Bay of Pigs and Havana

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Bay of Pigs and Havana

We left Cienfuegos and drove towards Havana, partly on a six-lane divided highway which dates from Soviet times.  This requires some explanation.  The road is almost empty.  The right hand lane is undrivable because of broken cars, donkey-carts, pedestrians, and other slow and parked things.  The middle lane is undrivable because it has not been maintained and is very broken up.  The left lane is borderline drivable but it’s the best there is.  So you drive in the leftmost lane and pass on the right using the much rougher middle lane.  Our almost new Chinese bus (Cuban tourists all have the same ones) took a beating on this road.

Anyway, we stopped at the Bay of Pigs to see the beach there and to visit the museum, which tells the story of the American invasion as you might expect it would:

We then went to a B&B which was just one row of houses back from the beach, and some of us went swimming before lunch there:

As we were unable to visit the Hemingway farm and home (Sharon Stone was making a Canadian movie here and it was closed to visitors) we stopped at the seaside in Havana where there is a memorial to Hemingway:

On the way into the city we passed some really awful-looking Soviet-era housing:

 And then we arrived at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, a relic from the days when Havana was THE place to be.  It’s been kept up as best as they can, but don’t let the looks fool you.  The exterior and the lobby and public spaces really are lovely, but some of the rooms are barely functional, some things don’t work, and there is a lot of work needed:

That night we went to the “famous” Buena Vista Social Club nightclub, and the music was quite good as was the dancing (click the arrow for video):

After this we discovered that our room was right above the fabric-roofed club, and it sounded like they were in our closet!  The music ended at 11:20, and we changed rooms before the next performance,