Friday

If you are a shopaholic you'd better not come to Cuba. Apart from the supermarket near Hotel Nacional which is probably rigged up for tourists, there are no shops. The last time I encountered this was while crossing the Namib Desert in Southern Africa. Over there it seemed quite logical because springboks have not learned to shop yet. Excluding the types wearing green and gold jersys. But in the middle of Havana it is a strange phenomenon.

The fact that there are no hardware stores is obvious when you look at the decay of the buildings. But surely people must buy their salt and vinegar chips somewhere? How do they manage without their Estee Lauder Face Masks and their Molton Brown Bath and Shower Therapy? Also, mustn't every housewife have a Tupperware to keep fresh slices of lemon for their gin and tonics?

The absence of the USA does not come as a total surprise, but not even China has found Cuba on their GPSs yet. There are a few local craft markets around the hotel selling carved wooden figurines, Fidel Castro caps and oil paintings to tourists.

The tourists are mostly from Canada and Europe but strangely enough there is not the usual onslaught of badly dressed Germans. And no Russians. Havana is definitely not child friendly so leave your kids at home in front of their X-boxes. Disneyland Havana has not been built yet, so there is not much for them to do and they can't sink down in the oblivion of alcohol like the rest of us.

Next to our hotel is the Museo de la Revolucion where they keep the boat called "Grandma", an old luxury yacht that the revolutionaries used when they entered into Cuba from Mexico. It is now the centerpiece of the museum and stays inside a glass house. I hope it doesn't decide to start throwing stones.

Trying to find a place to consume supper outside the tourist hotels is not for the faint hearted. We have tried for three nights and walked past many restaurants completely empty. Perhaps the cooks are also trying to find a shop.

Thursday

We are slowly regaining our strength and have become real tourists doing real touristy things. For breakfast today, Kirsten ate the equivalent of a year's supply to a Ugandan orphanage. Myself, I was still queasy after a night filled with daemons whispering to me that I would end up in a Cuban jail because I wrote that the security guide at the airport had bad breath.

Soon thereafter we put on our walking sandals and walked 8 km to see a statue of Jose Marti. The statue was made from marble and is bigger than Mount Etna. Jose Marti is to the Cuban people what Nelson Mandela is to the world, except that Jose Marti was never in jail and Nelson Mandela did not write poems.

The path to there went along a busy road with lots of hooting cars and general chaos. It was not so much a bumper to bumper chaos as a rather few cars moving at Schumacher speed while veering freely over six lanes chaos. We brought bicycle helmets for this trip, but gas masks would have been better. People stopped to speak to us and offered us coffee in their homes. One woman had only two teeth but she could speak French. I have not encountered that combination before.

Later in the day we moved to a hotel in Old Havana where Al Capone once rented the whole of the fifth floor, apparently to seal some Mafia drug deal. We stayed on the third floor and no drugs were involved, unless you count the Aspirins Kirsten takes when she remembers to thin her blood. Graham Greene's "Our Man in Havana" starring Alec Guinness was filmed in the hotel.

The hotel is a beautiful old Spanish colonial style building, reasonably well kept under the circumstances. It is however surrounded by blocks and blocks of beautiful colonial style, baroque, neoclassical and art deco buildings in various stages of decay. Sadly they have not seen any hammer and nail since the 50s. They just loom there as mostly empty ghosts with broken windows swaying on their hinges. "Music turned into stone" like someone once famously said. Here and there amidst these houses are charmless blobs of more recently poured concrete.

We ventured out into the streets after dark, trying to find a restaurant for a nice evening meal. The restaurant we headed for was rated as excellent by the Lonely Planet guide book, and with the best food in Havana. On arrival we found out that it was closed for sanitary reasons. The chef next door gesticulated something about rats running on the floor. After hearing that, we crawled back to our hotel and had rum and pizza.