The older portions of Havana are built on a system of squares. We hopped off the bus at the Malecon and into a small one-block-long historically dedicated street. In 1946 this area was dedicated to a barber Juan Evangelista Valdés Veitía (1836-1918). Veitía worked to help move children from a potential life of crime that is endemic to poverty and into the “Art of Cutting”. There are galleries and street art to celebrate the concept.
Meandering the streets we next found ourselves in Cathedral Square, originally called Swamp Square due to the subterranean springs.
Cathedral of Havana
The Cathedral, built throughout the 1760s consists of a baroque exterior with a classic interior.
The doors of the cathedral
A few more blocks and we were in the Main Square. The square, filled with old-book and trinket vendors surrounds a statue of Céspedes by Cuban artist Sergio López Musa erected in 1955.
One one corner is El Templete finished in 1828 as a remembrance of the founding of the town. This Greco-Roman gem was designed by Antonio María del Torme. The tree is a silk-cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra). Every year, on November 16th, pilgrims come, circle the tree three times and make a wish.
We finished our walk in La Plaza de San Francisco de Assis. Surrounded by classical buildings the square is anchored by the Stock Exchange. Built in 1909 it is topped with a replica sculpture the Roman god of trade, Mercury, originally sculpted by Jean de Boulogne that now resides in the Bargello Museum in Florence.
El Caballero de París – José Maria López Lledín (1920s-1977) dressed in black, wandered Havana, some saying, completely insane. Sculpted by José Villa Soberón 2001. You can read more about this sculpture and El Caballero at ArtandArchitecture-SF.
Fountain of the Lions – carved by Giuseppe Gaggini in 1836 out of Carrera Marble.
Lunch was at an eclectic restaurant with the absolute best pumpkin soup, La California.
It was Nancy and Andy’s wedding anniversary, cake, songs and not a dry eye in the house.
The afternoon was special in so many ways. We pulled up to the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Center and were greeted by Angel Graña Gonzalez. The museum was hot and muggy and had all the feelings of a long and boring visit, little did any of us know what was in store.
Nunes Jimenez Center
The purpose of the center is to work towards a culture of nature, with the objective of creating harmony between society and its environment.
Jiménez began writing as a young boy, and in the 1950s he wrote Geography of Cuba. It was a heartfelt and open account of the social and political situation of the time. In 1953, when Batista discovered his own children reading it he had all the copies of the book confiscated and burned and the lead types melted down for bullets.
“It was my first geography text. I had intensively lived all the things I said in the book, all that terrible reality of peasant life. They were truths I had seen, that I had felt. I had lived alongside those human beings, alongside millions of hungry, mistreated, indigent, parasitic, tubercular peasants… So there’s no doubt that the geography book was destroyed essentially because of the defence I was making in it of our peasants.” 1959. La liberación de las islas.
Author of over 90 books and ambassador to Peru in 1972, Jiménez was appointed Vice Minister of Culture by Castro and carried out the first Agrarian Reform.
The first two rooms of the center are displayed with the life of this man, and he threw out nothing. One could spend hours and hours just looking at books and memorabilia.
The third room however, is where things got interesting. In the center is a canoe called the Hatuey.
Hatuey was a Taino Indian who lived in the early 16th century, his legendary status comes from fighting against the Spaniards becoming the first fighter of the New World and is “Cuba’s First National Hero”.
The canoe is surrounded by headdresses, weapons, numerous ceramic figures in positions of the Latin American Kamasutra, but the Hatuey is the focal point. This canoe was one of five that, in 1987, began in Quito and traveled 17,422 kilometers through 20 countries. The objective, of this one year expedition, was to study the prehistoric tribes of the basins of the Caribbean and the Orinoco. This meant a canoe trip down the waters of Napo, The Amazons, Negro Guainia, Casiquiare, Atabapo, Temi, the Orinoco and the Caribbean Sea, plus their tributaries.
As you peered into the canoe there were some belongings of our unassuming, gracious guide Señor Angel Graña Gonzalez. A man that had spent the last hour praising Jiménez and his feats, not once letting on that his were equally amazing. There were only 12 men that completed the entire expedition, six of them were Cuban.
Our Itinerary:
Walk through historic squares to speak and visit with the locals
Visit a local project, Artes Cortes, to see the school senior center and playground
Lunch in a local paladar
Afternoon visit to the local market
Dinner and show at Buena Vista Social Club (see separate post)
– This was the schedule that was most modified, something that happens regularly in Cuba.
The bar at La California
Book sellers in the Main Plaza
Yes I paid him to pose, but it was worth it.