Viva Cuba!! Blogpost 3 of 3 . . . Lots And Lots of Walking Around With a Magical Sprinkling of Jazz!

Not much can follow up a fabulous trip to the Cuban countryside. But we found some incredibly photogenic and colorful places to spend our last couple of days in Havana. Not hard to do in such a beautiful and lively city, mind you.

We walked from where we were staying all the way across several neighborhoods to find and peruse a giant cemetery. The Colon Cemetery—Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón—was founded in 1876 in the Vedado neighborhood of Havana. Named for Christopher Columbus, the 140 acre cemetery is noted for its many elaborately sculpted memorials. Wikipedia estimates that the cemetery has more than 500 major mausoleums, chapels, and family vaults. Colon Cemetery is one of the great historical cemeteries of the world, and is held to be the most important in Latin America in historical and architectural terms, second only to La Recoleta in Buenos Aires.

This cemetery reminded me of when I visited Italy in 2008, which seems like many moons ago. Aisles and aisles and aisles of monuments to the deceased. I say aisles, but perhaps rows is a more fitting a term. I tend to be fascinated by old cemeteries. I enjoy things that are broken, especially statuary and religious or spiritual iconography. I like to think of this "brokenness" not as injured or unkept, but more as a measure of time. So much time has passed that this statue's head/arm/leg/wing has fallen off.

I always tend to ponder my own death when I visit sites like this. And these thoughts tend to go either far to the left or far to the right. On one hand, a sculpture would be a nice homage. I am an artist, after all. So it seems rather fitting. But what would this sculpture be of? On the other hand, my goodness! The space that these structures take up is ginormous! Wouldn't the space used for a cemetery be better purposed for something else? Like housing for the homeless or a new school? I do not have a family, so perhaps I am missing that part of the remembrance equation.  

Still. Cemeteries like this are so incredible to visit! Family histories captured for all to see.

In the center of this cemetery sits a small chapel. It was empty when we first arrived, so we sat down for a while and had a lovely time experiencing the space. There was a beautiful painting just behind the altar area and several interesting religious sculptures throughout. I mirrored the image I took of a little pink Jesus statue and made a new image out of it (above). As we were leaving the cemetery, we noticed a funeral or some sort of gathering taking place. Lots of cars and motorbikes showing up and parking on either side of the chapel entrance. Perhaps it was just a Mass.

We continued our self-guided walking tour of Havana by doing a search on foot for two art places that I found online that were either closed or non-existent. This saddened me a lot until we found a cart selling chocolate filled churros. We bought sodas and churros and scarfed them down faster than even I could stop long enough to take a picture. These churros were about 10 inches long and so cinnamon-y good! 

Also, Anjali with an Anjali-sized, hyper-mint green car = important things of note. We both loved this!!

If you have read the past two posts about Cuba, you have probably figured out that I enjoy taking pictures of pattern. There were SO MANY FLOORS AND WALLS AND SURFACES in Cuba that made me giddy with excitement. Pattern for days, people! Florals, plaids, stripes, basket weave, whatever. And each of them just as beautiful as the next one!

I think it was Thursday night that we decided to go to a famous jazz club. It didn't open until 10pm, so we hung out in the neighborhood sharing laughs and foods and drinks. By the time we arrived at the club, a line had formed outside the entrance. We stood in line between a mother/daughter team from Canada and a couple of ladies from California who came to Cuba via Mexico City. It took about 30 minutes for us to cycle through the line. Once we got up to the telephone booth, we went through the doorway and proceeded down a flight of stairs to a dimly lit bar with a very limited number of tables. Our entry was something like $10 and included two free drinks. 

We stayed for the first set, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. If there had been more room in this club, I totally would've danced. This band's music was so infectious and lively and upbeat! Latin jazz should be the soundtrack for life! 

The next morning, we jumped in an egg taxi and went to Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, located--once again--in Old Havana. Such an awesome place to mosey about! 

This museum contains the most comprehensive collection of Cuban art worldwide. I would have more images of what we saw, but I got into lots of trouble on numerous occasions for trying to take pictures. Even Anjali got into trouble for interacting with an interactive piece of artwork. 

After several hours of looking at art, we stopped by Sloppy Joe's for--you guessed it--sloppy joes. Complete with a side of fries and whole olives mixed into the meat, this was an awesome meal. It was our second time at Sloppy Joe's, but our first time having the namesake meal. Turns out, Sloppy Joe's the establishment is a bar dating back to the 30's! Along with Ernest Hemingway, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Ignacio Jacinto Villa y Fernandez "Bola de Nieves", Mario Moreno "Cantinflas", and Jose Antonio Mendez "The King" were all part of the long list of "illustrious visitors" to share a meal or a drink at Sloppy Joe's.

We made our way back to our villa on foot, this time not being rained on. It was beautiful weather, actually, and captured the colors so perfectly! 

We passed this marvelous blue wall, and after Anjali posed in front of it, we both agreed she looked like M.I.A. (See below.) In fact, she might just be M.I.A., and I'm only just now realizing it.

Anyhow . . . After a quick last stop at the wonderful bakery next to our villa, we said goodbye to beautiful Havana. We packed up our things, wrapped up our gifts for friends, and promised this vivacious country that we would be back again soon.

"The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice." - Hemingway

Viva Cuba!! Blogpost 2 of 3 . . . Cars, Cathedrals, and The Countryside!

Pheeeeewwww! Have you guys ever felt unmotivated? I usually have lots and lots of drive and focus and energy. But not so much lately. I had grand visions of having this-here post written and uploaded to the blog the week after the first Cuba post. It is now almost two months later. What?!!!!! (Insert continuous eye rolling here.) 

These last two years have really wiped me out . . . Physically, mentally, and monetarily. I have not gone into the cost breakdown of what I spent repatriating and moving back to the United States. I try not to think about it, generally. But I expect it would be informative to some of you out there, so I might go into it in great detail someday. But today is not that day. Just keep in mind that I repatriated in the same summer that I finished a 4 year MFA program at MICA. This is not an advisable thing to do, so don’t do it. Please and thank you.

I’ve also had a lot of naysayers appear in my life over the last year or so, really since I moved back to the United States. Trying to ignore them or refocus my attention elsewhere has been a challenge. Part of the reason I went to Cuba was because I really just wanted to get away. It was not in the budget, nor did I really have the funds to do it. But I had to get out. And going to Havana helped me to recharge and figure out my next couple of steps (namely going through with another move and embarking on a PhD program at FSU). Lemons out of lemonade, right? Regarding my life and the decisions I make, I try to keep the following two Danielle LaPorte quotes in the back of my head at all times . . .

• Approval is mine to give and no one else's.
• Joy is what happens when you face your soul.

Emotionally, it’s a big adjustment to come back to the United States. I mean, I’ve not even been back in the States for a full year yet. This emotional adjustment is something that is really, really hard to explain to people who have not lived outside of the US. And people who have not experienced this sometimes say the worst things to me in an effort to make me feel better or “snap out of it”. But there is a great sense of loss felt when repatriating, and this great feeling of loss is still very much with me. Perhaps I will write a blogpost about all of these feelings and experiences soon.

Alas . . . Let’s move on to Cuba, shall we? There are so many pictures in this post, guys. So, so many!!! And they are all lovely, so I couldn’t edit out any of them! The light! The color! The energy! Heeeeeeerrrreeee we go!!

By our third or so day in Havana, Anjali and I felt comfortable with the lay of the land and could easily navigate ourselves to and from wherever we needed to go. 

Our mid-week activities consisted of spending a day traveling to and from Old Havana via one of the egg taxis or walking around all over the place. Another day we went to Hemingway’s house, which was gorgeous and a bit out from the city. And on Thursday, we spent the whole day out in Viñales Valley! Hooray for the countryside!

The architecture in Old Havana was brightly colored and gorgeous. And the streets were crowded and tiny. There was never a time where we weren’t eating the most amazing foods and listening to the most incredible music!

I mentioned the old cars in my previous post, but now we were beginning to really see them all over the place. “Honey of a car”, I would say to Anjali every time one passed us.

And at one point, as we walked back to our villa, we found ourselves stuck in a torrential rain storm. If that wasn’t bad enough, as we stood in the pouring rain waiting to cross the street (or catch a cab, whichever came first), a giant wave crashed over the wall that we were standing near and drenched us even further. I found this hilarious. But I had also been drinking mojitos and piña coladas all day. 

The next day, we went to Hemingway’s house. I wasn’t quite sure why this was a thing until I got there. For one, it was out a bit from town. So the drive was interesting and traversed us through all sorts of little neighborhoods. I had the most fun taking pictures out of the cab window. The colors that people were wearing against the colors of the buildings just sort of made my mind explode a little bit. I may have even had drool coming out of my mouth at one point. I just love color so much . . . 

Another thing that fascinated me was that Hemingway’s house was super crowded. There were busloads of people there. None of us were allowed into his house, but could just peek in through the doorways. There were animal heads everywhere. There were bullets and guns laid out on his desk. A newspaper on a bed mentioning his wife’s death. All the rooms neatly arranged. A log of his daily weight written on the wall of his bathroom. There were remarkable paintings in every room, books everywhere, and lush gardens. And the most gorgeous pool area near his boat. We saw it all in person and it was incredible.*

*For those wishing to have a closer look, check out the movie on Netflix called, Papa Hemingway in Cuba. They utilize the house and gardens and it’s truly exactly as it is. And the movie is wonderful!

The next day we went on an adventure out to the countryside. We took a two hour cab ride to Viñales Valley. This day was my most favorite day of our entire week! It was so beautiful and green and filled with the most awesome views.

 

Our first stop in the countryside was at a tobacco farm. We bought gifts for our families and had a funny exchange with a man that ended with us buying 20 cigars for $40 (but really we only got 15 - always count your purchases on the spot). We smelled the inside of a barn that had hundreds of tobacco leaves hanging out to dry. And we watched a man hand roll a cigar. 

The next stop was at this mural painted on the side of a rock hill. It was painted in stripes and was ginormous! If you travel to Cuba, you must visit Mural de la Prehistoria. I’m not even joking, it blew my mind. 

 

After a couple of nonalcoholic Piña Coladas (not by choice, but because we didn’t know we were supposed to use the bottle of rum that was slammed down in front of us to fill our drinks with booze to our liking), we went to a cave. We walked down into the earth and saw lots and lots of stalactites and stalagmites. At the end of our caving experience, we took a little boat trip through water that was collected in the bottom of the cave. This is how we exited our caving experience - it was gorgeous! After purchasing a few more things for family and friends, we headed off for our fourth and final stop in the Cuban countryside.

Our final stop was an overlook that gave us a panoramic view of this beautiful valley that we had been galavanting in all day. I vowed at this moment to come back one day and have a tiny house somewhere on this land, with a little garden. And that’s where I would live until the end of my days.

We arrived back at our AirBNB sometime between 5 and 6pm. By 7pm, we were having another fabulous meal at a new little joint in our neighborhood. It was so yummy! We wanted to go back at some point, but there was no time.

Please stay tuned for my final post about our trip to Cuba, coming up next week. And after that? An awesome interview with my long time acquaintance and art teacher extraordinaire Courtney, and the magical things she does in her art classroom to inspire her littles! Go. Make. Fun.