Tasting the real Havana

An old man is sitting quietly on the steps, looking me up and down as I reach for my guidebook.

At the sight of my book, he is suddenly spurred into action. ‘One peso…one peso for photo, with me, famous Cuban’ he says.

‘Err, no thanks, I’m okay’ I reply.

As he becomes more animated, I have a momentary sense of deja vu. His face, his beady eyes, grizzly beard and communist beret are strangely familiar.

I close my guidebook and then I realise, this old man on the steps is the same guy gracing the cover of my guidebook!

‘Ah’, says the ageing poster, now smiling, ‘two peso, I sign book’… I must be in tourist territory!

I’m on one of the main roads in Havana Veija, Havana’s old historical centre, a patchwork of brightly-coloured colonial facades set among impressive cathedrals, castillos and town squares.

There is an almost theme park quality to the place and it’s crammed with tourists. Everything you’ve ever associated with Cuba you can get here; rum, cigars, mojitos, salsa, vintage cars, even revolutionary leaders - Che Guevara t-shirts anyone?

But of course, this is a sanitized Havana, minus the poverty, dirt and grime. Stray, ever so slightly, off the prescribed tourist path and what you’ll find is a completely different city.

As I venture down a back street, metres away from the tourist clad Museo de la Revolution in downtown Centro Havana, I enter a different world. No brightly coloured facades around here, just crumbling buildings held together by dirt and depravation.

Graffiti in the street pays homage to revolutionary leader Fidel Castro

who retired in February 2008 after 49 years as the President of Cuba.

Layers of washing hang from lines strung out of windows. Women gossip across balconies as children play baseball in the street below. A man lies beneath his car, a little Russian Lada, wrestling with a mechanical problem. A cyclist zooms past, a double bass strapped to his back.

One man has set up a barbershop on the street outside his house. Down the road another resident is also open for business - a table and chair - repairing watches and shoes.

A police car cruises past, its occupants turning a blind eye to these small and illegal outposts of entrepreneurial businesses. I get an odd look from the police.

‘You American?’ a middle-aged man in a baseball cap asks me as I turn to look back down the street. ‘No, no’, I hastily reply. ‘Ah’, he smiles, ‘good, we not like Americans here’. He flashes me a cheeky grin.

‘Hungry?’ he asks as he leads me to a house a few doors down. I am a little apprehensive but pleasantly surprised to find a miniature restaurant set up in the back courtyard, illegal of course.

After polishing off my meal, well a good quarter of it, I take a stroll along the Malecon, Havana’s famous boardwalk where the city meets the sea.

Deserted during the day, life slowly seeps back along the Malecon as families, friends and lovers emerge to stroll the strip and watch the sun set behind the sea.

As it gets darker more and more people gather to meet and drink in the cool breeze. Young girls in short skirts and big hoop earrings, flirt and giggle with boys swigging drinks and swaying their hips to the music.

A few entrepreneurial types walk from group to group, selling peso pizzas as couples canoodle, positioning themselves away from prying eyes.

By midnight this five-kilometre stretch of concrete is a sea of people and music. The Malecon, I’ve discovered, has the lot, cigars, rum, sea and salsa. The only thing missing is the tourists.

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