?What is one of your fondest childhood memories?
During my pre-teen and early teen years I had spent much time in the province of Pinar del Río, travelled relatively often to the province of Matanzas, mostly to Varadero Beach, gone to Santiago de Cuba and other cities, but had never gone abroad.
In 1956 I did. Havana had then, and probably still, two commercial airports, both with international travel, albeit the smaller one of only one small Cuban airline. The José Martí Airport at Rancho Boyeros (about 10 miles south of the city) handled the traffic from many airlines, from America, Europe and the rest of the world. The Aerovías Q airport was in the City of Marianao (part of greater Havana), sharing the runway with the military traffic of Camp Columbia, but with a completely separate terminal and entrance. At the latter operated only the Aerovías Q Airline, passenger service to Key West, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, to Nueva Gerona en Isla de Pinos and two cities in Mexico, using surplus Douglas DC-3 aircraft (military designation C-47) and Cuba Aeropostal. The DC-3 was first flown in 1935, carried about 26 passengers with two prop engines, had a ceiling of about 10,000 feet.
When you look north towards the sea from Havana's coastal boulevard called Malecón, all you see are dark waters, deep sea. The Edge of the Platform is less than a block away from the rocks of the coast, so much so than when in 1954 FAE's Lt. Enrique Pérez Zignago's Thunderbolt F-47 exhaust pipes caught on fire and starting burning his seat on the cabin while taking off, he tried to do an emergency landing on the coast, but seeing that the only available field was full of children, he put down on the sea close to the coast, behind the hotel Rosita de Hornedo. His plane was grabbed by the Gulf Current and never found.
The preceding was to relate the great experience of looking out from an airplane window while taking off in a DC-3 of Aerovías Q from Camp Columbia and heading north to Key West.
My cousin Pepe Villamil took his daughter Ada, son Pepucho and me on that beautiful trip. At the time, a round-trip ticket on a DC3 of Aerovías Q from Havana to Key West cost $20. We went to the Aerovías Q terminal side of Camp Columbia, boarded the plane and soon took off.
The short flight never reached much altitude, but flying low after leaving the airport and heading north, I found it amazing to look out the window and see the city from above for the first time; after crossing the Malecón and coastal rocks, the deep blue see of the Gulf Current was obvious, not much to see, but a little while later, as we approached Key West, the crystal waters above the coral reefs was absolutely beautiful, allowing one to see clear to the bottom from the low altitude of the plane, on occasion even some large fish.
Upon landing at Key West and going down the stairway to the tarmac, we walked to the terminal, which was an old wooden army barrack. There Pepe picked a rental automobile, a latest model Dodge, and we took the Overseas Highway toward Miami. Pepe was driving, of course, I sat in the passenger seat reading a road map, Ada and Pepucho in the back seat. After going through a few keys, admiring the highway with sea at both sides, Marathon Key and the Seven-mile bridge, we stopped at Greyhound Key for a snack, so called because Greyhound buses stopped there on trips to and from Key West.
Proceeding north again, we reached Homestead, continued north on US 1, through Perrine, while I followed our trajectory on the map. We planned to stay on US 1 until we reached Le Jeune Road, turn left there, heading north until Flagler Street, where we would turn right seeking NW 17th Place, where Tía Maño (Margot Porto) lived.
We had no difficulty finding Le Jeune, where we indeed turned left; then while reading street names in Coral Gables, we finally got to the numbered streets of Miami. I already wore glasses but my myopia was only 1.5 diopter, so it was no excuse; Pepe on the other hand, was much more myopic, about 13 diopter, wore glasses with coke-bottle lenses and was driving in an unfamiliar place.
So it happened that I was reading the street signs, counting down, SW 8 Street, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and Wafler Street. Then it began again on NW 1 Street, we couldn't find Flagler Street. The sign read W. Flagler Street and I didn't realize it until we had turned around a couple of times.
We finally arrived at Tía Maño's house, later on at Manolo's.
It was amazing discovering downtown Miami, with most stores still with wooden floors, separate water fountains for Colored and White, a band playing at Bayfront Park's Conch to take advantage of its acoustics, South Miami Beach, the Fountainbleu Hotel, then only a couple of years old, then continuing north through not much at all, but eventually reaching the beautiful motels before and after 163rd Street.
The day we left, we drove back to Key West without incident, boarded the Aerovías Q plane there and flew to Havana. I again marvelled about the crystaline water and coral reefs, then all dark sea, but when we neared Havana, the view from the sea approaching the Malecón was very impressive; flying low we landed at Camp Columbia and the adventure came to an end.
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