Havana – a party girl of a city

I have always longed to get on a plane and command, ‘Take me to Cuba!’ Well, the other week I did just that. Sadly, it fell a little flat, the stewardess’s wintry smile telling me that she got a lot of that on the Gatwick-Havana flight. Still, it kept me chuckling for the next eight and a half hours between movies, meals and snoozes in Virgin Upper Class.

Havana was humid and sticky and it was as stifling inside my elderly rust-bucket of a taxi as it was outside.

‘Air-con on half?’ grinned the driver, winding down his window halfway, ‘or on full?’, winding it down as far as it would go. We agreed on full and set off, swerving between potholes, stray dogs and broken-down cars. I wouldn’t have worried quite so much about the stench of petrol if the driver hadn’t been smoking such an enormous cigar, the ash of which exploded in a shower of sparks each time we hit a bump.

At one point I thought we were coming under fire, but soon realised it was the ancient Meccano-set-on-wheels that pulled up beside us at the lights. It rattled like a Gatling gun, producing an alarming amount of black smoke. The passenger door was lashed to the car by rope and the windscreen was held in place by sticking-plaster. It stalled as the lights went green.

I just had time to check into the art-deco Hotel Saratoga, bang opposite the Capitolio Nacional, before dashing to the Gran Teatro to see the Ballet Nacional de Cuba. This, I’d been told, was an absolute must. The whole of Havana appeared to be there, with mums, dads, grand-parents and kids milling around, gossiping and waving to each other inside the decaying but spectacular 1,500-seat neo-baroque auditorium. I showed the usherette my ticket, but she had no better idea where my seat was than I had.