Havana – Malecón

The Malecón is the name of the seawall that runs along the seafront of Havana. It was built during the American administration and is a hive of activity on the weekend as people swim in the rather toxic looking water. It’s also home to the US Special Interest Office. It’s the US embassy of sorts. It’s also the source of a lot of anti-US merriment.

I’m running out of things to do in Havana, so I decided on a long walk along the entire length of the Malecón. I packed a lot of water, sprayed on the sunscreen, put on my hat and wandered off. The Malecón starts at the end of the Prado. As soon as you get to the start, you realise this is not just an ordinary sea wall!

The wall comes up to about your waist, so you can see over, as well as getting the nice cool sea breezes. On the other side of the wall, running most places, is a flat rocky area. Lying about and jumping off this seemed to be the entire population of Havana. This area does not have any beaches, so for the nearby residents, this is their ultra convenient swimming pool. I was there on a hot Sunday afternoon, so all the families were out in force.

The water was amazingly clear, but it was also full of rather nasty looking pollutants. There was rubbish floating everywhere, as well as some rather nasty looking brown sludge. The locals just found a bit that was sludge free and jumped in.

Actually, jumping seemed to be the man activity. Not many people stayed in the water long. They all jumped in, climbed out and jumped in again. In some places, the water came right up to the edge, so the kiddies were jumping right off the wall into the sea. Fun stuff.

In some areas, the stone had been gouged out to form little swimming pools. I was there at low tide, so most of them were empty, but they looked like a handy way to keep the water warm and sludge free.

Towards the end of the wall, I came across a lot of barricades that were closing the wall. I could hear announcements being made and a lot of cheering as well. The people guarding the area were all army dudes, so my guess was that a political rally of some sort was going on. That would either be really cool or get me thrown into jail. I wandered on and prepared myself for the dumb tourist act.

Luckily, the gathering was a lot less charges – it was a motorcycle race! The local rev heads were racing a few laps around the seafront. It all kicked off just as I arrived, which was lucky. I’m not sure who won or who was racing, but it was very loud!

Just up the road a bit further was the US Special Interests Office. This was opened in the 1970s in lieu of a proper embassy. The Americans conveniently built it next to a large open area so the government had a great place to stage their protests. Apparently they locals refer to it as the Protest-a-drome!

Next to the building is a rather lot of black flags. Apparently, the Cubans want the Americans to extradite some guy responsible for bombing a passenger plane. There’s one flag for every person killed on the flight. It’s a pretty bold statement and looks pretty ominous. Definitely not something you want to be looking at through your window every day.

There’s also a lot of humorous billboards around the place comparing George Bush to Hitler amongst other things. The swarms of Cuban police stopped me from getting too close.

By this time, I was absolutely drenched in sweat after walking for a couple of hours. I headed inland. This suburb is called Vedado and was designed as a posh residential suburb. Unfortunately, that only means there are less holes in the road and slightly less rust on all the cars.

It was a fun walk, but if I did it again, I’d go in the morning when it wasn’t so damn hot!