Convento de Santa Clara Havana

Now the thing with cars in Cuba is that you pay for your first tank of petrol, so the idea is to bring the car back as empty as possible, and as we were down to under a quarter of a tank, had 97 K's to get to Havana, trust me, the pedal was definetly not to the metal !!! And 97 K's later, we were back where we had started, back in old Havana town.

Havana

We had a few things left to see, so we hit the streets in search of them ...

... tour rundt i byen dagen etter av en morsom liten cubaner som snakket perfekt engelsk, og som kunne litt for mye om Alejandro Fuentes laden og gjoren for sitt eget beste. Det er maaange nordmenn paa Cuba. Han kunne den norske kursen, en haug norske ord, norske vitser.. det ble nesten litt komisk! Men det er ogsaa en GRUNN til at det er mange nordmenn paa Cuba; Det er noe helt annet enn noe annet vi har sett. Og det er vanskelig aa sette ...

... hours at the Museum of the Revolution. Very interesting for those of us who really had no understanding of Cuba's history prior to 1957. You can see why its a strange place...of course the museum is a nicely put together peice of Socialist propoganda, but interesting regardless. Of course I did pick up a box of Romeo & Julietta's. I didn't want to but Conchita made me do it. Seriously. And now kids, we are off to chase Inka Gold

I boarded the plane, Cubana Airlines from Bahamas. Immigration in Cuba would ask for your accomodations in Cuba and if you want a stamp on your passport. I opted not to. Perhaps, next time I will. Maybe, I should go back. At the airport, there you would see Russian made airplanes like Tupolev for Cubana. There's not much vehicles on the road and bus is the mode of transportation. The sight of old American vehicles ...

... landed in Cuba one night from their converted US pleasure boat, the Granma, been ambushed and reduced to 18, took to the mountains in the south and within 2 years had taken control of an island of over 10m inhabitants from a government that had the backing and support of the most powerful nation on earth. But the only ...

... rode as smoothly as an old radio flyer wagon. Once at the bank, we got into the usual cola. Exchanging my euros was a little disconcerting; the teller apparently didn't like the fact that I had an American passport, but was exchanging euros. Aledia stood next to me at the teller window, talking to the her in Spanish. The teller seemed reluctant to deal with me. Before leaving the states, shortly before my adventure here, I had purchased $500 of euros ...

... it has since been removed. We drank beer, as we are conscious of water loss, at least that's my excuse. Deciding to have a chicken sandwich, we watched 3 of the (male) staff sat at the bar, enthralled by the Cuban version of 'Eastenders' on the TV. In the corner of the lounge was a large, shallow, tiled pool in which a dozen turtles were swimming round or lazing on the rocks. A 50 cm long fish, similar to the pike style 'Gar' we had seen in Florida, was also cruising round the ...

... surpassed by that of martyrs CHe Guevara and Camillo Cienfuegos, the other two leading figures of the revolution. Which raises the question, again and of course, of their convenient passing out into martyrdom instead of staying in active politics (alive). After that I headed to the Museo de Bellas Artes. It comprises two immense buildings (immense like... museums), one devoted to Cuban art, the other one to the rest. I had decided to go ...

... Cuban man (a variation of George I believe his name was) who asked us the time! Yes, this is a common opening comment. We then (reluctantly) got into a conversation regarding where we were from etc etc. He told us about the salsa festival going on today, and then asked what we were looking for. We said not much, and in a desperate attempt to flee, having just passed an ice-cream shop, I said ice-cream. He said he'd show us, and then somehow started talking to us about ...

... Swiss Francs as I thought this would be easier to change into Convertible Pesos, the newer and stronger of the two Cuban currencies and mostly reserved for tourists, and I assume the introduction of which was an attempt to keep US currency out of circulation. Not only did bringing Euro turn out to be unnecessary, but I missed out on using the extraordinary exchange rates throughout Cuba in my favour. For each Euro I changed I got 1.2 Convertible Pesos, but for each Swiss ...