Havana, Cuba
Our last stop before heading back to the US from Cuba was Havana. It was such an interesting city and I'm so glad I got to experience it as it is right now. The classic cars are just fantastic! I was dying to ride around the city in one of them and we did! Our hotel called one of the tour companies and a guy pulled up in front of our hotel with a 57 yellow and white Dodge convertible. He took us over to surprise our friends Judy and Ed who were going to ride along and Judy's face was priceless when she saw it. The driver told us that his grandfather had won the car in the lottery in 1957 and it had been their family car up until about 5 years ago. At that point the Cuban government started allowing more Visas for tourists to come in and that's when the classic car touring companies started. Most of these photos below I took while we were driving the streets. Each part of city was so different whether it was from before the 50s or after. There is a building for each service of the government since they control everything so a ministry of defense, ministry of construction (which was ironic because it was in total disrepair), education etc. I would love to have seen what Old Havana looked like when it was new. So many different colors, chipping paint, and wrought iron. Everyone leaves their doors open and hangs their laundry on their balconies. I could have walked down each of the different streets photographing people for hours. There were groups of men playing heated games of dominoes on street corners. I looked up, and there were 2 ladies who had bags of rice tied to a rope and were pulling it up the side of the building to the rooftop. We drove through what use to be casinos back in the mob days, a soccer field, and a random art district that had lots of roosters just like Ybor City. There was even a park that had huge ficus trees covered in vines that was so random. The smell of diesel and musical car horns was everywhere. It's just a short 1 hour flight direct to Tampa, I would totally go back!
