A visit to Havana's Chinatown and a final chill at the Hotel National before leaving the Cuba

Phil's version of Day 106/30 May

View over the old town of Havana

My father would have been ninety today if he had lived a bit longer. I expect Mum will be having a private weep in Bristol.

 

aboard the ferry

Trying to effectively use the day around our hotel’s inflexible check-out time and the check-in for our flight is resolved by taking the tiny cross-harbour ferry to the fortifications on the eastern shore. 

Once a target for invasion by British naval forces, the impressive lines of star-fort ramparts and ditches are still home to the Cuban military, but now mostly patrolling to prevent their citizens escaping rather than foreign infiltration.

On the way to investigate Havana’s Chinatown, presided over by a typical Chinese dragon-gateway, we pass Hemingway’s other weakness, the ‘Floridita’ daiquiri bar, but it looks too refrigerated and has a black-coated doorman checking arrivals. 

Hemingway's famous drinking hole: La Floridita

Chinatown has all the street signs in Chinese as well as Spanish, and lanterns bedeck the restaurants, but there is not a single ethnic Chinese in evidence and we wonder if there was some kind of ghetto purging or if the Chinese simply left when their commercial lifeblood was drained away by the Revolution.

the lovely bar at the Hotel National

The weather has turned dull and stormy, though still warm and dry, but it still seems the best option after lunch is to drop in at the historic Hotel Nacional which has a pool for Allie (at least) to while away the intervening hours. 

Phil relaxing over final mojitos whilst Allie cools off in the pool

A grand pile in early 20^th-century neo-colonial style, this was one of the central pivots in the struggle for power between former dictator Machado and his successor Batista in the early-‘30s.

More recently, according to photographs in the lobby bar, it was host to China’s Hu Jintao and his host Raul Castro. As the weather becomes more miserable two rusty freighters ride at anchor off the Malecon, no doubt awaiting better conditions to enter the narrow harbour mouth. Havana is losing it’s romantic glow in the gloom, but the airport road enlivens departure with a sequence of anti-Bush slogans. 

view to the Malecon with a war memorial

The Cuban version of a business lounge has stale peanuts and crackers but very tasty gherkins. I warn Allie that she has probably just devoured a Cuban family’s annual allocation. There are, in compensation, lots of blaring televisions with Spanish-language soaps. Mustn’t taint the proletariat with anything as dangerous as world news.

Allie's version of Day 106: Wednesday, 30^th of May

Across the bay in a ferry, Chinatown and last mojitos at the Hotel National

across the bay

I awake dizzy after another one of my bad nights and feel very bad all through the rest of the day. What a shame. We walk out towards the harbour front in search of the local ferry across the bay. The fare is one peso and we dig out our last peso national (saving 50times the value as if we had paid this in the CUC!). The ferry is packed with locals. There are no seats, but the journey only takes about 5minutes and we arrive at the other side of Havana.

 a huge statue of Jesus...

Walk up towards the big statue of Christ and then on towards the ‘Castillo de los Tres Santos Reyes Magnos del Morro’ – have you ever heard such a long name for a castle? We pass some of Castro’s glad to say never been used missiles and watch the Cuban army playing football. 

..and worrying reminders of the cold war

The view to old Habana is quite impressive with the capitol and the revolutionary monument sticking out predominantly from the skyline. 

the new tunnel underneath the city

A taxi brings us back to the city via a tunnel underneath the bay.

After a proper coffee at the Plaza Vieja we check out and wander towards Chinatown. 

We find street names in Chinese, Chinese restaurants and some other things Chinese, but what we can’t find as the Chinese themselves. Not a single soul. All the restaurants in Chinatown are run by Cubans. 

Chinatown without Chinese

Thinking of it, we actually never saw any Chinese around town at all. Where are they? Obviously relations between Cuba and China are pretty good since the Cubans just have bought 2000 Chinese busses and imported new Chinese cars, but you don’t see them anywhere around.

Leaving our hotel downtown we grab a taxi and set ourselves down at the neo-colonial-style Hotel Nacional.

It hosted famous visitors like Winston Churchill, Ava Gardner, and Frank Sinatra (who according to my guidebook attended a Mafia reunion here in 1949). I for my part couldn’t care less about politics at this moment and happily dive into the cold and empty pool whilst Phil is working on his mojito score. 

my last swim in Cuba at the Hotel National

The weather is grey and dull today, and very windy. Time to say goodbye to Cuba and Havana. I look over the rough coast and think how lucky we are! 

Here these people have no chance to get a passport to travel across the straights (with Key West, Jamaica and the Bahamas only being 100km away such a close temptation) but are confined to live in one of the least developed countries of the world with rising crime, corruption and a rapidly plunging economy.

It makes me grateful for what we have got in the UK: freedom of choice, decent food, proper transport (even though it might not always be on time) and in general a safe environment. 

Travelling always makes you appreciate what you have got at home. I had learnt this lesson on my first year away as a high school student in the States. Home has never been sweeter then after that year away and I had never been more proud to say I am German then at that time.

decorative paintings at the Hotel National

Reflecting on our tour I definitely would say that we have achieved everything we wanted. We didn’t have any major delays on our flights, no real problems with immigration or loosing things (except that robbery in Namibia), we flew with a balloon in the countries as we had hoped and we met a fantastic range of interesting and hospitable people and old friends. I would definitely do it again, but not right now. My body tells me to take a rest, the trouble being that I won’t get it. I have only 6 days back home and I start working with touring around the UK again.

I am dead...ready to go home!

But this trip proved that I had chosen the right man for life and for travelling. Phil was a wonderful partner to share all this with. 

He was ever so patient when I was impatient, he made all these great arrangements to meet his friends and he suffered with me, when I couldn’t sleep. 

Even though I made the mistake of not doing this round-the-world tour with him before we got married, it did show, that love can grow stronger and that we are real soul mates, in sorrow and in joy. 

The sorrow of course being when Phil missed a great shot of an aeroplane and I didn’t get a swim or hike and the joy..? Well I shall leave that to you to figure that out!