Cuba Part One

Sunday September 18th

And so it begins.  We are on board our ship, The Adonia, and already we have been surprised.  It is far more beautiful a vessel than I imagined. Our cabin is comfortable and meets all of our needs for light, space and functionality.  The common areas are all very attractive, especially the  library which is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen on a ship. The books are shelved behind leaded glass and highly polished dark wood. There is a grand marble fireplace, which seems out of place on a trip to Cuba but this ship once belonged to the P&O line and cruised in cooler climes.  What really makes it stand out is the magnificent fresco on the ceiling.  I’ll get a picture of it later today and attach it before sending this out.

We had a celebratory glass of Champagne in the Glass House, which is a wine bar that has floor to ceiling windows and a cheery green vine theme. One thing I noticed right away is that there is no mandatory 15% gratuity added to your bar bill. I always found that to be annoying and while perhaps necessary on larger ships, this one knows its clientele and treats them like adults.  Bar prices seem quite fair and there is a grand choice at every price level from lots of international wine countries. 

Our little ship, 700 passengers, seems so petite next to the three other ships in the port of Miami.  Each of these behemoths accommodates three to four thousand passengers and their decks are filled with climbing walls, water slides, and oceans of pools and play areas.  We have a small pool, a hot tub and a shuffleboard area; that is it and that is more than enough.

Monday, September 19th    Happy Birthday sonny boy!

Arrived Cuba at 9 am this fine warm morning.  We pulled right into the small harbor with the largest fort in the Americas guarding our entry, and tied off in view of Old Havana and the famous Malecon, which is a seven kilometer promenade. The first thing we noticed, of course, were the US cars from the 1940s and 50s lined up for the tourist influx which was to commence at 11 am. We had signed up for a half day tour, “In Hemingway’s Footsteps.”  After a not too overly complex immigration and customs dance, we were directed to an exchange desk to get the CUC currency that we had to use for everything.  We exchanged euros since US dollars incurred a 10% tax; Fidel has a long memory.  So we had what we hoped were enough CUCs and we headed to our bus where we joined 25 others interested in Hemingway. 

Our first stop was a short drive from the ship, Cathedral Square, originally the central well for all sailing vessels in the 1600s, it was transformed by the Order of the Jesuits into the first cathedral in the New World. The Spaniards, none too happy with the Jesuits, drove them from the island before they could finish this magnificent building and they finished it themselves by the middle of the 1600s. It was hot, very, very hot and it was humid, very very humid and it was the middle of the day when supposedly only madmen and the English would be walking about.  We sought shade whenever possible and wandered around the square which was really quite interesting.  We were soon called back to the group so that we could proceed to a bar that supposedly Hem frequented, but of course in Havana every bar claims him.  We did have a decent mojito made with the famous Havana Club and then it was on to the coast and the small fishing village (Cojimar) where Papa Hemingway moored and sailed his beloved Pilar, a 38-foot cabin cruiser that he used for fishing, hunting Nazi U-boats, and entertaining his growing list of friends.

In Cojimar there is a lovely small statue of Hemingway overlooking the sea, supposedly where he got his inspiration for The Old Man and the Sea.  It was done by the local fishermen, using old boat propellers that they melted down for the bust. It was all rather touching and seemed so very local and authentic, as opposed to the other commercializations of his name and fame.  We had lunch at a restaurant where he always ate, La Terraza.  There is a great wooden bar as you enter, filled with rum bottles and pictures of Hemingway. It is still owned by the same family that had been running it in the 30’s and the main man reminded us of a younger Cipriani from Harry’s Bar in Venice. The main dining area was a large open terrace with lovely breezes and walls filled with more photos of Hemingway including a few of him with Fidel. There were two tour groups in there and it was a madhouse, but they handled the crowd with élan and the service was smooth and professional. The waitstaff are still decked out in white shirts and black skirts or pants; only the owner wore a tie. We were all given blueish drinks in daiquiri glasses and when I told the owner that all I could taste was the blue curaçao he came back with a bottle of rum and topped off all the glasses until it finally tasted right.  What a trip.  The food was really horrible, but we didn’t come to Cuba for the cuisine. If you want really good Cuban food, go to Miami or Tampa. There is an amusing story associated with the restaurant and Hemingway.  The captain of Pilar was a dear friend of Hem’s and they had a deal that if Hemingway died before Fuentes, Fuentes got to keep Pilar.  Well Hemingway did die first and the boat belonged to Fuentes, but Castro wanted the boat to be a part of the museum that he was planning since he confiscated Hemingway’s property almost immediately after his death in 1961. Fuentes did not want to give up the boat, so Fidel made a deal he couldn’t refuse. The state would pay for his lunches and dinners and drinks at La Terraza for the rest of his life, in exchange for the Pilar. The deal was cut and Fuentes had the last laugh since he lived to be 104 and they say he ate and drank with abandon until the very end!

After this lengthy but humorous diversion, we were off to the Hemingway Museum, which is his old house called Finca Vigia, or lookout house.  When Fidel nationalized all foreign property in Cuba in 1961 he had the good sense to keep everything at Hemingway’s finca exactly the way it was, right down to the half empty bottles in the living room.  While you can’t go into the house, it has an open porch on two sides and you can see everything in every room, including the Royal typewriter he used to write The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and several other short stories, while living at the estate.  In addition to the big house you can climb up to the tower he had built to look out to the sea and to also find out who was coming up his hill. There is an enormous pool that is empty; next to it is the tennis court which has now been converted to a resting place for the Pilar.

After an hour or so wandering around the estate we got back on the bus and headed to downtown Havana. On the way we saw a lot of ‘normal’ as opposed to ‘tourist’ sites and activities.  The schools were just getting over for the day and uniformed children of all ages were waiting for buses or just hanging out.  The buses are not the big yellow ones we know but large farm wagons that have been covered and filled with seats and pulled by tractors or old trucks. It looked hot, uncomfortable and claustrophobic. Not all the vehicles in Havana are the classic cars that are used as taxis for the rich.  Most of the cars are old beat-up Russian cars left over from the Soviet era.  They were never much good new and how they keep them running is a miracle. There also doesn’t seem to be any concept of emissions control since most of the vehicles belch out toxic fumes, some so thick you would think they were laying down a smoke screen.

We ended the tour with a stop at La Floridita, which is a well documented Hemingway hangout, so famous in fact that they sell the most expensive daiquiris in all of Cuba.  They have a life sized brass statue of Hemingway seated at his favorite spot at the bar and drinking his doble, which is a huge daiquiri that has pink grapefruit juice in it.  The frozen daiquiri was fresh, fruity and delicious but it was hard to enjoy since bars and restaurants still allow smoking and 90% of everyone in the bar was smoking to the point that there was a haze in the bar as thick as that on the street. It was then back to the bus and back to the ship after passing by the old Bacardi building, which is now owned by the state-run Havana Club rum company. The building is a classic example of Art Deco and we had hoped to be able to get inside but it was not to be.

Once back aboard we tried for cold showers but this was also not to be.  Seems that the ship only has hot water and a refreshing shower was out of the picture, but that is really the only downside which is fine with me. Cindy and I relaxed over a cold drink before dinner and decided that if the ship had to go back to Miami the next day we would be fine having seen everything we wanted to see in Cuba.