HAVANA, CUBA the Oldest Place and Beautiful Photos

 

A place to be experienced as much as seen, Havana lives up to all the clichés that have characterized it for so long: the people really do dance the rumba, drink rum and smoke cigars. And everywhere you look, classic American cars - Buicks, Dodges and Chevrolets - cruJse along streets that seem to have changed little since the revolution.
The old part of the city, Habana Vieja, appears caught in a 1950s time warp. It looks like a film set, while the people who inhabit it resemble casually positioned extras: the elderly man sitting on the waterfront at sunset playing the trombone to his friend, another carrying a double bass across a square and the young woman dancing by herself to the music of the band on the terrace of El Patio restaurant. And over it all, making the scene unmistakably Cuban, is the scent of cigar smoke.

At the centre of old Havana is the cobbled Plaza de la Catedral. Ringed on three sides by low colonial buildings, its focal point is the ornate cathedral, its Cuban baroque style reminiscent of melted wax on a candle. Having been spared from tourist development, the square is much as it used to be in the 1950s when pre-revolution Havana was a playground for the rich and a haunt of the Mafia. El Patio, a restaurant housed in an 18th-century mansion, has witnessed many changes in the city, and is the perfect place to watch from as the colour drains from the sky and the cathedral is floodlit. If you are lucky and there is a service on, you can look straight through the open door of the cathedral to the altar as you sit in the square.



Parts of old Havana have been renovated and restored into sanitized shadows of their former selves. The buildings in the Plaza Vieja and Mercaderes now house international shops and dollar restaurants too expensive for most Cuban people. It is the run-down backstreets that have the real atmosphere. Everyone seems to exist outdoors, whether on a rickety balcony, in a shady courtyard or just on the front step. People laugh, talk, eat and smoke, and, most importantly, all the boys seem to play basketball - a national obsession.

Although Cuba has the highest literacy and lowest child mortality rates in all of Latin America it still has great poverty, which some attribute to 50 years of Communism and others blame squarely on the long-running US boycott. Certainly, there is limited political freedom, and everyday life can be hard. Most Cubans live in small, one- or two-room apartments, and if you look through the elaborately barred windows on the ground floor you might see the whole family gathered round an old TV set, watching a South American soap opera or a live baseball game. You will know which windows to look through: TVs are a rarity here, so there will often be a small crowd in the street outside watching as well.
Sometimes it seems that most of the population of Havana congregates on the Malecón at sunset. This stretch of the waterfront, lined on one side by crumbling buildings and on the other by the sea, is a magnet for people of all ages. As the once-elegant façades are bathed in golden evening light music is played, a little impromptu dancing breaks out and people sip rum cocktails as they watch the sun sink slowly into the sea.

INFO
Travel to Cuba is complicated by the travel ban imposed by the United States. The national carrier, Cubana, flies from severaL European and South American airports. There are also a number of flights from Cancún and Mexico City. Visas are easy to obtain and although the US State Department forbids most of its citizens from visiting, the Cuban authorities are happy not to stamp their passports. Accommodation is plentiful In Havana but for convenience you should stay in Habana Vieja. One of the most atmospheric hotels is the newly refurbished Ambos Mundos, where Hemingway used to stay before he bought a tinea (an estate) on the island.