Monday, 24 October 2022: More Havana Ramblings

I had a leisurely morning as the café where I planned to eat breakfast didn’t open until 9:00.  So after doing my laundry (by hand) and reading the news on my phone (glad the wifi works at my casa particular), I walked west on Calle Brasil to the café.  As usual, I encountered lots of eye candy to photograph:  historic buildings, old cars, and a smorgasbord of people. 

After my breakfast of granola, yoghurt, fruit, and tea, I headed north for a long walk:  north on the Paseo de Marti, a wide boulevard also known as the Prado, which has a tree-lined pedestrian mall separating the traffic lanes.   When I reached the Straits of Florida, I turned west and followed a sidewalk along the Malecón, another wide boulevard which runs along the water’s edge.  A marker told me that the Malecón had been built in 1901 under the direction of U.S. General Leonard Wood (for whom a large U.S. Military base in Missouri is named).  This was just after the Spanish American War when the U.S. Military occupied Cuba which was granted independence by the U.S. in 1903 with onerous conditions attached.

There is no sandy beach along the north side of the Malecón but rather jagged, weathered coral limestone being slowly sculpted by waves below the sea wall protecting the boulevard.  Beautiful old buildings line the Malecón on its south side.  Many of the buildings are in serious disrepair.  Havana is crumbling and needs help.  Restauration work is on-going in the city but there is so much to be done.  La Habana Vieja (old Havana) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and maybe the eastern end of the Malecón where I walked should be included.

I continued walking southwesterly.  There were no tourists on the sidewalk – just a few fisherman.  After about a mile, I reached my destination, the imposing statue of General Antonio Maceo on a rearing horse.  Maceo was a leader of forces during the Cuban War of Independence and was killed by the Spanish in 1896.  It was late morning and getting hot, so I turned south on Calle Padre Varela and headed toward El Barrio Chino, the Chinese Quarter, where I planned to have lunch at a restaurant recommended by my Lonely Planet Guide.  My route went through a rather seedy neighborhood crowded with Cuban pedestrians going about their daily business.  There was some garbage in the streets but no hustlers.  This was definitely not a tourist area and no one bothered me.

My leisurely lunch of Chinese noodles and vegetables was great and my outdoor table along a quiet pedestrian mall was a great place to catch up on my writing.  After lunch, I had another mile of walking back to my lodgings where I asked one of the staff where I could buy Cuban music CDs.  She suggested Calle Obispo near the corner of Aguacate (in Old Havana) where I had found a bookstore on Saturday.

On my way to search for CDs, I came across El museo de 28 septiembre (Museum of 28 September).  It had a small collection of mementos from the revolution.  28 September 1960 is when Fidel Castro called for neighborhood groups to form in defense of the revolution in response to bomb blasts on the steps of the former presidential palace while Fidel was giving a speech.  My Lonely Planet Guide suggests that the 28 September groups may be mainly about neighbors spying on their neighbors.

I still hadn’t found a store selling CDs when I arrived back at the little used bookstore where I had bought a Cuban history book on Saturday.  The store seemed rather disorganized with piles of books scattered around the floor which made it hard to get to the dusty shelves to do some browsing.  There were some books in English but most were in Spanish with a spattering of German ones.  I was interested in those in Spanish to help me improve my reading proficiency.  

I had a list of Cuban authors with me which I gave to the proprietor.  I told him I was only interested in novelas (novels), not poesía (poetry).  Hell, I have enough trouble understanding poems in English so I don’t have much enthusiasm for struggling with Spanish verse.  The store may have appeared disorganized but the proprietor knew where everything was.  He grabbed handfuls of books for each of the half dozen or so authors on my list and piled them on a table in front of me.  I chose one novel and three books of short stories by four 20^th Century Cuban authors.  All were in nice condition.  The prices seemed a little high for Cuba (2950 pesos – about US$18.50 for the four used books but I was glad to support a bookseller in a country going through rough economic times.

Later, I looked over these books to decide which one I would read first.  I chose the El Insaciable Hombre Araña (The Insatiable Spider Man), a book of short stories by the contemporary author, Pedro Juan Gutiérrez.  I have not been disappointed.  Gutiérrez writing style has been dubbed “Dirty Realism” which is an apt description of his sometimes disturbing, sometimes vulgar descriptions of life among ordinary Habañeros (people of Havana) struggling with poverty and depression which they attempt to soften with humor, sarcasm, booze, drugs, and sex.  I’d highly recommend picking up a copy of the English translation if you can find it.

 

I keep asking in stores along Obispo where I could find music CDs.  Finally, a friendly señorita in a souvenir shop let me to a tiny shop where a guy sold pirated CDs.  I hate buying pirated music as I want to support the artists but was having no luck finding the originals.  I had a list of a dozen artists who have recorded Cuban jazz, salsa, and son.  He had them all and played a couple cuts for me on his boom box from each album.  The price was 3 for US$5 so I bought 9. 

Next I spotted a small watch sales and repair shop.  My watch band had totally disintegrated earlier in the day and he had exactly the size I needed.  After fitting the new band to my watch, we argued about how much change in pesos I would get from my US$20 bill.  Finally, his friend worked out the exchange rate on his calculator and convinced the watch dealer I should get more in change than he had wanted to give me.  It’s good that I can work out currency exchanges in my head or some of these guys would screw me as I’m sure they do lots of tourists.

It was time for dinner, so I headed a few blocks to Il Rustico which had Havana’s best pizza according my guidebook.  Figured I’d earned a pizza after walking 5+ miles today.  When I got to the address on Calle San Juan de Dios, there was no restaurant there.  A Cuban guy came up and told me that Il Rustico was closed for restoration.  He said I should follow him and I thought he was telling me that they were temporarily operating in another location.  Once again, I was really having trouble understanding “machine gun Spanish” as I call it – the really fast Cuban Spanish in which the speakers drop D’s and S’s and swallow words.  It turned out he was taking me to another restaurant (which probably paid him a commission to bring people in).  I took one look at the menu, saw they had nothing vegetarian and walked out.  When will I learn not to follow these eager people I meet on the street?    

So, I walked a few blocks to the Plaza Vieja where I’d seen a pizza joint on Saturday.  The pizza margarita was great – a good chewy crust with plenty of sauce and nicely spiced.  I can’t believe I ate the whole thing [burp].

 

© Will Mahoney 2022

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