Friday, 14 February 2020: la Habana

Happy Valentines Day!!!

We started our day with breakfast in our air BnB.  What a feast!  For a mere 5CUC, Elana, our host, prepared a fresh mango liquido, omelets, toasted Cuban bread, a generous fruit plate,  a sweet roll of sorts and coffee.  You know I am all about my coffee.  

We’d planned to connect with Peter and Sandra for dinner so we’re on our own for a while.  After we checked internet, yes, you need to stop everything and plan that into your day, we set out to explore.  We walked to the capital -- looks just like DC, Austin and Madison except they say it is taller than DC.  Actually, they say it is a meter taller, a meter wider and yes, a meter taller.  

El Capitalio, the National Capital Building has three bronze doors with panels depicting scenes from Cuban life.  We found it interesting that only two of the 60 releifs display indigeneous peoples and, even more interesting was that on a few of the more recent panels, the faces had been mechanically "removed."  
All distances between Havana and sites within Cuba are calculated from this building.  

I thought I wanted to do a buggy ride around town and then I learned there was a hop-on, hop-off bus of sorts and that appealed to me too.  But then I saw all the old cars lined up.  Everything you’ve heard about Cuba, or ay least Havana, and old cars is true.  Justin selected a ‘55 Buick Super Convertible.  Orlando was our driver.  Orlando was previously a history teacher.  When he was working as an educator he was making about $50 a month; his pension is $6 a month.  Goodness!  So now he drives cars.  He pays about 1/3 of his income in taxes and he still makes oh, so much more than he did as a teacher.  Thankfully his history bacground and his excellent English skills made him a great tour guide.  There is a separate economy for the locals but it is not good... "it is very complicated."

The city is falling down.  Skilled workers are a problem, materials are incredibly hard to obtain, the city is depressed.  This is not a good example of socialism.

Great Cuban music, crappy Cuban food.  

We had drinks before dinner and then me met Peter and Sandra.   Since it was Valentine's Day, we'd made reservations for dinner and a musical show.  Again, our food was only ok.  Thankfully the beverages and the music were magnificent.