March 7

I am so excited!!!, My artist friend is taking me back to Canada with her! She could not leave me behind!, but I will have to ride incognito in her luggage.

She took a few photos of the journey home and showed them to me later.  The drive to Varadero and the flight out.

 a checker cab

 the shore from the plane, goodbye dear CUBA, 

 The Florida Keys

 Sunset over Canada

Landing In Toronto

We had a few hours layover, after passing customs, I am officially a Canadian Citizen now! It was dark when we landed in my companions home city, so I just crashed with anticipation of my new life, This will be be my retirement home as I do not have the longevity of Human years.

OH NO! I have been captured by  the Beasty of my nightmares...........RESCUED and introduced to my new companions 

My new best BUD,  the NON insect consuming type.

Thank you for joining me on my journey to a new life.   I have discovered the the English word for Esperanza is HOPE

March 6

Our last day together in Havana, I fear I shall never see my friend again, but oh what a time we have had.  She let me sleep in while she did an early morning run along the Malicon

sunrise on the Havana Harbour

We procured an old police car as a taxi to take the tunnel under the Harbour to Castille de Morrow

Traffic Tunnel to Old Havana

In the late fifties Cuban dictator Batista planned to expand the city to the East, by building a new modern suburb with large avenues, palm trees and luxury buildings. A new interconnection between Old City and the Eastern side across the Bay was needed.
The new tunnel under the Havana Bay was built by the French company : Societé de Grand Travaux de Marseille between 1957-58. 
The tunnel begins at the Paseo de Prado in Old Havana, is 733m long and 12m below ground level. In 1959 Batista fled to Miami and after the Revolution the Cuban government had other priorities.

On the other side, my friend poses with her peeps

 Looking at Havana across the Harbour

The Lighthouse and I

Inside the gates is an exhibition on the lighthouses of Cuba –- El Morro once housed a school for lighthouse keepers. There was actually a watchtower here until the British blew it up during their successful siege in 1762. The Faro Castillo del Morro lighthouse was added in 1846.

 The cannons around the fort are now badly rusted, but the walls are well preserved. The fort has central barracks up to four stories high.

Our lovely Guide

  Inside the walls of the fort

      The Cannons are HUGE and it took 8 soldiers to rotate them on metal tracks

A historical trip through the past, but it is time to head back to the city.  This is our last day together so we revisited a couple favorite haunts, first the Hotel Mundo for a last look around the city from atop the roof restaurant and one last dessert

Hotel Ambos Mundos

since has gained international note from its most famous long-time tenant: in 1932 a room on the upper (5th) floor became the “first home” in Cuba of writer Ernest Hemingway, who enjoyed the views of Old Havana, and the harbor sea in which he fished frequently in his yacht Pilar. Hemingway rented the room for $1.50 per night  until mid-1939, when he transferred his winter residence from Key West(a U.S. island 90 miles from Cuba) to a house in the hills near Havana, Finca Vigia, which he shared with Martha Gellhorn (they were married in 1940). Hemingway began his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, a novel of the Spanish Civil War which he had witnessed over the previous several years, in the room in the Ambos Mundos, on March 1, 1939.

Today, his hotel room, No. 511, is presented as if the author might have left it, and is a small museum in the middle of the establishment, with tours given regularly in the daytime.^[5] The corner of the ground floor hotel lobby also has two walls of framed photographs dedicated to Hemingway

 A view from the top

candied Guayabo (Guava) with coconut creme

and for the grand finale we went to one of Hemingways' haunts, La Floridita a bar immortalized in Islands in the Stream, a book my friend had just read before coming to Cuba, the characters in the book were real people who hung out with the  bartender at this bar.

Our farewell Daiquiris

March 5, 2016

Our days together may be running short, my artist friend is going back to Canada soon, it will be lonely here without her.  Today we roamed around old Havana enjoying the Art scene and meeting some of the artists.  this was an intriguing gallery name

I love what his art says.

 I too feel like a King snuggled in to my friends art pack 

observing the world through her eyes.

We stopped for coffee at the Plaza of Angeles, one of our favorite stops

on we rumbled around town and took a few shots of the world as we saw it and as other artists saw it.

a castle made of old espresso pots at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana

this was a pottery tower made of reclaimed and imperfect pottery bits in a pottery gallery\ pizzaria called La Cabina

the Gargoyl Casa, his eyes glowed and sent tremors of fear throughout my body, I hid so he could not see me

amazing (even to me) this sculpture of titanium and steel

This was one of the eclectic pieces at the gallery of Leo D'Lazaro

     

OH NO another beasty! , but at least he is sleeping

This expresses the impact of Art on the Cuban society, Big and Bold

a bit of dancing before going out to the FAC (Fabrica de Arte Cubano) this Saturday night, 

Fabrica de Arte CubanoThose going to the Factory have access to musicians, painters and dancers... this is living culture being produced right there and then. However the most important thing is that we have managed to get artists from different manifestations to get closer to each other and to their audiences and for audiences to get closer to the art work.

The factory of art (F.A.C.) is an artistic project that is driven by the need to rescue, support and promote the work of thousands of Cuban artists of all art branches such as: cinema, music, dance, theater, visual arts, literature, photography, fashion, graphic design and architecture; that, through its integration, art/artist promote exchange and direct approach to the public and the creator at mass level.

The building was the ancient utility of Havana, in 1910 to 1930 then became an oil factory "El Cocinero" and later a fishing gear store. Inserted within the community "The fanguito" considered a marginal area with social problems, the F.A.C. project will have in its concept a high awareness promoting full integration with this community and developing community projects mainly in the vulnerable groups that are children and adolescents.

ART

        

 

REFRESHMENTS

FASHION

A GATHERING OF FRIENDS

My friend returned late at night full of inspiration and excitement of the Cuban cultural scene, it made me proud to be a Cuban