HAVANA, Cuba – A bustling, high-energy city, Havana also is a throwback to an earlier era, where 60-year-old U.S. cars share the road with horse-drawn carriages, modern diesel buses and Coco Taxis.
The 500-year-old city of 2.2 million people has an abundance of historic architecture, but some of it is crumbling from years of neglect.
Seventeen northeast Duval residents and relatives recently spent 24 hours in Havana as part of a six-day Royal Caribbean cruise aboard the Empress of the Seas that included stops in Costa Maya and Cozumel, Mexico.
The ship with about 1,800 passengers was sold out as Cuban cruises are becoming more popular. Next year, Royal Caribbean plans to add more Cuban cities to its cruise itinerary.
Last year, the Trump Administration tightened the rules on Cuban visits. Visitors need a Cuban visa and independent travel is restricted. Booking a shore excursion through the ship meets the visa requirements and passengers are able to explore the city before or after the excursion.
Despite the visa rules, the cruises can offer a means of reuniting Cuban emigres with their families. A woman aboard our cruise left Cuba at age 5 and planned to visit relatives for the first time in decades.
On the night of our arrival, we visited the Tropicana nightclub for a two-hour show with an orchestra and more than 100 dancers with frequent changes of elaborate costumes and intricate dance routines.
Dancers in one performance wore hats of lighted lamp shades.
Most dancers performed on a center stage, but others were on stairways or balconies in front of a Tropicana sign. Some walked through the audience, dancing in the aisles.
Entirely in Spanish, the performances had several themes, including one about slavery where a woman is kidnapped and rescued by a spear-wielding dancer.
The outdoor nightclub provided cigars to men and flowers to women at the door. On each table were courtesy bottles of rum and Coke for making Cuban Libres.
Our tour guide told us the dancers are paid $15 to $20 a night, which is higher than most Cuban wages.
Visiting Cuba presents challenges that don’t exist on other Caribbean islands.
Credit cards are not accepted. Most merchants reluctantly accept U.S. currency, but it’s easy to exchange it for Cuban Convertible Currency (CUC). One CUC equals a dollar, but there is a 13 percent conversion fee. The Cuban peso, worth far less than the dollar, is the national currency used by Cuban residents.
Tourists undergo medical screening for body temperature upon arrival. A person with a fever can be refused admission.
Internet access in Havana is limited and we saw dozens of people with their phones and other devices clustered at a few hotspots along the street.
U.S. tourists now are allowed to bring back up to 100 cigars and a limited supply of rum or other alcohol for personal use.
Cubans are friendly and helpful to U.S. tourists and do not discuss politics. Crime is rare in Havana due to an overwhelming presence of police officers, many in plain clothes.
The only place we found politics was at the Plaza de la Revolución, a city square with a large, flat paved area where Fidel Castro often held rallies, sometimes addressing up to a million Cubans. The plaza has images of Fidel on buildings, political signs and a memorial to national hero José Martí.
The ship had several tours related to author Ernest Hemingway, who spent the last part of his career in Cuba. He wrote “The Old Man and the Sea” and other works there before he died of a shotgun wound to his head on July 2, 1961. His death is widely viewed as a suicide, although his wife said it was an accident while cleaning his gun. Hemingway’s house and the original Sloppy Joe’s bar are in Havana.
We booked a tour of Hemingway’s house, but it was canceled so we opted for a hop-on, hop-off bus and a wild ride in a Coco Taxi.
The hop-on, hop-off bus cost $10 per person and made a loop around the city. We wound through several Cuban neighborhoods, passing the capitol building, the American Embassy, the Plaza de la Revolución and other points of interest.
Coco Taxis are another way to get around Havana. Seating up to three passengers, they are three-wheeled motor scooters with a hard enclosure on the back that resembles a coconut.
Our driver told us she rents the cab from the government and must pay for maintenance and fuel out of the fares.
City tours also are offered in antique automobile cabs or horse-drawn carriages.
One taxi was a pink, 1957 Chevrolet convertible. Pop open the hood, however, and you’d find a modern Hyundai diesel engine. Not only were Cubans unable to import U.S. cars since the late 1950s, but they also could not get parts. They found alternatives, including boat motors, to power their vehicles.
While the island remains under Communist Party control, capitalism is creeping into the economy.
The government now allows a limited number of small businesses, such as bars, restaurants and souvenir stands. Most people, however, receive modest monthly government salaries, but free housing, medical care and other amenities.
Before returning to the ship on the second day, we stopped at a nearby floating restaurant. We ate battered shrimp, drank beer and listened to a four-piece Cuban band.
The guitar player had only three of six nylon strings on his instrument. Maybe those parts were hard to get, too.
