The National Revolutionary Police guard outside the stately hotel was busy chatting up a jintera, an African girl, no more than 16, dressed in a purple loincloth and a string vest. It was obvious what business she was in - and it was not security-related.
There were no street lights in the old quarter. Here and there figures loitered along the crumbling colonnaded arcades listening to crackly salsa tapes.
'It's not safe to go out now,' warned the receptionist.
This was Havana post-midnight, post-revolution, post-Robert Redford's film of the same name.
Not just Havana, La Habana to be exact.
In the daytime, the girls wander the narrow alleyways between sadly declining mansions dressed in mini-skirts and low strapless tops, their hair in rollers made of toilet roll cartons. They smile, congregating on street corners dancing to a Toni Braxton tape - an illegal import.