Bigotes

Bigotes

I suppose one should know a cat's name before one starts to write about her. But I don't. The subject of this little story is a mottled grey female cat who lives at Havana's Presidente Hotel. Lacking her name, I'll call her Bigotes, which means Whiskers in Spanish. Bigotes is the hotel's cat, and she spends most of her time on the wide porches that border the south and east sides of the hotel. She can also be found from time to time in the beautiful pool area on the north side.

The Presidente is 1-1/2 blocks from the Malecon, Havana's coastal highway and alongside Vedado's Avenida de Los Presidentes, arguably the grandest boulevard in Havana. Bigotes lives in a high rent district.

Bigotes looks a lot like Marble, a favorite Calico we had who lived a long and happy life --half of it in one of the barns at our farm. Marble was more colorful than Bigotes (what good is it to be a Calico if she doesn't have lots of color?) But Bigotes is still quite pretty, and, like Marble was, she is well-oriented toward people. The hotel porch and pool areas are filled with tables and chairs, peopled with guests, served by waiters and bar attendants, and patrolled by Bigotes.

I met her on my first trip to Havana six years ago. Missing my own dogs and cats, I would stop to pet her and talk to her whenever I saw her. She liked the attention. On my second stay at the Presidente, I realized she is a long-term, stable resident of the hotel. She's well-fed (probably by some employee of one of the hotel's two very good restaurants), and I could see little bowls of water set around for her. Somebody besides me loves this cat, I thought.

Thus it went through the years, and each time I returned to the Presidente. Bigotes was there for me to enjoy. This year, in March, my traveling companions, Nikki and Mariane, got to know Bigotes as well. They wanted to know if she was spayed and how old she was.. "Yes," George, the younger bellman assured us, "She's 9 years old, spayed and gets good medical attention as needed."

And it couldn't be otherwise, I reasoned. She'd wander away if she didn't have a source of good food, and, if she had not been spayed, a constant procession of litters of kittens would have done her in long ago.

I like the Presidente. Not a slick modern hotel, it was built in 1928. It's economical (about $70 per night compared with $160 for Henry Flagler's masterpiece, Havana's Hotel Nacional.) The Nacional is the twin sister of Palm Beach's The Breakers.

Well, the Presidente isn't as slick as the Nacional, and you won't see many celebrities there, but then the Nacional doesn't have Bigotes for guests to pet.

Les Inglis