Pick an airport. Spot a passenger with a home-fashioned cardboard tube. Chances are, they’ve been to Cuba. Artists and their artwork are alive and well and covering the canvases. And the tourists are eating them up. Us included.
To the left of the Prado as you walk up towards Parque Central from the Malecón, you can see the back of the beautiful Iglesia del Santo Angel Custodio. It was here that the Cuban writer José Martí was christened in 1853. Plazuela de Santo Ángel, and its surrounds, is a lovely little neighbourhood, quite European in feel with lots of cafés and restaurants spilling out on to the cobblestone streets. Wander up and down Compostela and take a peek into the myriad galleries and you might just see an artist or three at work.
This warren of streets are easy to get lost in. Ditch the map and enjoy. It’s quite spectacular. I particularly liked Barber’s Alley, with its wall art and what appeared to be a homage to hairdressers! It involved a large sculpture of a scissors. Further investigation revealed just that. Thank goodness for Google.
Papito (known in Havana as the Daddy of hairdressing) turned his house into a hairdressing school. The idea? To teach young people in the neighbourhood a skill they could use. And he did it for free. He wanted to change the street in which he lived, rejuvenate it – and he did. Another amazing man making a difference. 2016/2017 is the year of a global appeal to collect old, used hairdressing scissors which will be attached to a massive sculpture of a scissors to make unity among stylists around the world. That was the scissors I saw… Check the video. Am kicking myself that I hadn’t known this when I was there – I’d have visited Papito’s.
And when wandering the streets, don’t forget to look up. There’s another world going on up there, too. I got so caught up in the whole artist thing that I began to convince myself that I’d read about a Cuban artist called Taller. I saw loads of signs showing studios where I fancied he’d lived. I even made a note to check him out when I got back online. But a search revealed nothing but a Guatemalan architect. And then the paintbrush dropped and splattered my ignorance all over the show. Duh. Taller is Spanish for workshop. Honestly, sometimes I wonder how I got this far without making a complete hames of life.
This part of Havana is definitely worth a visit. And if you’re fed up of rice and beans and chicken and pork and fish and want to ditch the Spanish and have some Italian, 5 Esquinas is worth a visit. (Habana #104, esq Cuarteles, +53 7 8606295, facebook.com/trattoria5esquinas). But as I said, ditch the guidebook and simply wander. So much to see in this part of town.
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