1) Havana, Cuba

After stories from our parents and grandparents Franzi and I were eager to visit the world's last officially communistic country. At the 16th of April we took a flight from Berlin via Paris and arrived at evening in Havana, Cuba. We stayed at Casa Haifa in Havana's quarter Vedado. As it was late, we just took a short walk to the famous promenade "Malecon" and to see, hear and smell the sea :)
The next morning we took a taxi to Havana's old town "Habana Vieja". Visiting Havana is like time-travel. Plenty old cars you might have seen in museums are driving through all Havana, the houses have the typical appearance of colorful Spanish colonial buildings with interior mix from American 60s and Europe's eastern block 80s. A lot of things you know from movies and we know from the old flats of our grandparents.
We walked through the modernized and colorful streets of Habana Vieja around Calle Obispo and Mercaderes to Plaza Vieja. It didn't take long, when the first musicians were posing for a photo with us and were asking for money... but when we were weak to give a few cents to one, each other of the group demanded! the same... as we were to learn throughout our trip, this is Cuba's downside.

Everywhere in Havana: cars up to a century old

Old cars seen at Havana's Malecon

The first Cuban tourist trap we ran into^^

Plaza Vieja

Cathedral de San Cristobal de La Habana

La Bedeguita Del Medio near Calle Bispo

From Habana Vieja we went to Centro Habana and have been surprised by a movie making in front of the Museo de la Revolucion^^ A truck drove towards the museum and hit a sharp break in front of it... soldiers jumped off and started firing towards the building. Luckily all simply film effects :P
The streets of Havana are filled with great impressions. Especially the beautiful Prado, a main street connecting the Malecon with the Capitol. Apart from all the lovely old cars, Prado had the most impressive scenery of colonial buildings. Some new painted and renovated, others almost fallen apart even with trees growing out of it. Interestingly, sometimes you find this scenery within ONE building!

Old cars for the film making at the Museo de la Revolucion

Scenery at the Prado

Old and new facades next to each other.

Next we went on top of the Edificio Barcadi overlooking Havana. One could quickly see that all those colors down there are simply facades, the city looks sadly gray from above.
An amazing building is the Capitol which is a replicate of the Washington Capitol, just slightly larger. With all the setting around it feels like we traveled back in time... we were stunned.

View from Edificio Barcadi

Havana's Capitol

 After a nice Italian lunch (Cubans love Italian food!) we went back to our Casa and took a taxi to the airport as we were to fly to Santiago the Cuba. At the airport we checked in and waited for the flight... and waited when it was announced to be delayed... and were confused when all people were getting chatty and nervous. It turned out that the flight was delayed for 9!! hours. With 3 other Germans we decided to go back to the city and have some dinner and drink there instead of wasting our time at the airport.
A Mojito at the rooftop bar Ambos Mundos, later Italian dinner and Cuba libre near the Cathedral San Cristobal. We drove to the airport again to wait another 3h before we got to know that the flight was now canceled. Without flight and sleeping spot at midnight in Havana... when the clock turned 2 we were really tired. 2 taxi drivers brought us to some shady but clean private housing. A little rip off, but once you are desparate... the next morning (18.04.) we "checked out" by giving money to the cleaning boy. On the street another tourist trap collected us: first nice chatting, then asking us to give him our clothes and then trying to overprice us for a drive to a car rental shop we were advised to go from the owners of our first Casa. Although expensive, we decided to rent a car to be independent from the taxi drivers and other tourist rip offs^^

Cuba libre after Italian dinner