02 May 2024

 

Cuba

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The time traveller: From Mayan ruins to a Cuba stuck in the past

James Mould journeys from an ancient world in Mexico to the crumbling grandeur of Havana

Mexico and Cuba - Havana and the mobile museum of 50's cars Mexico and Cuba - The main pyramid at Chichen Itza Mexico and Cuba - A pristine beach at Cancun

1 Havana and the mobile museum of 50's cars 2 The main pyramid at Chichen Itza 3 A pristine beach at Cancun

FOR AS LONG as I can remember I have wanted to go to Havana, the Cuban capital. I have also wanted to visit the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico to see the famous ruins of the great Mayan civilisation.

For some reason, I imagined I had to choose between the two and make separate trips – until one day I actually looked at a map and discovered that Cancun and Havana are close to each other. The perfect trip took shape.

Yucatan means ‘I don’t understand you’ in ancient Mayan. Spanish settlers coined it as a phonetic abbreviation of the phrase endlessly repeated by the native population. Things have changed. They now understand us and our taste for luxury perfectly.

An Eerie and Romantic Atmosphere

The Mandarin Oriental Hotel on the Mayan Riviera near Cancun lives up to the very highest standards. Guests have their own white limestone villas. Ours was on the beach and had a shaded roof terrace, an elegant bed/sitting room and grand bathroom with double shower. Equally glorious was the provision of a butler by day (Pablo) and evening (Oscar), who not only fulfilled but anticipated every need.

The hotel is one of several strung along white sandy beaches. Next door is the Mayakoba resort with a splendid 18-hole championship golf course, El Camaleon.

When we weren’t playing golf, we dedicated ourselves to visiting the Mayan ruins. First we saw Tulum, which was an hour away and beautifully sited on the sea.

Next day we left very early for the three-hour drive to the World Heritage site of Chichen Itza.

The stunning main pyramid is visited every March 24 by 40,000 people to see the sun create a perfectly waving shadow down the 100ft high north-facing steps.


Mayans built these with impressive mathematical accuracy to mirror the action of a snake descending from heaven and fertilising the earth on the first day of spring.

But the most gripping sight was the ‘ballpark’, massive parallel stone walls separated by about 100ft. Sticking out high up in the middle of each wall is a stone ring. In Mayan times, two opposing teams of seven men would try to get a rubber ball through their stone ring using any part of their body except the hand. When time was up, the losers were all beheaded as a sacrifice to the insatiably thirsty rain god.

On the way back, we made a diversion to the ruins of Ek Balam, which were the least restored of the sites we visited and, to my mind, the most romantic. Many of the buildings had become overgrown with jungle vegetation, and the place had an eerie and romantic atmosphere.

Havana is an hour’s flight from Cancun. The Saratoga Hotel sent a disappointingly nondescript car to collect us.

But very soon we began to see Cuba’s famous mobile museum of American cars from the Fifties. It is a tribute both to mid-20th century General Motors technology and Cuban ingenuity that these metallic babies are still going strong after nearly 60 years.

Grandeur and Elegance

I was unprepared for the grandeur and elegance of the city. A large section of old Havana is a World Heritage Site and is being restored. We spent time with artist friends who are excited about the changes new leader Raul Castro is putting in place; they think of him as the ‘Gorbachev’ of the Cuban revolution.

The prohibition preventing Cubans from entering tourist hotels or tourist beaches (lest they be corrupted by foreign conversation) has been rescinded.

And Cubans are now allowed to buy mobile phones and computers. Fidel, many say, must have been comatose – or even dead – for some while for these changes to be taking place.

The Saratoga Hotel has been beautifully restored and is opposite the famous Partagas cigar factory, overlooking the huge, grandiose Capitolio building.

We dined mostly in paladares, restaurants the government allows families to operate in their own homes. On our first night, we went to the famous La Guarida, which was architecturally beautiful and romantic.

Our second night was at La Fontana, which had a passable fish carpaccio, accompanied by Cuban music. On our last night we ate rather authentic Japanese food in a fisherman’s shack at the edge of the water – a strange experience.

Go Before it Joins the 21st Century

The Plaza des Armes has an array of secondhand bookstalls which are fascinating to browse.

Judging from the titles on display, a visiting Martian would conclude that there are only three people who matter in the entire history of Planet Earth: Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Ernest Hemingway.

We visited the Floridita and drank the latter’s favoured daiquiri (which it claims to have invented) at the bar, raising our glasses to Hemingway’s statue. We also made a pilgrimage to Hemingway’s favourite hotel, the Ambos Mundos – we even went up to his room, which is nowadays preserved as a museum, and saw his typewriter and a royalty statement from his British publishers, Jonathan Cape.

If you have ever thought about visiting Cuba, then go now before it joins the 21st Century along with the rest of us.

This article was featured in the June 2009 DialAFlight magazine. All information was correct at time of going to print.

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