2024-03-21: El Capitolio
Author: Rob
Our first full day in Havana started with breakfast at a cafe recommended by Lonely Planet called El Cafe. This place was cute and pricy by Cuban standards, and obviously catered to tourists as the only Cubans there were working. The coffee and food was nothing special, but the fresh pineapple and pineapple-guava juices were fantastic.
After breakfast we headed for El Capitolio, the historic seat of Cuban government. Tours are offered in Spanish or English, and we ended up in the small English group with two other Americans, three English speaking Russians, and a Costa Rican lady who spoke fluent English and said she would rather be in the smaller English group than the larger Spanish speaking group. We were both a little lukewarm about going to the capitol, but this ended up being a very interesting experience.
Topically, El Capitolio is magnificent and awe inspiring. The capitol dome is massive (larger than the US capitol) and upon entry you're treated to a 50' tall gilded bronze statue called La Republica. The entire building is resplendent with motifs from various eras and styles, from rococo to French Empire, featuring lots of Cuban grown mahogany as well as green and red marble imported from Italy.
Beyond the surface level beauty the interesting part of this experience was learning about the history from the perspective of our Cuban tour guide. Our guide Abraham was trained as a civil engineer, but like many professionals in Cuba he can make more money by working in the tourism industry, so now he gives tours of the capitol. He was fairly candid and open about where the Cuban and American perspectives differ on various historical events, as well as what his opinions of his own government may or may not be. I've never been in a situation where being an American was quite as fraught, and at one point he asked if we minded that he talked so candidly about American-Cuban relationships. I told him no, that's part of why we travel and if we only wanted the American perspective we could just stay home! By the end of the tour we were very happy that we decided to go and didn't blow it off like we considered doing.
