Martha and I are great travel partners. I respect her travel experience. We both enjoy walking a lot and taking a lot of pictures. We also seemed to be in sync with when to fold and take a cab.
Our tour guide at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes told us about a John Lennon statue. What piqued both of our interests was the little old man who pops out when the tourists show up to put glasses on the statue. The story goes the statue's glasses have already been stolen five time. We came from the side and did not see the old man, or the glasses, but we posed for pictures anyway. I am not willing to admit how far we walked. I enjoyed the walk as it took us past some embassies and parts of Havana we would not have otherwise seen including this group. That was the oddest outfit we saw on our trip.
The park is at CR 17 and 6. The streets in one direction are odd numbered, and are even numbered in the other direction once they go through the entire alphabet and cross over a couple of streets not facing the regular naming convention. In other words, it was a long walk.
These are the street signs. How are you supposed to see them while driving?
Love the countdown. There was a countdown both for crossing and when it would be safe to cross again.
It is always fun to have a successful quest. At that point, thoughh the walk back seemed daunting. We knew we had taken the long way and wanted to take a more direct way back. The problem was our two-sided map did not seem to line up. We started walking in the right direction planning to get a cab. Of course you can never find a cab when you want to. A Fiat passed us and offered a ride. Umm... we wanted something prettier (like I said, Martha and I were both on the same wavelength).
Then a man started talking to us in a British accent. Like a dummy I answered him and he engaged us in far too long a conversation without finally going in for the ask -- could we give him 5 CUC so he could buy a wifi card so he could contact his friends in the UK. This was after he had already offered to take us out clubbing that night (I had read the worst that tends to happen in these situations is you end up buying a round of drinks for the entire bar). Martha and I have been around the block enough to keep walking and not accept his offers. Fortunately it was daylight and we were on an extremely busy (by Havana standards) street and did not worry about our personal safety.
Once we ditched him by explaining if we had any money, we would be taking a cab and not walking around Havana, we returned to our quest for a ride in a cool classic car. When this beauty asked us if we wanted a ride we said YES! We even waited for him to make a U-turn and meet us on the other side of the street. I'm sure we could have negotiated a better rate, but we were happy to pay 10 CUC ($10) to get back to the hotel in a convertible. Though the day was overcast, it still felt like a day meant for tooling around town in a convertible.
A few more pictures from our walk:
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| Movies are huge business in Cuba. This movie theater was packed. |
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| Next to the John Lennon statue |
All pictures can be found HERE
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