Cultul lui Che Guevara
Foto: Hotnews
The Aeropuerto International Jose Marti meets us with a wet stink. Instead of welcome, the border officer barks shortly: “Look at me, look at me!”. Europe and its rules were lost on the Charles de Gaulle airport, back in Paris. In Havana, not as a novelty, everyone smokes as a horn. As soon as they step out of the plane, they light up their cigarettes and puff the cheap tobacco in the middle of a swampy air.
A cab takes us in the city for 25 euro, although the price is half of it. Or at least that's what our tourism guides say. The driver, a mustached Métis, wins the argument without any battle. Exhausted as we are, we let him rob us and proceed towards Havana, a trip that leads us straight back in time. We enter a living graveyard: American cars from the '50's, bikes, strange harnesses. A lot of propaganda, a worshiped Che Guevara and political slogans. As wide as the side of an apartments block, Che's face and a message written in red: Ante la amenaza y la agresion, Cuba responde: mas revolucion! But Havana seems to have went deep asleep, destroyed of all the revolution going on.
We descend a few step away from the Habana Libre hotel, on the poorly lit street called Basarrate, parallel to the dike of eternal boardwalks, Malecon. We're greeted by our host, Jeusello. Only one of his two rooms is free. He moves me to a neighbor, also a private house, meaning authorized to receive foreign guests. Across the street, a smoked three-stories building. The room is on ground level, inside a dirty apartment, protected by iron grills, beside the doors.
Casa coloniala din cartierul
Vedado, Havana
Foto: Hotnews
The house has a fermented garbage stink. Two fans stir the stink coming from the dumpster across the street. There are no windows, only wooden shutters. There is no hot wate
