In my perfect aviation world, all flights will leave and arrive on time, air pockets and thunderstorms will always occur in some other faraway airspace, and equipment will be cutting edge. Nothing less. Ever.
So, settling into my late evening domestic flight across Cuba, there is little that prepares me for the antiquated equipment. The flight attendant runs up and down the aisle, pausing to whack the sagging seatbacks into position (there are many—and as soon as she leaves they flop back into a fully reclined position). There are no television monitors, and the orange life jacket in the safety demonstration looks like a prop piece salvaged from Gilligan’s Island.
“Okay,” I whisper to myself, swallowing hard. “Perhaps the Cubans perform the same maintenance magic on their planes as they do on their cars.” A Cuban friend had boasted that Cuban ingenuity—born out of necessity—combined two world powers when it came to keeping all those old classics on the road. “American bodies with Lada engines,” was his summation.
Much of the crescent-shaped island is like this—equipment from a different decade, struggling to keep pace with a maintenance schedule that is hampered by a lack of funds and a disconnect from many of the efficiencies available through the North American market.
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The exception seems to be the capital city of Havana. Cash strapped Cuba pours resources into the restoration of one of the great historical cities of the New World—Habana Vieja (Old Havana—a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site) is a living museum of cobbled streets and squares housing some of the finest Spanish colonial buildings in the Americas.
With the gift of a leisurely schedule, the winding streets and leafy plazas of Old Havana deserve three to four days. But pressed for time, my strategy was to concentrate on the main city squares.
“There are four important squares in the old part of the city,” explains Carlos Mestre, a former English teacher who has reinvented himself as a tour guide. We hop out of our cab at Plaza de Armas, arguably the most significant of the foursome, and one that dates back to the early 1500s, when Havana’s sheltered harbour was prized as the key to exploration of the New World. Plaza de Armas was the administrative heart of the new settlement.
The centre of the plaza is Parque Cespedes, named after Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, a nineteenth century sugar planter who took the unprecedented step of freeing his slaves and declaring open revolt against the ruling Spanish forces. He is revered as the “Father of our Country” by all Cubans, a people who are united in the knowledge of and passion for their history.
At the north end of the square is a stately palace, originally built to house a succession of Spanish governors. “This is a very important building,” explains Mestre. “In 1899 they carried out the transfer of government from the Spanish to the Americans in this building. Then it was a presidential palace and the town hall for the municipality of Havana. Now it is the museum of Havana.” It is in the museum that a series of Cuban ‘firsts’ are on display: the first national flag of Cuba, the first Cuban peso.
Over one of three buildings in the World Heritage Site is of historic importance, with more than half of the 900 dating to the 1800s.
In the spacious Plaza de San Francisco—facing the waterfront where Spanish galleons once unloaded slaves and commodities—there are two markers of different eras tracing the power once held by the capital city.
“This large building is the House of Commerce,” points out Mestre. “And this large fountain is The Fountain of the Lions. It’s another symbol of Havana—the lions stand for both strength and fear.”
