet and will go out of their way for you