Hola! Hola! Hola!
The locals cried as I aimlessly wandered along the seafront taking photos of classic cars and run-down bars. I had read many times in the months leading up to my trip that the Cubans were a friendly group of people and so they were proving. As it turns out my grasp of Spanish is not as good as I thought and what I perceived to be 'Hola' was in actual fact 'Hole'. A simple error I failed to grasp until I had fallen into the aforementioned hole, which dot the pavements of the Havana waterfront like puddles of sick on a Saturday night in Southend.
Thus my first morning in Cuba was spent in hospital getting my broken ankle put into plaster. Not really. I only wrote the broken ankle bit so that everyone who laughed at the first paragraph (I know who you are) would feel guilty. For those of you who continued laughing (I know who you are too) a pox on your first born.
I spent the rest of the day walking (O.K. hobbling) around Havana Vieja which is the spanish colonial part of the city. In the evening over a delicious lobster and several Mojito's (who's laughing now eh?). I watched the Cuban girls in action and was impressed how easily they were able to part a fool from his money. One particular professional managed to tap into a German punter after dragging him from his stool with the clearly inaccurate promise 'Senor you are such a good dancer' – he wasn't, but was fished in and proceeded to supply her beer, cigarettes and cigars for the next two hours. The highlight was when a young but incredibly ugly fellow hooker approached the bar and I overheard 'You need to buy my mother a cigar'.
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