A slight detour . . .

Hmmm... Looks like I never got past the third day of our Cuba tour on this blog.   Since I wrote that last entry in June, we have made a couple of short, family-related trips, and have been keeping busy with gardening, grandkids, and the planning of another trip this fall. Those are my excuses anyway, albeit not very good ones. :(  Now, in 12 days (yikes!), we will be leaving on another adventure! It seems, we need to stay home longer so I can finish writing about and posting photos from our travels!

I did tell myself a couple of weeks ago that I could get a few more Cuba entries written before we leave, but as our departure date approaches, I am suddenly realizing how crazy that is. Sorry. I promise I will finish up the Cuba tour in the future, but it might be 2013 before I get to it. Hopefully my memory won't fail me then!

"So," you may be asking, "where are you crazy people flying off to this time?" And the answer is: mostly to places we have already been to many times in the past, but this time we will be acting as tour guides for my sister Teri. 

Teri, who has never been out of the country (except for Mexico -- I guess that counts), has always dreamed of visiting Paris, and since I love Italy so much, she has wanted to see it for herself. She is finally going to be able to do that, and has asked us to be her guides. Always looking for an excuse to visit some of our favorite European locations, we agreed to show her around Paris, Venice, Rome, and Sorrento. After she returns home at the end of her 16-day tour (and keeping with our tradition of going someplace we've never been to on each trip), Sam and I will fly to Istanbul, Turkey for a few days before returning home! 

Ciao for now, and there will be more to come soon! 

Cuban Tour: Day 3

Our third day in Havana was, once again, packed with activities, new experiences, and new people. 

After catching a quick (and I do mean quick!) glimpse of the Capitolio (which was built to look similar to our Capitol building in Washington DC, although 6 feet taller, and now houses the Cuban Academy of Sciences), 

the tour bus then took us to a small colonial township in eastern Havana called Guanabacoa.

We met up with a local tour guide there, a pretty young woman named Patricia, who after receiving her college degree in English language, is now teaching English to university law students. Her salary, like all state salaries, does not pay enough, so she does a little tour guiding on the side.

She took us to the house of a family whose patriarch was a doctor before, and was allowed to continue his practice after, the revolution. It was not your typical Cuban family home. It was actually quite a bit larger than most homes, as the ground floor had been the doctor's office, and the family lived on the second floor when he was alive. As I recall, his daughter and her adult son and daughter (Patricia's best friend) are the only residents now, in a space that would normally house a much larger family.

Not only is the house very large and fairly nice, it also includes a lovely, enclosed patio out back, where we sat in the shade and were offered coffee (made me wish that I liked coffee). Patricia told us the patio is often used by friends and neighbors for parties and special events. She explained to us what life is like in a small town in Cuba -- happily and energetically answering all of our questions. She was adorable and her English was excellent. She used many expressions we are used to hearing in the US, because she watches a lot of American TV, including a show called Gossip Girl!

Patricia in her pretty purple high heels.

She described how difficult it is for her to commute to work (3 days a week?), because there are no buses, and of course she doesn't have a car. Instead, she has to hitch a ride any way she can, which usually means standing in the back of a truck, bobbing around, trying to keep her balance in her high heels. She said she doesn't care that she may look silly climbing into the back of a truck in her heels, she refuses to give them up. Besides, sometimes her fancy heels mean she will get a ride before some guy standing next to her does! She was so sweet and cute, we all wanted to take her home with us!

We left the doctor's house on foot, and as we walked through the crumbling neighborhood, we came upon a classroom full of rambunctious kids. They were very excited to see us, and more than willing to pose for pictures through the window.

Our Road Scholar tour leader, Yeraldine, talked to the students in Spanish, explaining who we were.

Our next stop in Guanabacoa was the Santeria museum. Santeria being the Afro/Cuban religion practiced by many Cubans. It is the syncretic combination of the West African beliefs the slaves brought with them to Cuba, and the Catholicism forced on them by the Spanish colonists. After we were given a tour of the museum, we were treated to a performance of ceremonial music and dancing. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos from the museum because I chose not to pay the fee required to use my camera inside. However, Sam did, and he got lots of pictures and videos of the performance. You may have already seen some of it in his video Cuba Through Music. During the last part of the performance, the dancers had almost our entire group up and dancing! That part was not in Sam's video, but it was a lot of fun and quite invigorating!

After lunch (at a very good seafood restaurant called El Templete), we had a short tour of the National Museum of Fine Arts Havana led by our guide José, who never ceased to amaze us with his wealth of information and knowledge! Then we went on to see a different kind of Cuban art -- street art on Callejo de Hamel. When we arrived, there was a music video being shot for a French hip hop artist.

It's actually a pretty cool location for a music video with all it's colorful strangeness.

All of our meals were included on the tour, and were always at state owned restaurants, except for our third evening in Havana. For that meal, we were encouraged to venture out on our own, and we could choose to eat dinner at what is called a paladar. Paladares are run by self-employed persons, mostly families, and often within a residence. They are known by Cubans and tourists (anybody but Americans) as the best places to eat, and can be very gourmet.

Sam and I chose to take a taxi to a paladar called Vistamar, a few kilometers away from the Hotel Nacional, in a quiet residential area. It was wonderful! If you ever visit Havana, I recommend this restaurant. It is fine dining with a lovely view of the sea, and it is a great place to watch the sunset. The only problem we had was that the estimate of how much dinner would cost didn't take into account a bottle of good wine and the lobster special. It turned out we didn't exchange enough US dollars into convertible Cuban pesos (CUCs) to be able to enjoy a fine restaurant the way we usually do. And since Americans can't use credit cards in Cuba, we had to be careful what we ordered for fear we would end up washing dishes for our supper! 

It's not that it was all that expensive, especially considering the quality of the food, but due to our limited amount of CUCs, we were afraid to to order ALL the things that sounded good to us! We didn't get to try the lobster, but we did have a good bottle of wine, and considering my expanding waistline, that was probably blessing in disguise! What we did order was delicious and the sunset was gorgeous!

Note: To view enlarged photos, just click on one of them and you will see a slide show of all photos in this post. Click the X in upper right hand corner of the slide show to return to the blog. Also, in case you hadn't noticed, any type within the post that is a different color than white, can be clicked on and it will link you either to a video Sam has posted, or another webpage with more information.

Cuban Tour: Day 2

Day 2 of our tour started off with a lecture, given by Miguel Coyula, a well known Cuban architect, urban planner, and professor at the University of Havana. Professor Coyula gave us a presentation about the architecture of Havana which was very interesting and informative, and at the same time, re-enforced José's mantra: "Cuba is complicated!" I found a good article on a site called "The Ethical Traveler," describing a tour of Havana that Coyula led last summer, explaining the dilemma Cuba, and Havana in particular, faces with the city crumbling and no money to maintain or restore it.

Although many buildings in Havana have been restored, more of them look like this residential area, with buildings being "condemned" everyday, and families moved to temporary housing.

After our lecture, we were shuttled over to Plaza de Armas, in Old Havana, where we wandered a bit, and had the opportunity to bargain with book vendors there. 

In the center of the square, there is a statue of Carlos Manuel de Cáspedes, a landowner and lawyer who, in 1868, freed his slaves and made the Grito de Yara, which declared Cuba's independence from Spain, and began the first of three liberation wars that Cuba fought against Spain. Cáspedes is known as The Founding Father of Cuba.

While walking between plazas, José pointed out the Hotel Ambos Mundos, where in Room 511, Ernest Hemingway is said to have written "For Whom the Bell Tolls."

Hotel Ambos Mundos Havana  

Walking the side streets of Havana, revealed many scenes like these...

Elementary school children (signified by the red uniform skirt or shorts) walking home.

Typical street musician as seen in almost any city in the world.

No matter where we go in the world, we always see weddings.

Tiny bride's maid running to catch up!

View of El Capitolio building, which is now the Cuban Academy of Sciences. 

Next stop was Plaza de la Catedral (Cathedral Square).

Cathedral of The Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception. 

Wandering around in this square was an interestingly dressed, bearded gentleman, in a beret, with a huge cigar, trying to get people to pay him to take a picture with him. 

He was really watching me, as I tried to surreptitiously get a shot of him with my telephoto lens. Needless to say, he was NOT happy with me!

We then had lunch at El Patio, a lovely restaurant in the same square.

We ate on the Spanish-style interior patio, with shade cloth overhead.

After lunch, we visited a craft fair in a gigantic warehouse, where hundreds of artists and crafts people had booths set up to sell their wares to tourists.

There were dozens of painters with canvases for sale. The paintings tended to be similar - colorful and a little schmaltzy, but occasionally, I came across something of interest. Unfortunately, we had very little time there, so other than a lovely pendant, and a few trinkets, I didn't buy much. José instructed us ahead of time not to pay asking prices, but rather to bargain with the sellers. I have to admit though, I found the prices to be so low, that I didn't have the heart to dicker over them! 

After the craft fair, we went to yet another town square called Plaza de San Francisco, and then to Plaza Viejo.

This statue in Plaza de San Francisco is of a well-known street person who was called El Caballero de Paris. People rub his beard for good luck.

Popular micro-brewery in Plaza Vieja

Modern sculpture in Plaza Vieja

Also on our walking tour, we stopped at Hostal Los Frailes, a small boutique hotel, that has an aljibe, a rainwater collection system from the 19th century. It looked like a lovely place to stay.

In keeping with the requirements of our special license to visit Cuba, there was kind of an educational reason behind our visit to the small hotel: to learn about the aljibe in its center. After a very long, and very warm day of walking the streets of Havana, we went to dinner at a popular open air restaurant called El Aljibe. I'm not sure why it is called that, but they are known for their special chicken recipe, which was very good. In fact, some say it's the best chicken in Havana! And apparently, the likes of Jack Nicholson, Jimmy Carter, and Danny Glover have dined there, too! 

Note: To view enlarged photos, just click on one of them and you will see a slide show of all photos in this post. Click the X in upper right hand corner of the slide show to return to the blog. Also, in case you hadn't noticed, any type within the post that is a different color than white, can be clicked on and it will link you to another webpage with more information.

"Cuba Through Music"

A quick link to Sam's video: Cuba Through Music!

Transportation in Cuba

I'm going to take a little detour from the day-to-day tour blog, to talk about different modes of transportation in Cuba, and you can't talk about transportation in Cuba without mentioning the large number of pre-revolution era (1960 and older) American cars that are still on the roads. They are everywhere, and some of them are in pretty good shape!

Of course, not all of them are in such good condition, but they're still on the road -- sometimes it seems, held together with bubblegum and duct tape, but they're running none the less!

And they're not all American, or even cars...

as evidenced by this Harley Davidson...

and this 1937 (I believe) Morris Ten, although I'm not sure what's up with those weird wheels!


You might wonder how Cubans, whose incomes are minuscule compared to American salaries, can afford to put fuel in these gas guzzlers, especially when gas is over $6 a gallon. And with the embargo still in place, how do they get the parts needed to keep them going? Well, the Cuban people are very resourceful, and most, if not all, of those cars have had their engines and transmissions replaced with modern, diesel engines and drive trains from European and Asian rental cars that have reached 100K miles and are no longer rented to tourists. 


Also, all of these vehicles are used as taxis, one of the many enterprising activities that lots of Cubans engage in to make money. In fact, our tour guide, José, whose job in tourism provides the largest part of the family's support, has bought a '54 Chevy station wagon, which he and family members are "rejuvenating" with new parts to turn into a taxi, so it will bring much needed income to the family. 


I know...  just about now you're thinking, "But isn't Cuba a socialist country? How can there be entrepreneurism in such a place?" Well, the answer is very complicated (a phrase José is fond of using all the time), and I will explain more on the Cuban economy in a later post, but for now, I want to get back to the modes of transportation in Cuba...


A lot of people (mostly tourists) get around in these funny little CoCoTaxis, which Sam tells me, are run on small motorcycle (or lawn mower) engines.

However, we saw many more of this type of three wheeled taxi.

We also saw many merchants selling their goods on carts like these.

Although there were some scooters around, horses and horse drawn carriages were much more common, especially in small towns and rural areas.

Sometimes, the transportation has alternative uses, too.

And then, of course there is always the occasional old bicycle.

As far as mass transit goes, there aren't very many trains in Cuba. There are tracks, but since the Soviets left about twenty years ago, the Cubans have been unable to get parts to repair and maintain the trains.

There are buses, but they are old and very, very crowded. We were advised that tourists should not to use them. 

Most Cubans get around by "hitching" a ride, for a small fee, on any vehicle that comes along.

Needless to say, we felt extremely lucky to be riding in our new brand new, air conditioned Chinese tour bus!

Note: To view enlarged photos, just click on one of them and you will see a slide show of all photos in this post. Click the X in upper right hand corner of the slide show to return to the blog.