Camillo and Daysi were up early today, and relative to the size of their casa, so were we. They put out a nice breakfast spread of mostly fruit and bread, and there was a young Canadian couple that was staying here that I was somehow seeing for the first time. I hadn't had coffee yet, so I honestly have no idea if they tried to talk to me or not. We asked my new bff Camillo if we could pay him to take us on a tour of the city, and he seemed genuinely excited but somewhat offended by the offer of money. They made us omelets with a side of hot dogs; I have no idea what it is with the hot dog thing here.
Anyway...
We started with the bank again, and it was a total fail. Camillo took us to their main national bank, and the teller tried both my Visa and my MasterCard and both were declined. We went around the corner to a Western Union, and she told us that it would take 24 hours, and the money has to be sent to a Cuban citizen. Well, in theory we're supposed to leave tomorrow morning. But that's another story. The Western Union teller gave us a website where you can deposit money in the US, and people in Cuba can pick it up at a bank here. It seemed a little shady and not without problems, so we're still sol at the moment. We're down to a budget of about $30 a day to live on, which is about a month's salary here but still roughly a good trip to Starbucks for us. So who knows.
Camillo asked if his wife could go with, and it suddenly went from a tour to a double date. Though she doesn't speak a word of English, Daysi is sweet and funny and her and Shari got along great. They took off for about a half hour together and I wish I could have heard that conversation. Camillo took us around town, and we had a few drinks at pretty much every place we stopped. They were all gorgeous spots with a view of the ocean, but by late afternoon we were getting tired and somewhat over-served. We went to the main country club in town, where you had to pay $1 to get in, and settled in for the remainder of the day. There was a live band with salsa music and dancing, a great view of the sunset, and a Santeria priestess sitting behind us knocking back beers like a sailor. If you don't know what Santeria is, just Google it, but Camillo went off on a rant about them that had us spitting our beer out. Shari also recorded his Plea to Donald Trump, that was so funny we may have to put it up on YouTube.
We danced a little and had a few more drinks and returned to the casa around 7. We are supposed to leave tomorrow, but we have neither a place to stay nor a way to get there. Daysi called everyone she knew, and the only driver she could find to Viñales was $160, which in our current situation wasn't going to happen. We took some quick naps, but I think it's possible our hosts were out for the night. Shari and I went down and grabbed a fairly quick pizza, and we were back to the casa early and I caught up on the writing.
Tomorrow will be interesting.
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