Running without a Map – Havana, Cuba – [12/04/2018]

It’s so easy in this day and age to plan every single moment of your day. We have maps in our phones, and plans in our heads all the time. Every hour laid out with precision levels. Even Amras and I are guilty of that, and honestly, sometimes we have to be; often times we only have a few hours out in port before we have to rush back to the ship and planning becomes essential to get the most out of those few hours. But we didn’t always used to be that way. My phone is international (and therefore expensive) and Amras? Amras didn’t used to have a phone. So, back when we first met our theme usually went something like this:

Where are you guys going today?

I don’t know, we haven’t gotten there yet.

We lost that somewhere, well, didn’t lose it exactly, but life just stalled on being able to accomidate it.

Until we got a long port.

When we walked out in Havana I had a vague idea of the few things I wanted to show him; as I’ve had a couple of calls here already this season. But we were struck by disappointment on front after front when we discovered that the day everything is closed in Havana? Is not Sunday, it’s Monday – and of course, we were here on a Monday. So, no museums or historical fortresses for us. Which led to me being a little more sulky than I should have been, because hey, I had a plan, and it didn’t work, and that’s not particularly my favourite spot to be in.

So instead we just…started wandering.

I had never been further in Havana than about a five block radius from the terminal, because the streets are those beautifully twisty turny kind and it’s relatively easy to get yourself going in the wrong direction. I didn’t ever feel unsafe, but I do have a tendency to get lost. So when I was on my own it was safer to stay close to home so to speak. Anyway, it didn’t take long before we were in uncharted territory for me.

Amras was looking for a central square, I was honestly convinced he wasn’t going to find one – because Old Havana didn’t seem to be laid out that way. I should have known better. After about an hour’s more of walking (and poking through market stalls, and drinking fresh squeezed sugar cane juice – which was beyond yummy – the twisting small streets opened up onto the capitol square. Yeah, I should have known better. Suddenly we were strolling across a vast open cobble-stoned space, lined on one side with horse-drawn carriages, and on the other? On the other with brightly coloured classic cars.

Welcome to Cuba.

I, being ever over eager, wanted to grab the first tour car we saw (which as I recall was red and white), but we ended up waiting, and that turned out to be a really really good decision (more on that later). Instead we sat at a nearby resteraunt and sipped a real Cuban Mojito, and watched all the people go by in the shadow of the Capitol building. It is wonderfully refreshing to sit alongside a main street and not see a single chain store. No plastic souvenir shops, no Del Sol, no diamonds international. This place isn’t catering to us, we just happen to be here.

I’ve wanted to do a classic car tour since I found out we were coming to Havana; and there were a lot of cars to choose from. Most of which were shiney shiney pink and bright blues and such. None of those really caught our eye. We were just about to go and scope out our options, when we found the exact one we were supposed to end up with. A slightly well-worn 1948 Dodge, painted pink and white, driven by a man who had the kindest eyes we’d seen in a long while. Unlike his colleagues he didn’t simply holler out to us, he came up to us, almost immediately, and while his price was a little bit higher than the others…I knew this was the one we wanted.

And did it ever prove to be worth it.

The driver was amazingly friendly, and took us to parts of the city we never could have made it to on our own. And as we cruised down into the residential neighbourhood, he looked over his shoulder and asked if we wanted to stop somewhere for a drink.

And that, is how you end up being the only ones in a French-cuban café, sipping a (very weak) pina colada, listening to the house trio play just for you; singing along with cuban renditions of beetles songs (of all things). As if you were the most important people they’d seen in their whole day.

To us, and all those marvelous adventures we promised we’d have…

And just as suddenly, the trio starts into something we never could have expected; they started playing Stand By Me. If they could have picked any song….any song from anywhere…

If Amras and I have a song, that’s it. Has been for years. It was ‘our’ song before there was an ‘us’ to have a song.

I sat there for a moment in rather stunned silence, and then Amras nudged me and stretched out his hand…

And asked me to dance…

I don’t know how many of my readers have dated musicians, but…band girlfriends (and wives, and fiancés) don’t get danced with. Groupies get danced with, fans get danced with, lonely looking little old ladies in the front row get danced with…but girlfriends? We don’t get danced with. We get everything else, but not dances…

I didn’t need the pina colada to feel light-headed.

By the time our driver dropped us back at central park, it was starting to get dark. And Cuba at night is beautiful, I expected Havana to be a party town, and I’m sure that it is after a certain time of night. But in the early evening? The streets are almost empty, and it almost feels like Europe. All small sidewalk cafes and quiet whispers.

We had dinner in the same café that apparently was once frequented by Ernest Hemingway (and the food there was delicious) and then spent the rest of the night wandering through twisting alleyways, eating hand made ice cream in the shadow of huge cathedrals.

Some days aren’t about the planning, or the souvenirs, or the perfect photographs…some days don’t come with a map…

And so many times…those days? End up being the very very best days of all.