Cuba - Lonely Planet [104]
Despite the island’s generally lax attitude to sexual promiscuity, clampdowns in the sex trade can and do occur. The all-inclusive resort areas are particularly prone to police attention. In 1996 the authorities rounded up legions of prostitutes in Varadero and placed a barring order on the resort’s paladares and casas particulares. As a result, tourism in the resort noticeably blipped.
Until recently, the problems associated with the sex trade also served to reinforce Cuba’s rather unpleasant system of tourist ‘apartheid.’ Nearly all of the island’s tourist-class hotels used to bar access to their rooms to all Cuban guests on the pretext that some of them might be jineteras. Raúl Castro reversed this policy soon after taking office in 2008 and, as yet (to the surprise of some), there has been no radical increase in sex tourism in Cuba’s tourist hotels.
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Alternatively, hit the Monserrate Bar ( 860-9751; Obrapía No 410) a couple of doors down, where daiquirís are half the price due to the fact that Hemingway never drank here.
Centro Habana
Prado No 12 (Paseo de Martí No 12; noon-11pm) A slim flat-iron building on the corner of Prado and San Lázaro that serves drinks and simple snacks, Prado 12 still resembles Havana in a 1950s time-warp. Soak up the serendipitous atmosphere of this amazing city here after a sunset stroll along the Malecón.
Prado & Animas (Paseo de Martí cnr Ánimas No 12; 9am-9pm) Another good old-fashioned Prado place with a time-warped ’50s feel. The cafe also serves simple food and coffee but it’s best for a beer, sitting at one of the window tables beneath the baseball memorabilia (including a picture of a pelota-playing Fidel).
Vedado
Café Fresa y Chocolate (Calle 23 btwn Calles 10 & 12; 9am-11pm) No ice cream here, just movie memorabilia. This is the HQ of the Cuban Film Institute and a nexus for coffee-quaffing students and art-house movie addicts. You can debate the merits of Almodóvar over Scorcese on the pleasant patio before disappearing next door for a film preview.
Bar-Club Imágenes ( 833-3606; Calzada No 602; 9pm-5am) This upscale piano bar attracts something of an older crowd with its regular diet of boleros (ballads) and trova, though there are sometimes comedy shows; check the schedule posted outside. Affordable meals are available (minimum CUC$5).
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ENTERTAINMENT
Folk & Traditional Music
Casa de la Amistad (Map; 830-3114; Paseo No 416 btwn Calles 17 & 19, Vedado) Housed in a beautiful rose-colored mansion on leafy Paseo, the Casa de la Amistad mixes traditional son sounds with suave Benny Moré music in a classic Italian Renaissance–style garden. Buena Vista Social Club luminary, Compay Segundo, was a regular here before his death in 2003 and there is a weekly ‘Chan Chan’ night in his honor. Other perks include a restaurant, bar, cigar shop and the house itself – an Italianite masterpiece.
El Hurón Azul (Map; 832-4551; cnr Calles 17 & H, Vedado) If you want to rub shoulders with some socialist celebrities, hang out with the intellectuals at Hurón Azul, the social club of the Unión Nacional de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (Uneac; Union of Cuban Writers and Artists), Cuba’s leading cultural institution. Replete with priceless snippets of Cuba’s under-the-radar cultural life, most performances take place outside in the garden. Wednesday is the Afro-Cuban rumba, Saturday is authentic Cuban boleros, and alternate Thursdays there’s jazz and trova. You’ll never pay more