Cuba day 2, part 4 - Making Mojito’s, Surviving the Salsa and Propping up a Bar with Hemingway.

Hotel Florida on Calle Obispo is the location of our early evening entertainment.  It is an architectural extravaganza built in the purest colonial style with pillars and arches forming the framework for an elegant central courtyard. The building has been restored in the recent past but has retained its original high ceilings and luxurious finishes.   Like many of the architectural features of Havana the Florida draws on European styling for its ambience and design and as we walk through the door we could be stepping into a grand hotel in a city like Madrid or Seville. We are guided past the reception to a set of wooden double doors and into a room with a bar to the left and an empty floor to the right, separated off by a row of red velvet chairs with ornate gold legs.  There is an elaborate chandelier hanging from the ceiling.  On the right hand side of the room sit a small group of young men and women who are chatting and laughing and who look up expectantly as we come in. We learn that these are to be our dance partners for the evening.  Before we begin our class the barman will be teaching us how to make Mojitos, the signature cocktail of Cuba.  The Mojito with its sparkling-water base and minty freshness seems light and unthreatening; even at a push one might say healthy, but after two or three it can leave you feeling like you’ve been kicked in the head by a Cuban mule.  I was very interested to find out what goes into it.  Watching the barman pour a generous shot of rum into a glass and following it with a couple of heaped teaspoons of sugar and then taking a good bunch of fresh mint which he twists before mashing it into the rum/sugar mix, my earlier anxiety about doing the Salsa class begins to kick in again.  As he is topping up the glasses with spring-water and finishing the drink with a dash of Angostura Bitters (there, now you have the recipe) I realise I really don’t want to be in this room with all these people.  Memories of Argentina and Tango are coming back to me and I don't want to be reminded so I put down my drink, pick up my clutchbag and head for the door.  I will explain to the guide later why I left.  But before I manage to disappear I am intercepted.

I have studiously avoided catching the eye of the young man with the long braids and white wool cap who has been watching me from the other side of the room.  I am still looking at the floor as he puts his hand on my arm and notice that he has white plaited leather shoes and that his white trousers are too long and bag up around his ankles.   I just want to make a quiet exit and find some local bar to hole up in for a while until the class is finished  but he is blocking my way and I feel myself being gently but firmly led onto the dance floor.  He is smaller than me, his long black braids are secured with beads and his eyes, underneath the cap look at me curiously. He has a very big smile and his name, I learn, is Joel.  His breath has a hint of tobacco smoke on it.  He crooks his head to one side and smiles again and tells me to relax and I realise it must be very obvious that I am far from that.  Taking my right hand, he places his own in the small of my back and tries to draw me a little closer to him.  It is clear, to both of us, that there is resistance.  But he steps back and lets me have the space I want and he smiles at me again.  His teeth are very white and even.  Over the course of the next ninety minutes I come to realise that apart from the instructor I am lucky enough to have the best dance partner in the room.  Joel is easy and natural to dance with, patient and keen to make it fun, for me AND him.  And I surprise myself by how quickly I find the rhythm and remember the steps we are being taught and it is much, much easier and more fun than Tango.  I master the routine and we get faster and better with each runthrough and I find myself beginning to settle and to allow the beat and pulse of the music to guide me and then I find that I am letting him lead me without resisting.  Joel smiles and nods and I know we are doing well and then he starts dancing closer and closer and makes the steps smaller and smaller and we are much more in tune with each other and then I am moving in the routine without even having to think about it and I find myself laughing but it is almost too much to contend with.  It has been so wonderful to dance but as the music stops and the lesson ends I move away quickly, keen to break the bond.  For a moment I see the hint of a question and a sparkle of invitation as he holds my gaze and I wonder if he might have been hoping I would ask him to join me for the rest of the evening.  

Later on in a roof-top paladar restaurant entered through a street level door which you would miss if it were not pointed out to you I sit listening to the strains of music coming up from a bar below.   The restaurant has stunning views over the old town and across the harbour to the house that Che lived in after he and Fidel took Havana during the revolution.  An imposing marble statue of Christ dominates the top of the ridge on which the house is built.  After our Salsa we are exhausted but there is still enough light to take photographs and admire the view so no one says much for a bit.  We rally ourselves though as tomorrow we head out of Havana and we want to make the most of the evening.   From our vantage point on the terrace we can just see the rooftop bar of the Hotel Ambos Mundos,  another old Hemingway haunt where he kept a room for a few years and which is just down the street.  The food arrives and the sun slowly fades, leaving the sky the palest hint of chiffon pink and golden apricot tinge the edge of the clouds out over the harbour. For a moment Che’s house lights up as it catches the last rays of the sun.  The statue of Christ is covered in scaffolding and is being renovated like several important heritage and cultural sites in the city. Our guide has told us that since Raul Castro took over as President there have been some positive changes, slower than ideal perhaps, and there is still a fierce struggle between those who want progressive change and those who want to maintain the status quo. But all the same she is optimistic and hopeful for the future.   As we talk about Cuba past, present and future, the street lights below us switch on and their sodium glow draws a rich greenness from the palm trees in the plaza below us. The atmosphere is slow and relaxed and a welcome breeze picks up and cools us as the restaurant begins to fill.

By a quarter to ten we are all yawning and slowly people drop out of the plan to go on and we debate whether we will get a ‘second wind’.  When the bill is paid we carefully pick our way down three floors of narrow staircase and half of the group head for a taxi and the rest of us turn towards Vieja Havana and the hotel bar we spotted.  But when we get there the hotel is open but the bar is closed for “fumigation”.   I remember the name of another bar where I have read Hemingway was a regular, but when I consult the map I see it is right at the other end of town.  We hesitate for a moment, undecided about whether we want a 10 or 15 walk or whether we will catch up with the others and take a taxi back. But I don’t want to go back to my brown room and my brown bed and lie staring up at the ceiling again so I rally our sense of adventure and we head for El Floridita.   

In 15 or 20 minutes we see the welcoming neon sign of El Floridita blazing away at the end of the long cobbled street that is Calle Obispo. There is security on the door and I am a little anxious we may have made this walk only to be turned away from a second bar but they look us up and down and nod and pull the door open for us.   El Floridita was opened in 1817 with the original name La Pina de Plata (The Silver Pineapple) but the large number of American tourists that frequented the place in the early 1900s persuaded the owner to change its name.  One of the owners of the bar – Constante – is credited as having created the frozen daiquiri in the early 1930s.  It is one of these that we were here to sample.  Hemingway was a staunch fan of the frozen Daiquiri along with the Mojito.  One of his famous Havana quotes is about his drinking habits “My Mojito in La Bodeguita, my Daiquiri in El Floridita”    La Bodeguita you may recollect, is where we had previously had lunch and scrawled our names and messages on the wall.   El Floridita has quite a lot of Hemingway memorabilia including photographs and a bust and in 2003 a life-sized statues was sculpted by José Villa Soberón and now stands propping up the end of the bar.  Another author, Graham Greene who wrote Our Man in Havana, was also a regular visitor here I understand.  The place preserves much of the atmosphere of its 1940s and 1950s heyday with the barmen wearing red waistcoats to match the regency red style of the bar and furnishings.  When we arrive a band is playing just inside the door and it is loud and atmospheric.  El Floridita is very much on the tourist trail in Havana and can be very busy at times and there are mixed reviews about the food in the restaurant.  But it’s just busy enough when we arrive, we manage to gather enough stools for the  four of us to sit at the bar and the frozen Daiquiri’s really are the best we have in Cuba, despite the slightly hefty price tag of 6CUC.  And there is not just the choice of one Daiquiri but about 20 different versions and I try a Classic first and then a lemon flavour and then a Classic again.  It’s a bit like drinking a very alcoholic Slush Puppy.  

See the Cuba photographs on the gallery.