Havana - Sightseeing

First of all, I was really impressed with how safe Havana felt.  There are apparently very few incidences of assault and relatively little pickpocketing.  There were also remarkably few if any children selling things or begging or even adults begging.  Plenty of people would try to con you in some small way, but they were easy to avoid if you know what the potential “scams” are (getting you to go to certain restaurants, offering to be a guide, finding you a taxi, selling sets of CUP coins).  I was a little wary of taking photos having read that you should not take photos of police officers, soldiers, or military buildings and not being entirely sure what else might be sensitive.

 Havana is divided into many neighborhoods.  Old Havana is what most tourists see and where the cruise ships land.  It has been fixed up pretty nicely and has lots of sights to see.  Just to the east lies Central Havana.  A lot of Cubans live in Central Havana and it has not been fixed up for the most part.  The streets are narrow and the buildings in varying conditions but mostly decaying.  You get a sense walking through of how a lot of people really live in Havana.  The next neighborhood to the east is Vedado where we were staying.  This area was developed starting in the 1850s and was always a more upscale residential neighborhood through the 1950s when it was a favorite area for American gangsters who developed casinos and hotels in the area.  After the revolution many of the big mansions were divided into housing for many families.  Now some are being renovated again.  The eastern border of Vedado is the Almendares river and to the east of that is the Playa/Miramar area.  This area has lots of embassies and more modern homes as well as older mansions.  There are many other parts of Havana too that we did not visit.

Callejon de Hamel in central Havana, due to the efforts of one artist it's now a popular tourist destination with several small cafes.

Perhaps my favorite place was Quinta de los Molinos, a former tobacco processing place turned botanic garden and animal sanctuary.  It is near the Universidad de Havana off Calle Allende.  I was the only person for the 10 am guided tour and my young guide, though having studied electronics in school, was well versed in natural history.   He told me about many of Cuba’s endemic trees and well known introduced trees like the breadfruit tree.  The garden holds programs for special needs kids and is funded mostly through private foundations.  The garden has a spay/neuter program for dogs and cats and takes in some donated animals.  They had a number of peacocks, chickens, doves, and turkeys, parrots and rabbits, a pair of South American tortoises and small aquatic turtle similar to a snapping turtle.  Some of the animals are used for “zootherapy”.    They also raise some vegetables for a local school.  They have a large new butterfly enclosure for which they raise monarchs among other butterflies.  They also breed one of Cuba’s endangered snails for reintroduction.  And they have an outdoor bonsai collection.  Two families live in the garden and are there because several generations ago they worked as gardeners.  I would guess that during the Revolution they just stayed on and got title to some of the land.

Flower of the cannonball tree, a very curious tree in the same family as the Brazil nut.
https://www.nybg.org/blogs/plant-talk/2013/01/science/the-cannon-ball-tree/

Palma corcho, Microcycas calocoma, endemic to Cuba

butterfly house at Quinta de los Molinos

Danaus eresimus I think, related to the monarch

Siamese with attitude

We visited the Museo de Artes Decorativos (Museum of Decorative Arts) not far from our place in Vedado.  Somehow this mansion seemed to have escaped division and retains many of its ornate detailing.  Many of the objects on display were found hidden in the basement behind walls.  

The dining room at the Museum of Decorative Arts

Art Noveau stacking tables and chairs

In Old Havana we toured the Ceramics Museum.  It has 2 floors of mostly modern sculptural ceramics that were quite interesting. 

Ceramic "herbarium"

Angel of music at the Ceramics museum

Also the Natural History Museum by Plaza de Armas. It focuses on Evolution and animals and has displays of stuffed Cuban animals.  Apparently during the summer they offer tours of the natural history of the city which would have been interesting I think. 

Giant sloth skeleton

Cuba has many bat species

The Museo de la Revolución is worth a visit if only to take in the Cuban Government’s point of view.  It is located in the former Presidential Palace, never used after the Revolution.  All of the battles leading up to the triumphant march into Havana on Jan. 8^th are discussed in detail as are Cold War incidents like the Bay of Pigs. The CIA is discussed fairly extensively and is blamed for assassinations, distribution of propaganda that resulted in parents sending their children to the US to be adopted by strangers, introduction of swine flu, introduction of crop diseases, and insults.   You can see mementos from all the heroes of the Revolution including Fidel and Ché.  The improvements to education, agriculture and health care post-Revolution are documented from 1959 - 1990.  Cuba’s assistance to other countries like Angola and Venezuela are also discussed. There was no information on the last decade.

Not at the Museum, but the poles are part of the Anti-imperialist plaza in front of the American embassy 

A revolutionary's guitar and Che at the Museum of the Revolution

Fragments of an American plane and the type of missile used to shoot it down

Parque Almendares was somewhat disappointing.  This last remnant of “natural forest” within the city seems to be overrun by vines and heavily used for Santeria practices like sacrificing chickens and burning flowers in circles of chalk.  Apparently Santeria has had a resurgence in popularity and we saw quite a few novices clad all in white. They are supposed to wear only white for the first year of their novitiate.

Vine covered trees at Parque Almendares

Remains of a sacrificial chicken

The forts opposite the bay from Old Havana are imposing, but not so interesting up close.  Maybe a guided tour would have helped.  It cost 10 CUC for a taxi each way too.  They have a cannon firing ceremony every night at 9pm apparently.  You do get nice views of the city from the forts.

Cemeterio de Colon is a huge cemetery filled with a fantastic number of carved marble statues and sarcophagi.  In lesser visited parts of the cemetery workers were shoveling out areas with broken marble pieces.  A number of important people are buried there if you want to see where important people are buried.  We passed through on a long walk to Playa.

Cemeterio Colon