Vive la revolution: Havana is a vibrant city of distractions
From chic private kitchens to pre-revolutionary redux, and even marriage proposals, Raul Castro's Havana is full of surprises. Words and pictures by Christopher Baker.
I stare out the window of my friend's house in the once middle-class Vedado neighbourhood of Havana. A rusted 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air wheezes past, trailed by a beaten-up Soviet-era Lada taxi rattling over the potholes. The air smells sweetly of mimosa and, vaguely, of mildew. Jalousies creak on rusted hinges, as a cooling breeze sweeps in from the sea.
"I want to live here," I sigh.
"Why not marry Jessica?" says my friend, Mari, speaking of her teenage daughter. She doesn't appear to be joking. Cuba constantly delivers such curveballs. Whenever I'm in Havana, I feel like I'm living inside a romantic novel or a Hollywood thriller.
Mari's shocker sends me in search of a drink. I head to the nearby Hotel Nacional de Cuba for a mojito and cigar (like Che Guevara, I'm partial to Montecristos) on the terrace, where a five-piece band spices things up with sexy salsa. The landmark 1930s grand dame is still the preferred hotel for visiting bigwigs - Lucky Luciano famously held a mobster summit here in 1946, ostensibly to honour an up-and-coming singer named Frank Sinatra.
Gato Tuerto is down the hill, on Calle O, so I call in for some late night musica filin ("feeling" - meaning romantic - music). This tiny 50s supper club has been spruced up for tourists, but patrons are mostly Cubans and expats, and it still feels as though Sinatra and his Rat Pack might saunter in. The lights go down whenever someone orders an Orgasmo, the flambé house cocktail.