Today we went on an open-air bus tour around Havana. This took us a few hours, and then we had a heap of admin stuff to try and sort out again, (mostly just tidying up leaving London) so we spent a few hours on the Internet again doing this. We also had a look into our bus tickets on the Viazul website to see about the best way of getting from Havana to Trinidad and seeing if we could book tickets, but it appeared that the best way was just to go to the bus station early. Apparently we were in high season, and there's a good chance that tickets can be sold out, so we're a bit worried about whether we're going to get on the bus tomorrow.
It was annoying to have to spend time in a hotel doing all this stuff, when we really wanted to be enjoying Havana, but it did have to happen, unfortunately.
Apart from this, we ended up going out for dinner on the Malecon (beach promenade) and it was quite nice. The place was quite modern and the food reasonably tasty, and they definitely deserved to be doing better business than they were doing. I guess that's one of the sort of things that happens in Cuba though.
It's been very interesting learning about the Revolution, Castro's background, Che's interesting ways, and everything about it. We've been doing some reading about it all and it's an absolutely fascinating country. One of the most interesting we've been to by a long shot.
Cuba is a strange place - there are not so many places on earth where you feel awestruck by the beauty and at the same time enraged by the ridiculousness of it all. In some ways we have compared it to Africa, rightly or wrongly. We were chatting to a taxi driver today, and he told us that he used to be the General Manager of a Petro-Chemical company with a masters in Engineering, but he chose to become a taxi driver because he couldn't afford to support his family on the income from his other job. He was definitely earning a lot more driving a taxi than he was as a GM.
The amount of "Jinteros" in the city is astonishing too. Everywhere you go, you are constantly being asked if you want a taxi, a cigar or a lady. So much, that saying "No, gracias" really should just be printed on your shirt or something. It's actually so prevalent that it has a nick-name - the Havana Hassle!
One thing that is really annoying so far about Cuba is that they try and rip you off on pretty much every transaction you make - they will either try and charge you too much, or they will short-change you when they give you change. Almost EVERY time. At first we weren't really paying attention too much, but today when we went to a coffee shop, and they tried to charge $4CUC for a Mojito, when every other drink on the menu was $2CUC, I had enough. But after the fact, I think it's going to be just one of those things where we will have to keep an eye on it all the time.
Either way, it's just another idiosyncrasy of Cuba I suppose. So far, we're absolutely loving the place though!
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