I have a fascination with the late author Ernest Hemingway, referred to as ‘Papa’ in Cuba, but I have yet to read one of his books. In Havana I followed in the author’s footsteps yet again, after having been ‘introduced’ to him in Pamplona in Spain whilst walking the Camino in 2018. My interest in him is growing, and I will look to buy his books on my return. There is no doubt that Hemingway may be equally or better known for his drinking and hanging around in bars as he is for his books!

 

 

Whilst visiting the Ernest Hemingway Museum Finca Vigia outside Havana, I was able to find a book by Enrique Circules, a Havana scholar researching the relationship between Cuba and the USA, entitled ‘The Unknown Hemingway’. The book covers various aspects of Hemingway’s life in Cuba, his personality, his interests, his passion for women, his passion for alcohol and with it his favourite drinking holes, the prizes he won for his writing, and finally, his end. Whilst living in the Ambos Mundos Hotel, at the bottom end of Obispo street, he frequented the Inglaterra Hotel, The Prado, the Sevilla Hotel, and the Saratoga Hotel and its sidewalks cafes, all still going strong in Havana, except for the last mentioned sidewalk cafes. His dress was described, seemingly befitting his character: ‘..with his wasted half trousers, an old shirt, a cap with an eyeshade, and his way of walking, a little odd, you would see him… ‘

 

I have created a timeline from the book, to give a clearer dimension of the esteemed author’s life: 

 

#. Born 21 July 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, USA

 

#. In 1921 Hemingway lives in Paris, accompanied by his first wife Hadley Richardson. 

 

#. In 1925 he completes his novel ‘Fiesta’, and travels with the manuscript from Paris to New York. 

 

#. In 1926 he publishes his first novel ‘The Torrents of Spring’. 

 

#. In 1928 Hemingway visits Havana for the first time. 

 

#. In 1929 he publishes ‘A Farewell to Arms’. In this year he visits Havana for a second time.

 

#. In 1930 Hemingway visited Italy and Spain and went to hunt in the USA, being in a car accident in the latter country late that year 

 

#. In 1931 he returns to Havana, staying in the Ambos Mundos Hotel. His second son Patrick is born, and a few months later his father commits suicide. 

 

#. In 1932 he publishes ‘Death in the afternoon’, about bulls, bullfighting and bullrings, with 10300 copies printed. Once again he returns to Havana, for a fishing trip, and again he stays in Room 511 in the Ambos Mundos Hotel, extending into an initially unplanned stay of two months, having an affair with the very young and attractive Jane Mason, and revising his book ‘Death In the Afternoon’. In this time (as well in the following year), he observes the political events in Havana, with shootings out of cars. A film version of Hemingway’s book ‘A Farewell to Arms’ is screened. A second book, ‘Winner Take Nothing’ is published, with 20300 copies. 

 

#. In 1933 the USA imposes upon Cuba ‘a new scheme of domination’. In this year, extending into 1934, he travels to Africa for two months, on his first safari, he becomes ill with amiboidean fever, but recovers quickly and ‘hunts in the region of the Masai’. 

 

#. In 1934 he commissions the building of his yacht Pilar to a New York shipyard, at the princely sum of $7455. On receipt of his yacht he and Jane Mason sail along the coast of Cuba for four months. 

 

#. In 1935 Hemingway is in Havana again, still involved with Jane Mason. He starts writing ‘Green Hills of Africa’, about his hunting expedition, shooting  lions, rhinos, and antelopes. The book is published, with 10500 copies. 

 

#. In 1936 he publishes ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’ as well as ‘The Brief Happy Life of Francis Macomber’. He meets Martha Gellhorn in Key West, and she arrives in Madrid, a journalist, there being an instant attraction between them. 

 

#. In 1937 he publishes ‘To Have and Have not’. He travels to Barcelona, then to Valencia, and to Madrid, joining the Spanish soldiers fighting in the trenches of the Civil War. He meets Martha Gellhorn in Madrid. He leaves Madrid, to travel to the USA. He visits Havana four times in this and the following year. 

 

#. Hemingway and Gellhorn visit Paris, and Spain briefly, before traveling to New York by ship in 1938. 

 

#. In 1939 Hemingway divorces Pauline Pfeiffer,  his second wife, and gets engaged to Gellhorn. He rents a room at the Sevilla Hotel, in which Gellhorn stays, while he writes in the Ambos Mundos Hotel. This leads them to rent Finca Vigía in San Francisco de Paula, and to buy it eventually. 

 

#. After numerous visits to Cuba, he settles on the island from 1939. In this year he publishes ‘Nobody ever dies’., about a Cuban revolutionary. 

 

#. In 1940 ‘For whom the Bell tolls’ is published, a book reflecting the Civil War in Spain, in which he participated so closely. The last paragraph of the book was rewritten 39 times, the author admitted. It was a success, and a movie about the book followed, with Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper in the lead roles. The book was a favourite of Fidel Castro, guiding him in how to fight a guerrilla war. In this year too Hemingway travels to Hong Kong, to report on the war between China and Japan. 

 

#. During the Second World War Hemingway hunted German submarines along the Cuban coast with his yacht Pilar, winning a Bronze Medal of Courage for ‘his commitment against Fascism’, having founded an anti-Fascist agency he called ‘Crook Factory’, in Cuba. In this period too the FBI opens a dossier on Hemingway, and his activities in Havana, the power of Hemingway’s fame as an author becoming a potential threat if he were to write about the Cuban-USA relationship at the time, involving the Mafia and Cuban President Batista at the time. 

 

#. In 1943 Martha Gellhorn moves out of the Finca home, returning to New York.  

 

#. In 1944 Hemingway is in London, during war bombing, he ‘had an accident, and the news of his death was scattered throughout the world’. 

#. In 1945 Hemingway returns to Cuba. He divorces Gellhorn.

 

#. In 1946 he marries Mary Welsh, his fourth wife, whom he met in London. 

 

#. He started a book called ‘The Sea Book’, about the Second World War, but never completed it, having written about 1000 pages of it by 1947, but it was never published, having been intended as a trilogy. 

 

#. In October 1947 Hemingway flees Cuba, and stays away for two years

 

#. In 1950 he publishes ‘Across the River and into the Trees’. It is documented that Hemingway and Welsh threaten to shoot each other, due to the hospitality Hemingway affords the Countess Adriana Ivancich and her mother in their guest bungalow at the Finca. 

 

#. In 1951 his mother and ex-wife Pfeiffer die.  At this time it is documented that Hemingway had 57 cats, a few dogs, and hundreds of pigeons. 

 

#. In 1952 ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ is published. 

 

#. In 1953 Hemingway travels first to Spain, the first time since the Civil War, and then to the Kilimanjaro area, for his second safari. In Uganda he experiences two serious aviation accidents. Once again rumours of his death spread around the world. He wins the Pulitzer Prize for ‘The Old Man and The Sea’, a Book based on an old fisherman Santiago and a boy fighting off a shark whilst fishing, by harpooning the shark, being from the fishing village Cojimar, outside Havana. In this village is a bust of the author, created by the local fishermen of the village, created from the ‘bronze of their propellors’. 

 

#. In 1954 he wins the Nobel Prize, declaring himself to be the first Cuban to win this prize. He undertakes a second safari to Africa. 

 

#. In 1960 he writes ‘A Moveable Feast’, based in the personalities he met in Paris in the ‘Twenties, including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and Scott Fitzgerald. 

 

#. In 1960 he leaves Cuba, ‘disappointed with the process of social justice that had unchained in Cuba’, under pressure of the American government, given his vocal support of the Cuban Revolution, never to return. His phone is tapped, and he is aware that he is under investigation by the FBI. 

 

#. On 21 July 1961 Hemingway commits suicide in Idaho in the USA, just like his father had done before him. Welsh travels to Cuba, and removes key valuables and documents from the Finca with the assistance of Valerie Danby-Smith, Hemingway’s personal secretary in 1959 and in 1960.  She donates the Finca and its remaining content to the Cuban government. 

 

#. In 1999, in an article published in El Mundo 38 years after his death, Hemingway’s fourth wife Mary Welsh is quoted as saying about the author: ‘Ernie has become truculent, brutal, aggressive, and extremely childish. I am witnessing the disintegration of his personality….’. 

What I learnt about Hemingway whilst in Havana is the following:

 

#. He had a fishing boat called Pilar, and is quoted as saying that the Gulf Stream on the north coast of Cuba offers prime game fishing of sailfish, tuna, mackerel, swordfish, barracuda, marlin, and shark. The best known fishing centre of the country is the island Cayo Guillermo, which was uninhabited in Hemingway’s time, a setting he wrote about in ‘Islands in the Stream’. Lonely Planet recommends fishermen to visit this island off the mainland island, for a ‘fishing trip extraordinaire’, with a tropical setting, large and lots of fish, and being accompanied by ‘the ghost of Hemingway from port to rippling sea and back’. The Pilar yacht can be seen at the Finca Vigia.  

 

#. At lunchtimes Hemingway went to the pink-painted El Floridita, where he savoured their daiquiris, his favourite having been a granadilla one. I visited this most popular of all tourist attractions in Havana, a jam-packed Bar, with a massive red painted wood bar counter, and a bronze sculpture of Hemingway resting on the bar counter. Staff wear red ties, white shirts, and red aprons. A second section behind a velvet curtain is a dining restaurant. Right up front at the entrance door, at which some visitors have to queue outside until there is space inside, is a live band playing delicious Cuban music. Hemingway is said to have drunk ten daiquiris (and doubles) over a lunchtime. Perhaps this kept his writing fluid. Circules writes: ‘El Floridita became his preferred place. A place that very soon would integrate the list of the most famous bars in the world’, alongside Raffles in Singapore, that at Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, The 21 Club in New York, the Pied Piper Bar at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, the Ritz Bar in London, and the Ritz Bar in Paris. His favourite drink was a double Daquiri, without sugar, made with Cuban rum, frappe ice, lemon or lime, and a touch of marrasquino. 

 

I was extremely lucky to share a table at El Floridita with a couple from Dublin, seated right in the front nearest the band. At El Floridita it would be sacrilege to not order a daiquiri, the choice offered being a strawberry or a lime one. They are charged at 6CUCs (R90), and are served with a plate of the most delicious lightly salted banana chips. Even more remarkable and serendipitous was the chance hearing of a South African English accent in the Bar, and the lovely lady told me that she is a SAA stewardess, part of a crew that flew to Havana especially to collect 200 medical students. Just two days prior I had met two such students, who had just completed their six years of medical studies, paid for by the SA taxpayer, accommodation and food provided, with R3500 pocket money per month, all because we do not have enough study places for our South African medical students! SAA does not fly to Havana, but this was a chartered trip, by the government no doubt. They were doing a 24 hour stop over before returning. I spoke to pilot Captain Glen, who told me that they flew direct from Joburg, for fifteen and a half hours. On the way back they stop at Accra, to refuel. I had to laugh that he was enjoying a Daquiri, when pilots are not supposed to drink 24 hours before a flight. The stewardess laughed it off. It was a fantastic experience at El Floridita, and visiting this bar is very highly recommended.

 

Fellow Austrian BnB guests in Havana told me that a tour they went on included a demonstration of preparing a Daquiri: lime juice, sugar added and lightly stirred, a fruit juice (they were shown a mango one), making up three quarters of a tall glass, and then white rum added counting 1 2 3 4 5.

 

#. At night Hemingway is said to have drunk Mojitos at the Hotel Ambos Mundos, and this also was his abode, in room 511, from which he could see the Havana Harbour, and where he wrote  

‘For whom the Bell Tolls’, described as one of Fidel Castro’s favourite bedtime reading books. Lonely Planet describes this hotel and its rooftop bar as an ‘obligatory pit stop for anyone on a world tour of ‘Hemingway once fell over here’! Hemingway’s room is now a museum, with the same furnishings, including his reading glasses and fishing rods. 

Mojitos were Hemingways favourite drink here. According to the Austrians, these are made with lime juice, sugar added and lightly stirred, mint, and then white rum added, to the count of 1 2 3 4 5.

 

#.  A surprise was that my Guidebook shared that the Marina Hemingway in Havana is the largest in Cuba, taking up to 400 boats. It is the home to an annual Hemingway Fishing Tournament, which first started in his lifetime, in 1950, with passionate anglers participating in this competition to catch the largest deep-sea fishing catch. In the main, boats departing from this marina catch tuna, marlin, and mackerel. 

 

#. The setting for ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ is the fishing village of Cojimar. In this village Hemingway moored his yacht, and was a regular at the La Terazza bar. I was privileged to be shown the village by Alain Barrios Chávez, who lives nearby. 

 

 

#. The Finca Vigia, now the Ernest Hemingway Museum, outside Havana, is surprisingly large. I rented a taxi, to take me to Fusterlandia, and then to the Museo Ernest Hemingway. 

 

I found these Hemingway quotes whilst researching this story:

 

‘There is no friend as loyal as a Book’

 

’Courage is grace under pressure’

 

’There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed’. 

 

‘The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them’

 

’There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self’.