Flying into Havana the fields are brown with large patches of rich red, freshly irrigated earth, the sizes and shapes are all irregular with swathes of green palm trees and untouched ‘jungle’ adding to the patchwork. Not a hint of Havana or civilisation have we seen as we come into land.
We exit the plane via stairs rolled up to the door and walk across the cracked tarmac to the immigration hall, a mustard coloured single story building with bright teal trim. It is a replica vignette straight out of an old movie from a time that has just started processing in technicolor.
Inside is immigration, a long low slung building with stalls behind glass, like a row of offices, we orderly line up in front of the windows on the cracked, brown linoleum floor, no ropes to guide us, first in line first served, stand behind the red line and wait to be called forward. Rosie and the Operator have declared their good health on one form, have evidence of travel insurance on another form and have declared how much money we are bringing into the country. Our paperwork and passports are stamped and we are buzzed through a door into the baggage claim area, first we must have our carry on luggage that we have had in the plane x-rayed….note to self, just pack all the illegal stuff in your suitcase and it will go through fine.
The x-ray conveyor belts and the monitoring screens are the generation that have been replaced decades ago in any other airport in the world and they are manned by a bevvy of sexy Cuban cougars….Rosie kids you not, all of the female staff were wearing a beige skin tight army type uniform, bosoms were bursting from the buttoned through tops and the skirts were short short …..coupled with lacy black patterned tights that were popular in the eighties and soaring high heels. All these lovely ladies were perfectly manicured and made up, sashaying around portraying an air of aloofness and disdain.
This whole process was carried out in quite a quick orderly manner, the bags were collected and off the whole plane raced to the money exchange. Thats funny said The Operator…that is not one of my cable ties on the zip of my bag he said….Yes, the Operator cable ties the zips together on the suitcase so they cannot be opened. He cuts them off when we get to our hotel. Rosie wasn’t really bothered, she was trying to find the money exchange…there are no signs pointing anywhere.
No Cuban pesos can be bought anywhere else in the world other than Cuba…do not bring US dollars to exchange, you will be charged an additional 10% for the privilege of exchanging enemy currency. So armed with three thousand Euros Rosie jumped in the queue of a dozen people in front of the one window that was open at the money exchange. The Operator held our place in line and Rosie ventured forth to find the driver that our Hostel had booked to meet us at the airport.
That was easy, there was Yuri holding a sign with our names on it…his English was better than my Spanish….just…so through a mixture of sign language and slow talking Rosie motioned that we were exchanging our money, he knew the process and said he would wait for us outside.
Back at the money exchange the queue had wound around the hall and was out on the footpath, with still only one exchange window open ! Rosie and The Operator were thinking there may be a limit to the amount we could swap, nope, when we got to the window, behind the cashier was a wall of cash, from ceiling to floor, bundled up into packs. I kid you not! We sheepishly asked for our 3000 euros to be exchanged and she didn’t blink an eyelid…we walked out with an embarrassing armful of $10 pesos bundled up in packs of $1000, we could barely stuff it all into The Operators backpack!
Prior to arriving we had decided to get all of our cash out straight away as we had heard that the airport had the best exchange rate and local banks often ran out of money, plus banks and money exchanges were few and far between with strange opening hours.
Into a modern taxi we were bundled by Yuri, and he were delivered to another terminal where he was meeting another client of the hostel arriving by plane. All day every day he said he was at the airport, this was his job. Welcome to Havana, enjoy your stay, the taxi will take you to the door of the hostel.
The journey to the hostel was good, there was hardly any traffic on the roads, there was also not a single sign directing you toward the city, the berms were neatly mown on the roadsides and roundabouts yet piles of rubbish bags and plastic bags were lurking under bushes further in, supposedly poked out of view?
Buildings were creeping in amongst the lush green trees, ruins of factories long gone and returning to the earth. Steel skeletons poking out of the ground, scooters and old Ladas were zipping around, bicycles joined the fray and we passed a horse drawn cart… on the motorway into town. Rosie thinks we were on a two lane road, there was no centre line and potholes we could disappear into if we went over them slow…lucky our taxi was racing along and dodging the holes.
The culture shock started to creep in when the multi story apartment blocks started appearing…crumbling paint and mortar revealing the concrete reinforcing they were made from, set in blocks of three or four buildings, surrounded by mown brown grass, no lovely gardens for the kids to play in, no space for play at all as they were set on the edge of the road.
When we hit the city proper the urban decay was a slap in the face. Beautifully stone plastered classical buildings decaying and crumbling literally to the ground, trees were growing out of the walls, carbon exhaust fumes stained the walls, paint was peeling and blistered and broken window panes were boarded up with tin, cardboard or just left open.
Some buildings literally had tumbled to the ground and were a pile of rubble next to ones you wouldn’t think people were living in…but they were, lines full of washing hanging from the exterior of buildings were testament to this. Empty staring windows where the roof was open to the elements and walls had collapsed inside making a home for birds only were common place.
The people though were everywhere amongst this, calling out to neighbors from balconies, sitting in their doorways on the street, standing in the shade under the trees. Music was coming from open doors and windows, the ripe stench of rubbish from the line up of rubbish bins on the street corners. Dogs and cats were roaming and lounging, babies were playing in the dusty gutters, baskets on rope were thrown down from the upper stories as keys and wanted items were delivered in the basket to street side folk as they called up. Welcome to Central Havana – home to 170,000 people crammed into 3 square kilometers.
Rosie and The Operator cannot wait to explore!
