'French Spiderman' sets his eyes on new building

The daredevil climber nicknamed "Spider-Man" is famous for scaling some of the world's tallest skyscrapers without a safety line.

Now Alain Robert has his sights set on a slightly less imposing edifice that nonetheless offers its own challenges - and plenty of symbolism.

The 50-year-old Frenchman is in Havana on a mission to conquer the 27-story former Hilton Hotel that was taken over after the 1959 Cuban Revolution and redubbed the "Habana Libre," or "Free Havana."

Fidel Castro briefly set up his personal offices here in room 2324 after his triumphant march into the capital.

"I am in Cuba because I have never climbed in Cuba, so for me this is always something interesting discovering a new country, climbing a new kind of building," said Robert in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press.

Robert is famous for scaling the world's tallest skyscrapers without a safety line.

The 25-story Habana Libre Hotel was originally a symbol of American capitalism when it opened in 1958 as the Havana Hilton.

On Friday, Robert and his manager Claude Megeve inspected the building he said he is going to climb in the next few days.

The men scoped the building and chose a side to scale and had a test run climbing the South side of the structure.

Robert has secured permission from island authorities for the climb and intends to make the attempt on Monday.

At 126 meters high, a fall from the Habana Libre would still be deadly. But the building is dwarfed by other giants Robert has climbed unaided: Chicago's Willis (nee Sears) Tower, New York's Empire State Building, Taiwan's Taipei 101 and Malaysia's Petronas Towers - all of which were the tallest in the world at some point.

But his career hasn't been without personal risk and injury. The climbing life has had its ups and downs, he acknowledged.

At 20 years old, a 15-meter fall broke multiple bones and put him in a coma for six days. Since then, Robert said he suffers from bouts of vertigo. French social security officials consider him disabled, he said.

But Robert defied doctors' predictions that his climbing career was over and has gone on to scale ever-loftier heights. Two years ago he took six hours to summit what currently is the world's tallest building, the 2,717 foot-tall (828 meter) Burj Khalifa in Dubai, though for that ascent he used some safety equipment.

He is afraid like any other human being, but fear doesn't stop him from doing what he loves, Robert said.