Cuba - my love

The country is a dream, a country of mystery, an island of freedom. What boy has not dreamed of listening to stories to get to Cuba, there are coconuts, swim in the ocean, lying under the palm trees. Wander through the streets of Havana. And these mysterious words, the Malecon, the peso, and of course Che Guevara.

When reading to holes "The Old Man and the Sea", I imagined everything so clearly, as if I was in the boat at the time of moving action. And most importantly - the stories of his grandfather about Cuba, not so much him as memories of his mother. And, of course, the last straw in the balance of love and desire to get to Cuba was for me Wim Wenders' Buena Vista Club ". It was a low blow, I fell in love once and bezpovorotno. And when I was told that the next regatta will have in Cuba, and even two days in Havana before!

Looking ahead, I will say that Cuba is magical and wonderful, I do not know for how anyone, everyone has his own inner world and their requests for me to Cuba proved a fairy tale, a strange, astonishing, mysterious, sometimes a bit scary, tale, which I had read only the preface. Well, let's go ...

The flight we had to transit through Paris. Charles De Gaulle shook its scale, internal subway, bus, infrastructure, nicherta unclear and confusing the truth, but still cool. 5:00 flew as there was no local ekobare by rum.

Remembering the last official work and without losing his love for aviation, I took off a little bit planes

Runways, under which passes the highway, I imagine, what kind of have a passing drivers vzlotkoy any reno, croissant throat stuck exactly when over you 5 meters roars engine Airbus

The flight was 9:00 of a penny, Air France pleased with the excellent food, very exciting to watch the flight in a personal screen, where you can bring a camera nose during taxiing, and during the flight the camera switches to the camera at the bottom, find a great movie about dirt jumping and downhill.

We arrived late at night, after the Kiev -3 to get in the hot and humid night 27 was so imagine climatic impact. I lodge with Olezh, it becomes a key factor in my stay in Havana. The first thing we do is change clothes, no water in the room. The hotel was built in the 49th year of the American Mafia, since, apparently, nothing the hotel did. Immediately decided to go to the coolest club in Havana, what happened then can not be described only as a script for the film "The Hangover."

The coolest club turned out to be similar to the old Soviet cinema, which was removed from the chair and put the tables and chairs, both in the shabby cafe. Although what we expected? Having bought a bottle of rum at once, we have to be like a bowl of jam, which fly wasps, it is not the bees, and wasps. In the club, we remain of our threesome: me, Oleg and Sveta. Light is dancing Latin American dancing for 10 years, what she's doing with the local Cuban makes the jaw drop out not only for us, but also many locals.

The way, the disco is very sluggish, no one is dancing salsa, turning his head, and we can not understand where is the promised holiday? Around us more and more local avid women, they drink with us rum, try us clamped, do what the clues, and I is that I have one goal, another drink and dance, but the girls willingly with us dance, at that time we not yet aware that the tourist harbor, at every step from you want only one thing - the peso.

Not much remember the whole sequence, we are going to leave one of our newly acquired friends said that he was going with us, we her gently hint that this our paths diverge on what the lady says that this is so, then everything is OK, it is not with us rides, but I told her needs 10 Cook because she danced with me. But I'm Jewish Cossacks, on us as climbed, and climbed, I told her I declare that the app know the problems, but there is one "but": I agree with everything, I told her needs 10 Cook because I danced with her she nods pretty, but, I say, "You owe me 10 cookies for what we drank rum" - it was a punch in the stomach, I later called the effect "goldfish". She quietly hatched his eyes and opened and closed his mouth silently, while in a stupor. All right, find ourselves in drevnyuchem broken Moskvich taxi driver with 7 ladies smoked as they were in our taxi, I do not remember. We call the taxi driver the name of our hotel, which is located directly on the oceanfront in the heart of the tourist district. The taxi driver says, "everything is OK" - and goes. After a time, I understand that we obviously did not go there!

We drive the slums, on the clock - 3 am, a taxi for a long time winds through the streets, neighborhoods reminiscent of recently read a film about drug police, working in Rio in the quarter or Favelly blighted area. I starting to sober up. We stop in some absolutely stromnom place in a narrow alley, girls pour peas on the street, chattering among themselves something in Spanish, a taxi driver, cute, smiling, showing us at the door, like a door in a public toilet at the station, and says: "Ok, we come here is your hotel." "Yes, you go!" The women begin to pull out of the cab of Oleg, Oleg, I am taking on the shoulder and say, "YES YOU SHO WE HERE DO NOT LEAVE EVEN at gunpoint!"

The women pile on the ears, pulled by hand, so the circus continues for 20 minutes! I'm shocked hold Oleg that he does not dive into the maelstrom of adventure, while pushing away from you girls who are trying to pull us through the 20 minutes we paid off $ 20 from the women, the taxi driver said that everything is OK, okay, we still go to our hotel. On the way the taxi driver starts some kind of barrel-organ factory, which would have to pay, and said that he drove us a lot and we have 100. e.! I say, "All Braz, come basta, stop the car, I'm calling the police!"

Amazing response, the taxi driver turned to me and with the good-natured smile starts to assure me that it is not necessary no police, it just all mixed up, and we, of course, his best friends and all zashib. We are now at full speed to fly you to your favorite hotel and it will cost just $ 5. Five bucks, not a hundred! Exhausted, we return to the hotel, I with full confidence that it is well here DREAM ... As I was wrong :) The hotel we meet in the lobby of our friends and Lenya Yura Belarusians, with whom I was on a yacht in Croatia, on the desk guys champagne bucket full of mojito ... More generally starts porridge, promenade, taxi, some local, some grater, somewhere to go, come back, again embankment, then somewhere musicians at 4 am! Guitars have we, civil defense, DDT, Makarevich, Room I get somewhere at 6 am, and two and a half hours of sleep ... Morning and gorgeous views from the room. "Well, hello, Cuba!"

Then we bred for not very cheap, even by the standards of Europe, a tour of Havana - a clean divorce is Cuban. We were brought to a tree, large such derevischu, then the Revolution Square, which is - the most dismal place of Cuba, and the main attraction - a shop with rum and cigars, where we spend the hour, being attacked in the street on all sides huckster, pushing the cigar at a price of 10 times lower than in the store.

Vehicles - it's another story, of course already meet and modern machines, even 2 times saw the Audi A4 and the Chinese, but otherwise it's the coolest museum of the American automobile industry under the open sky.

Let a cleaned machine can currently only a taxi driver. At the same local machine similar to the machine, stolen from the landfill. Once I saw the most luxurious Buick, which has replaced the driver's door plywood, thick, bolted to the body with screws through conventional door hinges.

In the store all at once bought a cigar, I have to say, I did not understand, what's the catch, honestly tried, did not like ...

Classic market: cabbage, bananas, pumpkin, carrots, sweet potatoes, yuka and coconut. Fruit papaya, which I did not like creepy, and guava, pineapple, and sometimes, by the way, incredibly delicious

Probably the most photographed car for our entire trip

Fashion local not spoiled

Barker in restaurant

And street musicians, they are everywhere, the repertoire of the same type, but it is beautiful: Guantanamera in all keys, and other national songs

Classic razvodnyak for tourists: "Give me money, I do not, I do not need, give Che Guevara Do not you give Che Guevara?" - "No, I will not"

On the balcony of the hotel where he lived an old man, Ernest, "magical" view of the center of Havana

Probably one of the few grannies that have not asked for money

In spite of its poverty and the complexity of life, people's eyes are burning and they are very good

Guns everywhere around the city hundreds of guns replaced by shops and traffic stops

Local taxi drivers on pathos

All the upholstery - obtyanut oilcloth, so that tourists do not scratch or break. Can you imagine what sitting in the sun on the 30 bags

And here we are at gigs rushing on the waterfront of Havana, a feeling of unreality, I look the part at all this and himself sitting in a red Buick next to the driver as a movie, a bright and colorful, but the movie

Miguel sailed from Mexico to his brother, he is now - the taxi driver

Capitol restoration, it is a replica of the US Capitol, but 5 cm above.

Windows facing the Capitol

The streets of Havana. They are not real, it's - the scenery, it does not happen, this can not be!

Y Miguel cool lotion - unrealistically loud siren: a separate panel with 4 buttons of different colors, each of them - it's a different sound. With very honest view Miguel presses them every 3 minutes

Students

We arrived at the cigar factory "Romeo and Juliet". Tragically, the factory has now closed to visitors

Dima, Alina and Light - my wonderful neighbors on the yacht. Thank you guys for a great company.

cap in the color of the motorcycle, or vice versa

Another neighbor - Victor and his wife Jeanne - our zapadenskie seals, sweet and very kind couple

Malecon, Havana's promenade

Miguel his whole appearance shows that it is above all these tourist poisoning substances and sighs. As it turned out, he was very good-natured fellow, but the work and the car oblige it to maintain the status

Restaurant-bar "La Bodeguita del Medio" - the legendary bar where Hemingway drank mojitos

Salsa Lessons on the street

Again gun

Lesch is establishing contacts with the local police

with the locals

This is the pivot maskers

The first night, Oleg was lost and could not find, was found on some floor maid, a question about the room because of the confusion with the cards and lists he could not remember your number. On the second night, I firmly say at 3 am "everything and go to sleep in a hotel!". At 4 in the morning a knock on the door of room, sleep in the night before just 2, 5 hours now only slept an hour, and leaning with the change of time zones, in general, you can imagine my condition. In the brief open the door to the room, standing on the doorstep in my 3 girls smoked and very aggressively trying to come to me, of all the thundering twitter surzhik Spanish with broken English, I understand only one phrase - "your friend". It comes to me wild surmise - Olezha lost again! I say: "Wang second pliz" and slam the door in front of their noses, find shorts, T-shirt and sneakers, go out into the corridor, no ... Okay, I go down into a zombie and vegetable state simultaneously in the hotel lobby, walk around the entire lobby, walk to the bar , inspect all sofas - nobody awake at the reception girl, trying to explain that my friend got lost again, ask me, from what I number and my name, trying to explain that because of one issue, and on the lists of the other, killing 40 minutes, I spit and go to sleep. In the morning go out to the bar and see Oleg satisfied with the mojito, I'm trying to figure out where he lost again, what Olezha replies that those third were paid and sent as prostitutes to me. I tell his version, and Length of laughter completes our night adventure. I suggested that the next time to send any other sex gifts, or give them a note so I can send them right home.

I did not understand, or stolen, or street repair, here is the order of the

Local day sitting in the yard, just sitting by yourself or sit with someone

in each decent house veranda with chairs or rocking chairs

You go, and at the crossroads of urchat here are crocodiles

The classic car is local

When I rented this car, I was approached by my grandfather and said that this - his second wife, he had spent half his life with this machine and now she does not go, and probably never will go. He has no money is not something to fix it, and even gasoline

Car-icon car legend. Chevrolet Bel Air

Cigars, Cigars,

Pink convertible, along the ocean, is a fairy tale

After that kiss a standard phrase - "Van pesos, senor!" After 10 minutes, half of the men in our part of the smeared bright crimson lipstick

The culmination of getting our caravan of 20 gigs

That is the mercy of the revolution. On the left, a portrait of Che - the building of the Cuban KGB

Continue bit Cienfuegos. There is nothing special to comment, cute provincial town

I sit in the marina waiting Chekina yachts and stuffing provisions on the yacht - not interested. Going to seek adventures, and, of course, find them, find slums, get acquainted with local, I was treated to rum production personnel, are invited to the house, the rum is more like a horrible brew feels degrees in it much more than 60. To say that they live terrible - do not say anything at all thus surprisingly good-natured people. Our communication like a conversation with a deaf-blind, Spanish against my poor English, but alcohol - the best language grease, spent half an hour in the company of these wonderful people, and will not remember their names, I'm leaving. Say, I have come to the boat pretty piled up, I remember vaguely :)

In the last month a man gets 4 right in. e. I did not understand the truth of who he is working. I tried to leave them money, but they did not take a dime

As a child, my father was a motor boat at the boat station. When I walked into this place, I was flooded such memories, because we were the same boxes, which kept the motor, oars for boats and other fishing-tripe.

It was a boat station for the local, so his balaclava

Only dirty ...

With local transport trouble-trouble. So they go as they can, but in such improvised gruzovchikah

What say you, I realized that I did not know Cuba and by 1%. Amazing country, it's just another planet, I fell in love with it, in its people, in its nature, in its flavor. Cuba, I love you! I really want to come here ever more. Wander through the streets of Havana, listen to street musicians, the main thing - you want to see Cuba? Go away from the tourist places, but I'm telling you, it's obvious. Cuba showed me that all our problems are not worth a damn. Amazing country, amazing people. We will definitely see you again!