Meet John in La Habana Traditional Geocache

As a fan of music there may be two reasons to come to Habana. One is that Cuba is full of music with Habana being a kind of focal point. Another reason however is, you want to meet with John. If you are successfull with this cache you will meet him. This cache is hidden in Lennon park in Vedado, a part of Habana in the West with beautiful old houses in colonial style. Ask a taxi driver to bring you to the crossing of calle 23 (La Rampa) and calle 6. From there walk down calle 6 to the North-West until the crossing of calle 17 and calle 6. At the corner you will find a replica of the Eiffel tower on the sign of "La union francesa de Cuba". Enter the park diagonally opposite to the Eiffel Tower. Walk along the outermost path in the park in parallel to calle 17 towards calle 8 until the second sitting bench (listing coords, N23 07.903 W82 23.990). Sit down there and relax before logging. Logging might be challenging in presence of the many muggles that might be around when you come to see this park at an unconvenient time.

From the bench you should see now a blue house with turquoise doors. An organization called UMIV resides in this house, the sign should be visible from where you sit. The sitting bench is old and shows a nice emblem. It is mounted on a concrete podest put into the meadow. Looking from the bench to the UMIV the cache container (a 80mm tube with about 10mm diameter) is inserted in the slot between the concrete podest and the ground and covered by a stone. Pretend to take a photo of the house at the corner left to the UMIV house kneeing down at the cache location. The house is really beautiful and worth a photo. In this position remove the stone, sense the tube in the slot, grab it, sit down for logging.

If you want to be on the safe side for logging this cache, please bring a small tablet tube (0.5 inch diameter) with a piece of paper. The container gets muggled quite often at this place.

Enter your log also watching the photo you took and express dissatisfaction such that you have to repeat the whole photo shooting procedure while hiding the tube and covering it again carefully with the stone.

Watch the spoiler pictures before, this prevents you from searching a lot under the eyes of the muggles. Don't go there in the evening. All sitting benches including the "hot" one will be occupied by young people in love. Best time is early in the morning or when the sun burns down pretty hot.

Now, having found the cache, just turn around by 180 degrees from the cache location. There you will see a John Lennon sitting on another bench at N23 07.913 W82 23.990. He may have watched you while logging. Sit aside him tell him your life story (except the fact that you searched a geocache here) and have someone take a photo of you both. I would enjoy if you'll append the photo also to your log.

If you're lucky you'll also meet John's optician. He cares John's glasses while smoking a cuban cigar on another bench nearby in the shadow. He'll tell you that he knows every camera in the world. Pretend to believe him, give him a Peso and he will shoot an even more authentic picture of you and John with his glasses put on. But for safety reasons have someone repeat the picture unless you have a good camera with an image stabilazation feature. The man told me he is 94 years old.

The best view on Vedado, the Malecon and downtown Habana you'll have from the 33rd floor of the FOCSA building at N23 08.584 W82 23.087 (crossing of calle 17 / calle M) not that far away. Just dress appropriately and kindly ask in the bar/restaurant "La torre" for taking a few photos. Typically they are friendly as long as you don't disturb the other guests there with your photographing.

I wish you a happy cache hunting and a nice meeting with John in La Habana. Enjoy Cuba.

PS: Be informed that any equipment that is able to receive satellite signals is still prohibited for public use in Cuba. However, cellphones are becoming frequently used there, particularly in La Habana ...