Mesoamerica 2019 - Day six, Havana

OMG

How spoiled am I. I am so used to ready access to copious amounts of internet access, cell phone access, data access that when it is taken away I am like the toddler who doesn’t get his or her way. Well, maybe not that bad but definitely melancholy for sure…because the posting of our experiences as they are happening is such a big part of the total travel experience. And our day today in Havana was one that I truly wished I could be posting pictorially for you as it happened.

This city is an incredible feast for the eyes. The variety of architecture styles, people scenes, history, sculpture, colors, textures. Both Wife and I took a record number of pictures. I took 250 and Wife took over 500! Not only was it a feast for the eyes as stated above, the weather was perfect, never getting too hot or too cold throughout the day. And our guide Livan is a wealth of information as well as great at pacing things to our energy level and physical capability.

I’ve decided that I will be posting the pictures for the Cuba trip once we’ve returned to the US. One good thing about not being able to post pictures as we are doing them is we will have more time to break them down into different categories.

Let’s talk a little about our tour. According to the latest US law, you are not supposed to go to  Cuba unless you are a part of tour and doing something related to learning. The vast majority of visitors to Cuba from the US are coming via cruise ships. They spend a day or two in country and most of the tours I researched were oriented to that. But we wanted to get deeper into the country and especially outside of Havana. We found one private company that specialized in longer, out of Havana tours. So we booked a driver/guide for a six day tour.

Now a bit about Havana itself. It is one of the oldest Spanish settlements in the Western Hemisphere. It was the jumping off point for the conquests of Mexico and Peru. And it stayed in Spanish hands for the longest period, not achieving independence from Spain until 1898. Like Mexico, the history of that struggle and ongoing struggles for equal treatment are powerfully embedded in the national consciousness. I think each time Wife and I go to a new country and we hear its national narrative from the viewpoint of the countries citizens, we are reminded yet again of how narrow most of our countrymen’s understanding is of the world. It is a complex place with not just two sides to a story but as many facets as a highly crafted. Already we have had some great in depth discussion with Livan that have opened our eyes and I think shared things with him as well. As I said to him…”Why go and travel if you are not going to use it as an opportunity to immerse yourself into learning?”

I wish I were a better writer and could create for you in words a picture of this complicated place that his Havana. The lack of pictures at this point is frustrating as I said earlier. And sadly it is a place that is in rapid transformation by that insidious force that is tourism. You can see this place in a decade being another Venice where certain parts of the city will be overrun by mass tourism. Yet that same force is  bringing so much economic opportunity in a land where it is not easy to make a living. As I told Livan today, there is little that is black and white in the world…there is only grey.

Tomorrow we do our first trip outside of Havana. Talk to you tomorrow.