the Plaza de la Revolucion, not too far from our accommodation. But we weren't allowed up to the Jose Marti memorial (police kept blowing their whistles). There were lots of people setting out chairs and PA equipment, and police/military blowing whistles at everyone who dared approach the monument. I thought it might be a political rally (it's a common location for them) but one of the con-men we met later explained it was the venue for the prize-giving of some international marathon type thing happening in Havana that day.
This is the Che icon we saw at the Plaza de la Revolucion:
We met our very first jintero (I think they're called) shortly after that. Mum had stopped to take a picture of one of those we-love-the-revolution billboards when this guy came up and started chatting to us. We mentioned we liked music so he offered to take us to the Buena Vista Social Club. Now, I'd learnt from Sam Slater's DVD that it's closed these days, but he seemed harmless and I thought maybe he was going to show us the outside of the building or something. So we went with him, a good mile or so, him prattling all the time about Cuba, until we reached a small, shabby house which he claimed was the BVSC. He's a big fat liar!
He led us around the side of the house and up some pokey stairs, which was when we started feeling pretty uncomfortable. But it was fine really. All that happened was that he ordered three drinks for us (guadapo? made from sugar cane anyway) and we got fleeced 15CUC for them. It was the weirdest little place - it had a sign saying bar/restaurant upstairs but there was only space for two to eat. There was the filthiest fish tank you'd ever seen and a load of mangey stuffed birds. Oh, and an extremely Monty Python-esque parrot in a cage.
Anyway, we drank up quickly and paid up, putting it all down to savouring the genuine Cuban experience and resolving not to let anyone take us anywhere again.
We walked out of the house down Calle 23, passing the hordes outside Coppelia's (ice-cream parlour) as we headed towards the sea.
When we reached the Malecon we realised that the Hotel Nacional de Cuba was right beside us so we simply had to take a look. It was funny - the type of people staying there were rather posher than us and having an entirely different type of holiday, but there was something comforting about the international feel of the place, rather like an embassy. We took the opportunity to send a few e-mails while we were there, but the internet connection was painfully slow - gmail gave up, assuming we were dead or something, blogger and gradwell simply wouldn't work, and it took about 5 minutes to send each email from Horde.
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