Cuba - Lonely Planet [126]
Today, Guanabacoa is a sleepy yet colorful place that can be tied in with an excursion to nearby Regla (easily accessible by ferry).
Information
Banco de Crédito y Comercio (cnr Martí & EV Valenzuela)
Sights
The Iglesia de Guanabacoa (cnr Pepe Antonio & Adolfo del Castillo Cadenas), on Parque Martí in the center of town, is also known as the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, and was designed by Lorenzo Camacho and built between 1721 and 1748 with a Moorish-influenced wooden ceiling. The gilded main altar and nine lateral altars are worth a look, and there is a painting of the Assumption of the Virgin at the back. In typical Cuban fashion, the main doors are usually locked; knock at the parochial office ( 8-11am & 2-5pm Mon-Fri) out back if you’re keen.
The town’s main sight is the freshly renovated Museo Municipal de Guanabacoa ( 97-91-17; Martí No 108; admission CUC$2; 10am-6pm Mon & Wed-Sat, 9am-1pm Sun), two blocks west of Parque Martí. Founded in 1964, it tracks the development of the neighborhood throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and is famous for its rooms on Afro-Cuban culture, slavery and the Santería religion with a particular focus on the orisha Elegguá. The museum has another arm further west along Calle Martí in the Museo de Mártires (Martí No 320; admission free; 10am-6pm Tue-Sat, 9am-1pm Sun), which displays material relevant to the Cuban Revolution.
Eating
Centro Cultural Recreativo Los Orishas (cnr Martí & Lamas; admission CUC$3; 10am-midnight) Situated in the hotbed of Havana’s Santería community, this funky bar-restaurant hosts live rumba music at weekends, including regular visits from the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional. The pleasant garden bar is surrounded by colorful Afro-Cuban sculptures that depict various Santería deities such as Babalou Aye, Yemayá and Changó. Well off the beaten track and hard to get to at night, this quirky music venue is usually visited by foreigners in groups. It also does a good selection of food from a CUC$1 pizza to CUC$20 lobster.
Los Ibelly Heladería (Adolfo del Castillo Cadenas No 5a; 10am-10pm) As close as Guanabacoa gets to the Coppelia, with quick-serve ice cream.
Getting There & Away
Bus P-15 from the Capitolio in Centro Habana goes to Guanabacoa via Av del Puerto. Alternatively, you can walk uphill from Regla, from where the Havana ferry docks, to Guanabacoa (or vice versa) in about 45 minutes, passing Colina Lenin on the way.
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SAN FRANCISCO DE PAULA
In 1939 US novelist Ernest Hemingway rented a villa called Finca La Vigía on a hill at San Francisco de Paula, 15km southeast of central Havana. A year later he bought the house (1888) and property and lived there continuously until 1960, when he moved back to the US.
The villa’s interior has remained unchanged since the day Hemingway left (there are lots of stuffed trophies), and the wooded estate is now the Museo Hemingway (Map; 891-0809; unguided/guided CUC$3/4, camera/video CUC$5/25; 9am-4:30pm, closed Tue). Hemingway left his house and its contents to the ‘Cuban people,’ and his house has recently been the stimulus for a rare show of US-Cuban cooperation. In 2002 the Cubans agreed to a US-funded project to digitalize the documents stored in the basement of Finca La Vigía, and in May 2006 Cuba sent 11,000 of Hemingway’s private documents to the JFK Presidential Library in America for digitalization. This literary treasure trove (including a previously unseen epilogue for For Whom the Bell Tolls) was finally made available online in January 2009.
To prevent the pilfering of objects, visitors are not allowed inside the house, but there are enough open doors and windows to allow a proper glimpse into Papa’s universe. There are books everywhere (including beside the toilet),