The Gulf Stream dashes against the Melacone Breakwater, as Havana speads out to the West. From a distance, the city looks modern, prosperous; it's only up close one sees times are not what they sppear.
- Chapter 9 -
A Walk Through Central Havana
February 28, 1999
It’s Sunday. No meetings today. Victor is home with his family. Anna and I are to move into the Hotel Nacional later today to continue our accommodations research. I have a free morning to explore Central Havana.
After exiting the Park Central lobby, I make a right turn onto the Prado, a two-lane boulevard that features a tree-lined, elegantly tiled esplanade in the middle, which leads to the harbor entrance. I’m off to see the sea.
The street is lined with some of Havana’s grander apartment buildings and even grander hotels, all fixed up for the foreign tourist trade. The Sevilla is a ten-story Moorish Revival-style tower. The National Ballet School and the Hotel Mystique are located next door. The Iberostar Grand Packard is next. The dilapidated Old Havana of yesterday has receded; here Cuba shows off its best: families stroll the Prado returning from Sunday morning Mass, young couples snuggling on benches, kids whiz past on homemade skateboards, old men dressed in their Sunday best walk with canes.
The Prado ends, or begins, depending on your frame of mind, at the small tree-covered Enamorados Park with a dozen statues. There’s a dry fountain, the remains of an ancient prison, and a few intersecting walkways. Here, five streets converge into a large traffic circle, merging with Malecón and the Harbor Ring Road. There’s an entrance to a tunnel that leads under the harbor channel to come up on the other side, by the El Morro fortress. I dodge the highway traffic and cross to the Castillo de La Punta, a small fort guarding the western entrance to the inner harbor. Now that its guard duty is over, it serves as a monument, museum, and park. Across the channel is a much larger fortress, El Moro, with its towering lighthouse perched on a cliff. In Havana’s Spanish past, when pirates attacked Havana with frustrating regularity, the governor had a massive chain rigged across the entrance to the harbor channel, and every night, the sound of a cannon at sunset announced the raising of the chain to prevent pirates from sailing into the harbor and pillaging the town. Each evening, the cannon continues to fire, but the chain has long since vanished. I watch an old Cuban fisherman on the wall by the fort, a pail by his feet, casting his long fishing pole so the line reaches out past the waves that break on the riprap along the shore. I used to watch my father cast a line like that from the floating dock below our lakefront lodge, where I grew up. For my dad, it was a form of meditation. I imagine it serves the same purpose for this man from Cuba. Hope with each cast.
With Anna here, I have someone to talk to and bounce ideas off. Often, I am surprised by what I say out loud, as it's something I wouldn't have considered when writing. It just tumbles out. Much of it is foolish and possibly offensive, but at times, I hear the voice of a genius. However, these infrequent flashes of brilliance disappear faster than I can capture them. The same thing happens when I’m delivering a lecture. Out pops an observation, a connection I’d not expressed before in just that way. I've now started recording my lectures on tape to ensure I have them.
The Malecón is a wide boulevard with a sidewalk running along the chest-high wall that separates Havana from the sea. It begins here at the harbor entrance and ends in Marimar, where we were on Friday. People gather at this breakwater wall in the evenings to socialize, gaze out at the sea, and enjoy the breeze. It is said you can tell what’s on a Cuban's mind here along the Malecón. Leaning with their backs to the seawall and facing the city, they are content here in Cuba. If they are leaning on their arms along the seawall, looking north and out to sea, they are dreaming of America and a better life.
I was beginning to get the feel of this place.
In the afternoon, Annie and I move to the Nacional Hotel—part of our hotel inspection ploy. This is one of Havana’s grand hotels. Built in the 30s, this five-story high-rise has nearly 500 rooms. It sits atop a cliff overlooking the Malecón and the sea. We passed it Friday on our way out to the marina. The entrance is up a palm-lined avenue, where you are greeted by an ornately uniformed doorman. The hotel is shaped like a massive "H," with the ground floor housing the large lobby at its center. It’s been home to famous people for 70 years—movie stars, politicians, heads of state, and mob bosses. I've heard that the bar at the Nacional serves the best mojitos in Havana, but I have yet to complete my research.
We moved into our respective rooms, with me on the 3rd floor, overlooking the parking lot, and Anna on the 4th floor, overlooking the sea. There was little to do, so we both headed for the pool.
After a rigorous swim, I stretch out on a lounge to catch the late afternoon sun. I drift off into a dreamy world. I could be on my boat, anchored off Pigeon Beach in Antigua, except for the kids screaming and splashing in the nearby pool.
Anna and I share dinner in the hotel’s main dining room. It’s a buffet; all you can eat for $25 US each. We fill our plates with what looks sumptuous; when we dig in, we find it's little better than a cheap cruise ship cafeteria fare. My glass of white wine is quite small.
After dinner, I feel a strong urge to write. I need to write down the observations and dreams that have been swirling around in my mind today.
The Hotel Nacional de Cuba