After a night of music, consisting of the building site, our hotel and the dogs singing the encore we woke up in our fabulously odd hotel - thhis is where Ernest Hemingway stayed whilst writing the Old Man and the Sea, or for Whom the bell tolls (depending on whether you read lonely planet or rough guide!)We were treated to a long talk by the Captivating Cuba travel rep on how to look after your money... kinda self evident stuff like ¨dont just give it away to people¨ wow they really do think them foregners are just total mugs!
After a great shrimpy lunch in the harbour I was feeling reassured that despite what i had heard maybe the food wouldn´t be so awful. This was mroe than just edible it was nice!
We had made an elaborate plan of all the walking tours we could make but then unexpectedly Mama got caught taking a photo of some horse and carriage in the beautiful Plaza San Francisco and was then obliged to take a tour with said horse (or pay it). It turnde out that our driver was in fact a learner horse trap driver, and in fact mother is a learner haggler having agreed to at least 5 times the going rate with oooh that sounds good! I despair as it did make it somewhat tricky to then do the walkaway and pay half price act!
The round town trip was fantastic, slightly marred by the fact our driver was not entirely confident with the roads so we had to stick to the simpler routes and avoid all other horsey traffic. We whistled past some fantastic sites of Havana including China town (not a chinaman in sight - named as such I think from its one Eastern restaurant ´Hanoi´ hmmmm Atlas please. We then bolted past the Bacardi Ediface (note to self must pitch Bacardi when home) and the Capitalo which is modelled on the Capìtol in Washington but is allegedly much better in terms of architecture, and of course politics!
We were finally and unexpectedly dropped off at a flea market selling every item it could fit a Che portrait onto, with the odd rum bottle and cigar box in between. Oddly Í´ve still not really seen anyone smoking a cigar ' except for some woman in Plaza de cathedrale who was only doing so for photographers and 2 dollars!
After more dawdling around the old town we were exhausted and ended up finishing the evening off at El Patio, which is a fabulous restaurant high on ambiance although Jamie Oliver could do with coming over and shaking up the cooking a bit. This culinary delight was interrupted by a downpour where the skies burst and the waiters calmly watched as the diners and the dinners got somewhat saturated (actually not such a loss) then came and carried us plus table inside. Odd.
We capped off the evening with a visit to the Cafe Paris which is famed for its fantastic live music, when we arrived it was only after ordering our mojitos that we realised the band had gone home and the music was in fact Crazy Frog. How worrying!