Back to Havana

And it rained. Vinales is good place for farming but a lousy place for an extended stay. In fact, we overheard one young Canadian asking whether she could stay another night. "Certainly", was the reply, "that will be 160 kooks/dollars". Another example of market forces: the demand is there but the supply is limited, at least in the case of hotels in Cuba. So we made our way back to Havana for a stopover at our original hotel before our onward travel to Cienfuegos. And it rained.

Now, listen, about the subject of escaping the Saga tyranny that wiser men have suggested. The Panorama Hotel in western Havana is a fine hotel but it has the dreariest bar in Christendom. I did previously try to escape to building on the other side of the road that I first thought was a derelict 1970s Russian tower block until I saw curtains in some of the windows. On closer inspection, there were yellow taxis parked outside the front. My trusted source told me that it was the Triton, a functioning hotel that has a bar that is half the price of our very own hotel bar. OK, thinks I, let's have a look (while Linda was washing her hair). Alarmingly, it was a bit like the Hotel California; if there were any people there they had been dead for a while and quite invisible. The entrance was huge. And empty. There was a small reception area to the right devoid of any of the usual paraphernalia you would usually expect of a large hotel lobby (computers, room key holders, clocks, living human beings). Further to the right was a mini trio of shops dimly lit with red Christmas lights, all shut with no clue as to what they were selling. Running quickly back to the entrance I saw a sign glowing ominously to the far left saying, Lobby Bar. The glass door was black with none of the suggestive glitter of ambient life. Looking back to the left of the entrance of the lobby there were stairs leading up to a balcony area above the whole width of the lobby. I bravely (by this time) climbed to the top and walked the length to what appeared to be a children's play area at the other end complete with eeriely-muted coloured play equipment but, again, devoid of anything visibly living. Pretty sure that I was about to see two girl children on tricycles singing a malevolent song I fled the whole structure vowing never to leave the sanctity of Saga again.

Except the hotel bar still wasn't that attractive an alternative either. Up the road was a supermarket which Niall suggested we visit to get an idea of the difference between western ideas of buying stuff and the average Cuban's reality. So I did. And I did. 'Nuff said, I think. Past the supermarket looms the Russian Embassy, a structure surrounded by reinforced concrete walls with bits of its reinforcement cheekily showing, topped with a delicate shade of rusty razorwire. Above this monstrosity looms a giant submarine conning tower, if submarines were made of decaying concrete of course. But, success!, beyond that was a little cluster of bars where the locals go to get a beer, listen to pop music or feed their children pizza. Promising Linda that it really wasn't raining (that badly) any more and that the uneven paving stones were quite safe to navigate, we made our way to the entrance where a trio of young guys wondered if we were lost. "Beer?", I asked hopefully. Grins all round as we were led to a table and served two bottles of Bucanero. A few more rounds saw tables of "young people" eyeing us not-too surreptitiously wondering what zoo the old white couple had escaped from. We had the last laugh when they nearly missed their bus home, dashing madly for the vehicle with half empty plastic cups of beer in hand.

Linda was suitably fortified by this time so we retreated to the sanctity of the 11th floor piano bar of the hotel to watch the sunset (if there was one to be seen -- still very overcast). The pianist was a gorgeous Cuban girl who smiled every time she played Gershwin or Billy Joel and we clapped in recognition. I mention this part of the evening only because there were only a half dozen of us in the whole restaurant when it was disrupted by a marching, ranting matriarchal Chinese woman who stormed up and down the empty tables followed by a balding, stooped, hand-wringing shadow of a man, who then both promptly vanished like the aftermath of a typhoon. The pianist looked us. We grinned back at her. No matter the difference in our cultures, we silently agreed that this was weird. The postscript of this pantomime was this: a few minutes later I happened to be at the entrance to the restaurant as they opened for dinner. Mad matriarch and her full Chinese party arrived in force and the poor employees of the hotel had to stand in line to clap them in. We followed them in, but with minimal ceremony I might add.

Anyway, that was our last time in Havana. On our way to Cienfuegos tomorrow.