Cuba. Hemingway’s Havana, Castro’s Cuba

Cuba. Hemingway’s Havana, Castro’s Cuba

A visit to Havana feels like a step back in time. With pristine beaches, Caribbean food and music, and Spanish colonial architecture, Cuba’s capital blends natural beauty with old-world charm. Along with restaurants, art galleries, and bars are inviting plazas, ornately decorated churches, and 16th century forts. The city’s urban geography is made up of three districts: colonial-era buildings of Old Havana, a newer section adjacent to the Malecón (coastal wall/road) called Vedado, and outlying suburbs. Refreshing devoid of Starbucks, McDonalds, and Walmart, Havana has no shortage of American cars from the 1950s. Other elements of Havana’s unique culture its “el habanos” (aka cigars), sold under brand names such as Cohiba, Montecristo, and Romeo y Julieta.

Founded during the 16th century as a staging area for Spanish expansion in the New World, Havana’s population grew rapidly and by the mid-1700s, the city was the third largest (population 70,000) in the Americas. Following the 1898 Spanish American War and an occupation by the U.S., Cuba achieved its independence in 1902. For the next fifty years the country experienced significant economic gains. With new hotels and casinos, Havana emerged as a popular destination for tourists, authors, and entertainers such as Earnest Hemingway and Frank Sinatra. However, Cuba continued to be plagued by political corruption and despotic leaders. During the late 1950s, Fidel Castro and his supporters led a communist revolution and soon after, the U.S. government imposed an economic embargo and travel ban on Cuba. Travel restrictions began to ease in the late 1990s and again under U.S. President Barak Obama.

My charter flight from Miami to Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport took less than 90 minutes. From there our group took a bus to the Hotel Habana Riviera, once operated as a hotel/casino by mob accountant Meyer Lansky. Built in 1957, the hotel has 21 floors and 352 rooms. The hotel’s famous guests include Ginger Rogers, William Holden, Nate King Cole, and Ava Gardner. Although we found the hotel to be in good condition, only one of its three elevators was functioning. My first dinner on the island was at a “paladar” overlooking the ocean. Paladars are private restaurants, some operating in former mansions once owned by Cuba exiles. For the next two days, we traveled by bus or on foot to locations in Vedado, Old Havana, and Havana Harbor. Adjacent to Old Havana’s Plaza de Armas is Castillo de la Fuerza. With high walls surrounded by a moat, the fort was constructed in 1577 to protect the city’s harbor. Later, it was determined that the fort was too far from the harbor’s entrance to be an effective deterrent to invaders. More recently, the fort was used as a residence for the governor and to house Cuba’s National Archives. It now operates as a maritime museum. Near Parque Central is a bar called El Floridita where the author Ernest Hemingway was a regular for more than 20 years beginning in the early 1930s. Above the bar is a note written by Hemingway that says, “My mojito in the Bodeguita del Medio and my daiquiri in the Floridita.”

Along the edge of Plaza de la Habana is Havana Cathedral, completed in 1777. The cathedral’s Baroque façade is flanked by asymmetrical bell towers. Inside is a central nave and eight side chapels. Between 1796 and 1898, the remains of Christopher Columbus were kept inside the cathedral. Elsewhere in Old Havana are examples of Colonial-era buildings, some in poor condition as a result of exposure to storms and salt air.

Southwest of Old Havana is an area of more recently constructed buildings that includes El Capitolio (the National Capitol Building), modeled after the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Across the street from El Capitolio we found a row of colorfully painted 1950s-era cars that Cubans call almendrons. In 1959, Castro imposed an embargo on U.S. car imports that made it necessary for automobile owners to scavenge parts to keep older cars running. It is estimated that more than 60,000 vintage Chryslers, Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Fords, and Chevrolets continue to operate on the island. For about U.S. $25 my travel companion and I booked an hour-long ride in a bright orange ’57 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible.

Adjacent to the harbor entrance we toured Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña. Outside the fort are the remains of a U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane shot down by a Soviet made missile over Cuba in October 1962. The pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, was the only U.S. fatality during Cuban Missile Crisis. That evening we sampled Cuban cigars while walking down the Malecón, a sea wall constructed in 1901 to protect the city from erosion. Mine was a Cohiba, said to be Fidel Castro’s favorite brand.