Walking aimlessly for 10 hours through Havana. Cuban chronicles. Day 1.

We officially started our day at 10 am when Ariel came to prepare breakfast. He's awesome. Everything was delicious. Nothing like throwing ourselves to the streets with our bellys full and thus a happy heart. And our mate. Finally mate.

We started by San José craft market. There's so much to see, and you'll probably want to take it all with you like we did, but we decided not to overload ouselves the first day. Also, the idea of going

back to the apartment and climb three flights of stairs wasn't very attractive.

This is San Jose crafts market. If you want to see it all, you'lll have to take your time. Also, it's the ideal place to buy souvenirs.

We kept walking by the "malecón", well, actually by the bay ( I don't know what's the difference, but for us Uruguayans everything is the boardwalk) until we got to a square that I inicially thought it was Old Square but no, it was San Francisco de Asís Square.

San Francisco de Asís square is one of the four squares in Old Havana. The others are Plaza Vieja, Plaza de Armas and Cathedral Square.

Everything is beautiful, some things are more obviously beautiful than others but still. People look happy, Cuban music playing everywhere, and rum seems to run like water (yeah, pretty much everyone would be happy like this I think). If you've read my previous post you'll see that my first impressions of Havana changed 100%.

In my classic "first day in town" mode, what a nice thing it is to walk around, just because.

Walking down some street, there were two men with a guitar that as soon as they saw we were carrying our mate, they asked "Argentinians?" When we answered we came from its neighbour country, they started reciting somenthing including all sort of data about Uruguay. We suppose they have one for almost every country.

The geography fans street artsits.

After walking around a while longer and taking photos of prety much everything, we stopped for a bite in a little place called "Café Barroco" where we had a budget friendly sandwich and mojito. My first Cuban mojito.

We continued our way to the Cathedral, and a few steps further, "La Bodeguita del Medio". All its walls are signed by whoever steps into the place, I guess I'll have to go back to have my little allowed vandal act. After that we went into a place called "Graphics Experimental Centre". There are mainly prints. So inspiring. There are lots of street artists as well, and when you look at them, it seems that they are just making doodles but they are making awesome drawings actually.

Among mainstream turistic places, I think this is one ofmmy favourites. I never got to sign one of its walls but I keep showing my unique talents to combine my clothes.

We went straight from La Bodeguita to Obispo Street and went into "Café París" for coffee. A band started playing. Of course, the first song was "Chan Chan". If you listen to that song being there and you don't get at least a little bet emotional, go to get checked, I'm pretty sure you've run out of blood. May people get tired after a couple of days of listening "Chan Chan" and "Guantanamera" almost in an infinite loop, I didn't.

Obispo Street and this guy that I don't know where was he going to.

The Floridita and the cocotaxis. This is, no doubt, one of Havana's postcards.

We walked all Obispo's street, it is THE touristic spot of town, too much gringoway for me, and therefore too crowded with tourists. We got to the end of it, where there's the "Floridita", the place where daikiri was created, and where Ernest Hemingway used to spend A LOT of time. We took some photos in the bar and took off. In front of the bar we took a cab, our first convertible, driven by a telecommunications engineer from ETECSA -and taxi driver in his days off- to the other side of Havana, crossing the underwater tunnel.

Our first -and I think only one- tour in a convertible car.

We started walking around and we ran into Juana, that started talking and following us in a rather pushy way until she got to guide us through the area and the woods. We saw a lots of plants like coffee, banana trees and I don't remember what else (sorry, I'm not a plant person). We also saw the Havana Christ -made by petition of Batista's wife-, we saw the city at sunset from the other side of the channel and we got to the fortress. It's huge, walking there made me think about how would it be in colonial times.

The Christ looking in direction to the city.

The green time of the day.

The city seen from across the channel.

We went into a Museum inside the fortress about Che Guevara and the Revolution. The fact of having in front of me so many objects that made history -no matter what side of it you stand on- moved somenthing in me.

Right before going in, the sun went down behind the fortress.

After that, we had to wait for the ceremony known as "el cañonazo", that starts at 8 pm and finishes at 9 pm with a canon gunshot and that was the main reason for us to be there. This gunshot used to be the curfew in colonial times. A bunch of guys from the army appeared dressed as colonial times soldiers including hats, socks and white wigs. Everything. The funniest thing happened when we were walking around the fortress and went by the place they were changing in...and it had no doors! However, I didn't see anything, I swear. So, the ceremony took place and the gunshot left me deaf.

The ceremony at the fortress.

After all that, we were already exhausted -by that time we had been walking arond for like 10 hours-, so we rushed to take a taxi back to Old Havana. We stopped at San Francisco Square and kept walking looking for a place to eat, which ed us to a great discovery food-wise. We went into a place in front of Plaza Vieja called "La Vitrola" (I recommend it 100%, I had the best food of the trip there). The best thing about this place was not only the variety of food (they even had an Uruguayan bistec in their menu which I think would be a sort of Uruguayan typical "chivito") but a band that was playing that night. It's singer! She had such a powerful voice! Sort of Celia Cruz'style, but even more powerful. This band, as almost every other band that plays in restaurants and bars, was selling their albums to the people there. That night I was tired and I didn't want to start spending money in silly things, so I didn't buy anything. I regretted it so hard that I searched for this band while walking around town the following three nights with no luck. Spoiler alert: the magic of this trip gave me another chance later.

This is La Vitrola, with its vintage decorations, its good food and its even better music.

2 cuba libres, a shower and finally the bed.

Note: Cuba libre is not water.

*You can read the original post here.