We left the hotel at 9:30am and drove about 30 minutes to visit Hemingway's House. The house was preserved from when he left it in the 1961. We were not able to go into the house, but all windows and doors were open and you had a clear view of every room in the house. We saw some of his old typewriters, and also the massive amount of books he had collected.
After a visit to the house, we went to the local Organic Farm and learned about how most of the food in Cuba is organic. The women, Isis, that gave us the tour explained to us that one of the many challenges to living in Cuba is the lack of access to tools. She kept referring to Home Depot and how nice it would be to have one there. She said that although they have the money to buy the tools, the tools that would make their job easier are not available in Cuba.
We had a fantastic lunch at Cafe Ajiaco - all organic and the Mojitos were excellent. Quite possibly the best yet, and we have had a lot of mojitos this trip! After lunch we drove back to Havana and went cigar shopping. Rosie took us to a local shop that was right next to the factory and we purchased cigars. At this point it was mid afternoon and we were free for the remainder of the day.
We made a quick stop at our hotel to run our cigars up to our room, and then Tony dropped us off in Old Havana and we spent the rest of the day (our final day in Havana) exploring.
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| So many classic cars! |
We did a mini Hemingway pub crawl; our first stop was the rooftop bar at Hotel Ambos Mundos (which is where Hemingway stayed - room 511), and we had the best pina coladas we have ever had. They were served in coconuts and were absolutely amazing.
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| Andy asking for more rum! |
Our next stop was La Bodeguita del Medio, one of Hemingway's favorite bars and we purchased delicious mojitos.
Our final Hemingway pub crawl stop was La Floridita where we had some amazing (and STRONG) daiquiris. At this final bar we enjoyed some live music, and were entertained by Ryan (a Puerto Rican who was on our tour who loved to sing and dance!) as he enjoyed the music.
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| La Floridita ~ Hemingway Bar |
For dinner, we went to a restaurant that Rosie recommended with three other members of our tour group. La Terraza Restaurante was amazing. It was a rooftop terrace restaurant, and the food was fantastic. Andy enjoyed a pork shish-kabob that was huge. We had never seen a skewer as long as this one! Brit wasn't daring and she stuck with the white rice and black beans, but they were good too.
After dinner we took a long walk through some of the local neighborhoods and along the coastline to get to our final stop of the day, a very well known Jazz Bar La Zorra y el Cuervo.
On our walk we walked down some local streets that if we were in the US we would never have walked down at night. It was very run down, and in the US we would have thought that it was very unsafe. Here in Cuba there were little kids running around, and families sitting outside of their houses. Cuba is a very safe country, there is very little crime even in the most impoverished areas of the city.
We had to wait in line at the popular jazz club.
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| The club entrance is the phone booth. |
At first we were unsure if we would be able to get in but thankfully we made the cut and were seated just prior to the young band taking the stage. We stayed listening to music for about 45 minutes before calling it a night. We left with Ryan and he helped us get a ride back to the hotel. The 5 of us crammed into a small car and it was quite humorous, we arrived home safely and were in for the night by 11:30pm. We had a very long and productive day exploring the city of Havana!
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