I'd like to start this post with a remark on food and nutrition. Most days, I eat breakfast at the casa particular I'm staying in. Breakfast is quite cheap, but plenty: they typically have omelettes or fried eggs, lots of fresh fruit (mostly papaya, guava, pineapple or banana), fresh fruit juice, some bread and butter, honey, and of course coffee.
For lunch, I normally eat a pizza at a street stall and get some maní molido (peanut paste) afterwards.
In addition to that, I drink sodas if I cannot find a reliable water shop (i.e. one where I can examine the bottles closely before buying).
All that stuff is definitely sufficient for a day, so I don't eat dinner anymore.
But the thing is this: if you look at the foods I listed, you'll notice that all of them are rich in carbohydrates. Before my trip, I was following a low-carb diet - keeping to the principles of a paleo diet as much as possible. I did this because I believe that the reasoning behind the paleo approach is sound. Now that I'm pretty much forced to eat tons of carbs because there's no viable alternative available, I feel like crap. Constantly in danger of overeating, and always craving more. I really do hope this situation improves again once I'm back in the arms of "mother capitalism"...
But now back to my first day in Habana. I fall asleep in the bus to Habana - something about buses and trains always makes me sleepy. When I wake up, the bus is just coming out of the tunnel that leads under the bay of Habana straight into Habana Vieja (old Habana). So my first glance are not endless, crumbling suburbs, but rather a handful of beautifully restored colonial buildings. Very nice! After getting of the bus - and through the usual crowd of hustlers trying to drag me off to a taxi or a casa particular or both - I have time for a second glance at Habana. It seems to me that most of the buildings haven't seen much maintenance since they were built some time in the last 200 years. Some effort is going into restoration of the major plazas and sites of historic interest (i.e. tourist attractions), but the rest appears to be either a construction site, or in varying states of crumbling decay. Seeing all this faded glory, and the people living in it today, is somewhat depressing, and definitely exhausting.
For lunch, I normally eat a pizza at a street stall and get some maní molido (peanut paste) afterwards.
In addition to that, I drink sodas if I cannot find a reliable water shop (i.e. one where I can examine the bottles closely before buying).
All that stuff is definitely sufficient for a day, so I don't eat dinner anymore.
But the thing is this: if you look at the foods I listed, you'll notice that all of them are rich in carbohydrates. Before my trip, I was following a low-carb diet - keeping to the principles of a paleo diet as much as possible. I did this because I believe that the reasoning behind the paleo approach is sound. Now that I'm pretty much forced to eat tons of carbs because there's no viable alternative available, I feel like crap. Constantly in danger of overeating, and always craving more. I really do hope this situation improves again once I'm back in the arms of "mother capitalism"...
But now back to my first day in Habana. I fall asleep in the bus to Habana - something about buses and trains always makes me sleepy. When I wake up, the bus is just coming out of the tunnel that leads under the bay of Habana straight into Habana Vieja (old Habana). So my first glance are not endless, crumbling suburbs, but rather a handful of beautifully restored colonial buildings. Very nice! After getting of the bus - and through the usual crowd of hustlers trying to drag me off to a taxi or a casa particular or both - I have time for a second glance at Habana. It seems to me that most of the buildings haven't seen much maintenance since they were built some time in the last 200 years. Some effort is going into restoration of the major plazas and sites of historic interest (i.e. tourist attractions), but the rest appears to be either a construction site, or in varying states of crumbling decay. Seeing all this faded glory, and the people living in it today, is somewhat depressing, and definitely exhausting.
