Panorama Havana

... fast in other direction.

Mistake number 5;

5) People will constantly ask you where you are ...

... a tourist enclave and little else. A lady on the sidewalk holds up a sign reading "ROOMS $15", looking for all the world like a cute little webcam 'performer' with a sign across her bare midriff reading something like "$.99 min." They swarm me like flies on ****, even though I explain that I've already booked a room. The problem is that my place knows nothing of it, even though I've paid a deposit. So now I need the barkers and their colored ...

... came back not too long, but I had to undergo another session of Q&A before they'd hand it back over to me. I held onto it for dear life at this point... For my sanity more than anything else I just couldn't bare to be parted with it yet again... By the time we got to leave the airport I was completely unnerved and again felt like a criminal having escaped on a technicality.

We dashed into the taxi waiting for us and $40USD later found ourselves dropped off ...

The next morning I was awakened at my normal time of 5 by Gerry who said that my luggage was in the hotel's lobby. I was lucky; someone had moved my bag inside (thank you). Some other people's luggage had been left in the rain. After a cursory early breakfast we went to the airport to await the flight to Havana. Check-in was relatively organized, but it quickly fell apart after that. I ...

... us off at the Revolution Museum. There, we were able to see some of the coolest things about the Revolution in Cuba. A visual time line of sorts that help bring to life the events that occurred before, during, and after the revolution. It was mazing to see the kind of history that they documented in their museum and how it differs from the kind of history that is written here about Cuba. It's always fascinating to me to learn the ...

... The sad part is that the buildings and houses would be spectactular but they are literally crumbling as no one seems to have money to fix them up. In the evenings everyone comes out into the streets with kids playing and the older people sitting on their front steps smoking cigars. If people arenīt on the street then they are sitting on their balconyīs shouting to their friends. Generally someone puts some music on so their ...

... who I assume is a friend, invited him inside...pie and coffee maybe? The other two conductors are performing minor preventive maintenance on the train engine. As I wait, a young man sporting a machete walks out from a sugarcane field, carrying a stalk of the same. He walks toward me and says hello in Spanish and I do the same. He continues speaking to me in Spanish until I inform him that I cannot understand most of what he is saying. Without ...

Havana is like no place on Earth. It is hard to describe. The people have nothing, yet they have everything. They are so happy. Give them some rum, a cigar and music, and they donīt need much else else. The flight over there was on a Cuban airline called Cubana, and the plane was a YAK 42. Now for those who are unfamiliar with this type of plane, to paint you a picture, it came directly from the 1973 USSR discard pile. The seats not only went back, they went forward ...

... rice (liar). Plus that for the beer. The correct price was around 3 dollars, plus the rice she was adding up came up to 3.5, so she gave me back the money. Still were missing a few national pesos, so I asked for that. It became difficult, they were not happy at all, that I'd fight over such a small amount, and that I was so clearly pointing out their dishonesty. I let them go away with a fallacious explanation that the beer was to be paid in convertibles and the food in ...

... And that was that. I pretty much gave up on doing anything else outside Havana after that. On my last night I decided to wander the Malecon one last time. I got the usual, "hey amigos..." as I was wandering along, and eventually I stopped and talked to one guy who liked like he wasn't trying to flog me something. Turns out the guy's name was David too. He was with his wife and his sister-in-law and one of his kids, and we spent the next few hours just chatting ...