Obama arrives in Cuba

Havana : Barack Obama on Sunday became the first US president in 88 years to visit Cuba, touching down in Havana for a landmark trip aimed at ending decades of Cold War animosity.

"¿Que bola Cuba?" Obama tweeted on landing, using Cuban slang to ask what's going on. "Just touched down here, looking forward to meeting and hearing directly from the Cuban people."

Obama is not only the first sitting US president since Fidel Castro's guerrillas overthrew the US-backed government of Fulgencio Batista in 1959, but the first since President Calvin Coolidge in 1928.

Seeking to leave a historic foreign policy mark in his final year in office, Obama will tour old town Havana late Sunday, hold talks with Cuban President Raul Castro on Monday and attend a baseball game before leaving Tuesday.

For Cubans dreaming of escaping isolation and reinvigorating their threadbare economy, the visit has created huge excitement.

"A president of the United States in Cuba arriving in Havana on his Air Force One," wrote popular Cuban writer Leonardo Padura on the Cafefuerte blog.

"Never in my dreams or nightmares could we have imagined that we'd see such a thing."

For days, Havana's old town has been crawling with painters sprucing up the picturesque neighborhood and the Stars and Stripes -- long the enemy flag -- has appeared over numerous buildings. 

Early Sunday, cleaners swept the narrow, cobbled streets where Obama was due to stroll later and police, especially plainclothes, were out in large numbers.