|
Day 1: I want to practicals my English!
When we went outside it was a nice warm sunny day. Humid, but nothing unbearable, just nice and warm. We sure did not mind as we left Amsterdam with – 4 ºC. You can imagine how pale we looked. Sure enough, we had been spotted.....
Hey, where are you from? Nice to meet you!! Can I shake your hand? My name is Marcos, I want to practicals my English! Relax! I’m just a student, I’m not doing this for money, I’m studying English and I want to practicals! The guy said, and he looked at us with a broad smile, as he started shaking my hand. Hey! My school is up there! Did you have breakfast already? I know a nice place, follow me!
We had breakfast, I offered Marcos something to eat, but he did not want anything. While we ate, Marcos found out we spoke Spanish, and completely forgot he had wanted to practice his English (which was fine anyway...). He told us a lot of things about Havana. What streets were nice. Where we should go to eat (dont go to the restaurants, only the “Hanoi” is OK, you should go to a paladar). That we should exchange our US $ for convertibles (the Cuban dollar-like currency) on the street and double our money. Somewhere in the conversation, Marcos casually asked if had planned to get some cigars. I had said yes, sure, I would be stupid to leave Cuba without some, now wouldn’t I?
We got up and walked a bit more, and it turned out that Marcos’s father worked for the cigar factory. We also happened to be very close to his house, and would we mind coming in for a cup of coffee? We could inspect the cigars too, if we wanted to...
At that point I said to Marcos that we were just arriving, and that we would buy cigars just before we left (3 weeks later), and that really all we wanted to do was walk around the city a bit. He seemed just a little sad, and said goodbye. If he was a scam artist or a jinitero, he was certainly the most charming one I ever saw. I actually felt sorry for him. That’s why I think he was just making the most of things. On that first day we did not know that most Cubans only make something like 5 - 15 US$ a month, and some only get paid in pesos.......The breakfast we ate had cost us about that much, to give you a general idea.
We walked around the city some more, and I guess we were both a bit culture-shocked. The streets teeming with life, people moving around by all kinds of transportation (Old ‘59 Chevy’s, Horse carriages, Bikes, camellos) and the atmosphere seriously gassed up. But you dont see that in the pictures we took on the Paseo del Prado, and the famous Malecon.
We were very glad when we sat down in front of the cathedral to have our very first Mojito, Cuba’s national cocktail.
That evening we followed Marcos advice, and that of our two travel guides: You should eat in a Paladar! So we set out to find one.
I was still not used to Cuban evenings: the general lack of lighting makes the streets quite dark. I live in a city where darkness means danger (well, Amsterdam is not that bad actually, It also has to do with my paranoid nature) and so I had a tough time relaxing a bit. Again, later we would find that we were probably safer over there in Havana that evening than we usually are over here.
One of the paladares we had wanted to eat in had been closed down (Paladar Toressón, Malecón 27 – Big padlock kept us out), the paladar Doña Blanquita was very full and the lady (hey, was it Doña Blanquita herself maybe?) told us we would have to wait about an hour. So we walked down Obispo street, and sat down in paladar “la Moneda Cubana”. Other than the name suggests, you pay in dollars. The food was okay, but we found no reason to sit there much longer than the 20 minutes it took us to eat and pay. The beer was nice and cold.
After the food we went to listen to some music in Cafe O’ Reilly. We had some beers, and then some Mojitos. A little boy gave us some drawings that he made of us while we drank . We gave him a dollar. We went home singing songs....
The next day we packed our bags and left for Pinar del Rio. We knew we’d be back for more of Havana. But not that we’d be back so soon....
|
|
