Havana

It's so different, so quaint, and really fun here in Havana.

Had a lovely breakfast on the rooftop of fresh fruit, fresh juice, fresh bread with honey, ham, eggs and cuban coffee served with big smiles. What a way to start the day.

Our guide turned up at nine for our exclusive tour (being a tour group of 2) of old and new Havana. Spent two hours wandering around the old city, up and down the cobblestoned lanes, looking at the buildings, statues and town squares.

Ok, first the very brief and oversimplified history. The Spanish arrived in these parts around 1492, started colonising around 1510, and basically ruled it until the late 1800s. The Spanish used Cuba as a mid point staging post for refuelling their fleet of ships returning all the goods plundered from South America to Spain, and for the navy vessels trying to protect them from pirates. They originally used Santiago, but that was on the southern side of the island closer to the pirates of the Caribbean. It didn't take them long to realise that the little village of Havana on the northern side of the island had an easily defendable port, fresh water, and ships were less vulnerable to pirates.

As the port became bigger and more important for trade, it was designated as the capital city by the Spanish. The English wanted the port too, and invaded in 1762, ruling for eleven months until the Spanish, desperate for their port, offered England the Spanish colony of Florida in exchange for getting Cuba back.

In the 1890s Cuba, like most other South American countries, was sick of the Spanish ruling them, and fought a war of independence that the newly independent United States decided to intervene in to protect their business interests, so it ended up being a three way war. Cuba expelled the Spanish, but the US wanted their piece for helping.

The Americans threatened Cuba that their marines would not leave unless they passed a bill through their new parliament, guaranteeing the United States a number of rights, the two chief ones being the right to intervene in Cuba at any time they felt that American rights were being threatened, and the right to develop and maintain a US base on Cuba with a perpetual lease. Eventually in 1902 the Platt amendment was passed, the marines moved to the eastern end of the island, and 115 years later the US still maintains their Guantanamo Bay military base on Cuban soil against the wishes of Cuba. On the up side, that means that there is, actually, one McDonalds in Cuba - on the US Guantanimo Bay base. Sorry, but I can't tell you what the Big Mac index is.

Cuba was a successful and prosperous republic until 1959. However, in a situation sadly common in most Central (and some southern) American countries, the United States actively supported their business interests in the country by propping up and funding an ever increasingly despotic regime. In Cuba it was the Bautistas. I guess it was a case of if you can't beat them, buy them. They were largely funded by the mafia families from the US. The largest gathering of mafia bosses ever to assemble occurred in the Hotel Nacional de Cuba with the purpose of dividing up the gambling, casinos and racketeering of Cuba and Florida between the families. Later on, the US imposed their first medical blockade of Cuba (unfortunately by no means the last) in an effort to have one of the godfathers extradited back to the US.

Eventually the people under Fidel Castro rose up and overthrew the Bautista regime in 1959. The revolution fundamentally changed the country. The US was fiercely against anything communist and, not surprisingly, resented that US businesses had been seized and nationalised.

The cold war was in full swing. Cuba turned to the USSR who started erecting nuclear missiles on the island. The US imposed a blockade, and on one fateful night in February 1962 with twitchy fingers from both the US and USSR on their respective nuclear buttons, the world went to bed not knowing if it would wake up again.

Amazingly both Krushchev and Kennedy backed down, and we survived to live another day, though Cuba had punishing embargoes placed on them that largely survive to the present time. Their reliance on the USSR for aid and investment was fine until the sudden demise of the communist block in 1991. Our guide, who lived through it, described it as a tap being suddenly turned off. The shops were suddenly empty. A black market emerged overnight, and many basic services ceased. Castro was forced to open the country to tourism, though there was nothing to attract them. It took some 15 years for the economy to recover to a sustainable situation.

Luckily relations are gradually 'normalising'. There is a huge restoration effort going on to fix crumbling buildings. Money and tourists are flowing from most of the world except, still, the US, though thousands of US tourists enter the country each year via the back door.

They say that Cuba currently has 3 million tourists a year, and when relations 'normalise' they estimate that there will be an additional 6 million US tourists a year flocking in. It's going to be a disaster. There are no credit cards accepted. There are no ATMs. There is only basic mobile coverage. There is almost no internet available. There are no public toilets. There are no supermarkets, convenience stores, or fast food outlets. US travellers are generally demanding of tourism facilities, and the levels of service provided to them. They won't know what's hit them when they arrive, and frankly neither will the Cubans.

Anyway, enough of the background. It's that unpreparedness that is the essence of Cuba's charm, and today we revelled in it. After our two hour wander, we hopped into our genuine 1950's Dodge with the leather upholstery and gears on the steering wheel, and had a two hour tour of the new Havana, seeing the ex-mafia casinos, cruising along the waterfront, and through the green belt. Stopped at Revolution Square, and Hotel Nacional de Cuba, the most famous of the hotels where every notable person and dignitary who has visited Cuba seems to have stayed. It seems that ex-Presidents and Governors from the US have defied their own embargoes to be private visitors, and even Paris Hilton has a large portrait on the wall, so it must be high class.

After a 3 course Cuban lunch at the Havana Club, complete with live entertainment by girls who were definitely wearing something more revealing than Castro fatigues, we headed to the outer suburban property where Ernest Hemingway lived for the many months each year he was in Cuba, and has now been preserved as a museum. Not being Hemingway aficionados, it was a bit lost on us, but it was certainly a nice lifestyle he led.

Back to our casa through the mafia-funded tunnel under the bay, built to link the city on the west bank with their casinos on the east bank.

Later on we wandered back down into the old city to visit the bar on the rooftop of the Hotel Ambos Mundos, which happened to be the hotel that Hemingway stayed at in the city before eventually buying his property, but more importantly had a stunning view of the city skyline and bay.