Log in
Join travelers community
Your Profile
Logout
Cuba, the Caribbean Islands,
and Central America in 2001
Cuba (Havana)
Bec2004-09-17 16:21:17
Displayed times (last time: )
Havana
This is Hotel Nacional where I spent one night in 1975 as part of a week sun and sea vacation package at Varadero beach. It was world class tourism, we were herded onto a sightseeing bus in Varadero, whizzed through Havana's landmarks, brought to the famous Copacabana show and bedded here for the night before the flight back to Montreal.
This trip was different, I met real people like Sara, her two sons and her mother as well as her sister, relatives and some of her colleagues at Infomed, Cuba's medical IT network. It made all the difference in the world of course.
Most visitors leave Cuba with strong favourable or unfavourable impressions but all agree on the friendliness, hospitality and human qualities of the Cuban people.
It is hard to be objective about Cuba. Reality in Cuba is not all black or white as some rednecks would have it. Nor is it a dull grey, there is a broad range of brilliant white, greys and some black. It has to be experienced first hand for each will see only what his or her bias will allow.
Most visitors will agree that Havana, which is somewhat run down now, must have been quite beautiful forty years ago.
I have tried to express what my own biases have allowed me to see in a separate page titled Impressions of Cuba. I don't expect you to agree. Few of those who know Cuba first hand will agree on much more than to say the Cubans are amongst the friendliest people on earth. Go and see for yourself if you have not been there yet.
Havana was no doubt beautiful forty years ago but it was also very powerful four centuries ago when it controlled the shipping of booty to Spain from its American colonies.
The fort shown here and in the preceding photo, the "Castillo de los Tres Santos Reyes de Morro" called "El Morro" for short, was erected from 1589 to 1630 to protect the entrance to the harbour where galleons assembled for the twice
...
See photographs from:
Cuba Gallery
