Something I forgot to mention on my last email. When we landed in Cuba the whole plane (well except for the 4 Americans) applauded and cheered. I'm not sure that will be the case when we return to Orlando!
Another funny thing to watch is the dogs that live on the square. There are about 6 that clearly live there. They play and sleep and run around together. They can all be sleeping in different areas when a new dog walks in and in the exact same instant all the dogs come running and barking like they are going to attack the dog. They make it clear it's their place and move on!
Today is the Fidel Castro parade and celebration so everything is closed. There are a few tourists restaurants open and that's it. It might have been cool to go see the parade. But on our City tour they took us by where the parade would end and all the speeches would take place. It would be too difficult for us to get there with the holiday. No one is working today here.
Yesterday was day 5, exactly half way through the trip and I got sick while we were walking after eating what was going to be lunch but turned into dinner because the service is so slow. Actually it's even slower for the Americans. We were seated in a section with 10 tables and there was only one other table taken when we were seated. Within about 30 minutes all 10 tables were now occupied. I was still waiting for a glass of wine. When we finally got our food (about 1.5 hours later) several of the other tables were done and gone! So lunch turned into dinner. On the walk back I had one of those "I need a bathroom NOW" moments. Fortunately we saw a little restaurant bar and I dipped in quickly before anyone could say anything. That pretty much ended our evening because I wasn't feeling so well. I slept a lot and woke up today feeling better.
We are off to Cienfuegos today. It's a 5 hour drive. To put that into perspective it would be like taking a cab from Orange County to Phoenix or from Cincinnati to Nashville. Did I mention all their cars are at least 57 years old!? One thing I noticed on the drive from the airport to our first place is the number of cars on the highway stopped with hoods up and people laying underneath them trying to fix what's wrong with them today. And lots of people hitchhike here. Anyway our "shared" cab ride will cost $35 each which I thought was more than reasonable but lots of tourists were complaining about the cost saying it would be half that price if it weren't the holidays.
We learned that tobacco is their number one industry and they export 90% of their tobacco! The price of the Cuban cigars are more than I expected. We are allowed to bring back $200 worth per person. That would be about 10 per person if you're buying Cohiba's.
We get in the shared cab and Mark is sitting up front. The driver asks "where you from" and Mark's response (in his best Canadian accent) "Canada"! He then proceeds to speak Spanish to him with his Canadian (Wisconsin) accent. The highway is 6-8 lanes (3-4 each way). And you see the broken down cars, horse and buggies and people walking, even pushing strollers and walking with their dogs! Yes all on the highways!
Another thing we've noticed is they love American music. However that's not even remotely current. They play music from the 1970's - 1980's. It's like nothing here is current life. They know the internet exists, but they don't really know what it is. Not one single app works here! If they want to browse the Internet or read their email they buy an internet card (average price is $4/hour) and then sit in the park and hope the internet is working!
Well we are here in Cienfuegos now. Our driver got us here in about 3 hours and that includes a quick stop for coffee and bathroom about halfway here. Our home stay is "quaint". It's a couple who rents out the two extra rooms in their house. He said he speaks English but he has to keep speaking Spanish. We had dinner at a local place and shared our table with a woman from Germany and a woman from Sweden. We had a great time. And they talked us into making the treck to Trinidad. So if we can arrange transportation and a home stay we're off to there on Wednesday.
It's now Tuesday we're starting to run out of money. So that means we are not going to Trinidad because it will be two more cab rides. And farther from Havana so more expensive to get back there. So once again the plans change and it's 7:00 pm and we have no idea what's next tomorrow or where we will be staying. I've learned I'm okay with winging it but I do like a little bit of structure with the winging it part. :)
I'm just going to let Mark tell you about our day. Let's just say we saw it through the eyes of a local. So everywhere we went we got the "local price". For example we went to the country club. I had read all about it and we only paid $1.00 each to get in. We had 8 drinks total and it cost $12.00! They took us to a very local spot for lunch. Camillo ordered for us and chose the fish and shrimp. Now keep in mind this is fish from the small lake since fishing is prohibited here. And everything was fried! But I was so hungry at this point and need some food. So far I had breakfast and 4 rum and cokes. And I didn't want to offend our host and say I don't do fried food. So I ate the fried fish and shrimp and survived.
The best part of my day is I got to salsa dance at the "country club ". I got a lot of habla espanol practica total dia. All in all a great way to see Cienfuegos and experience the real cultural here.
Maybe I will get internet soon - I don't know!
Update! We have a plan now. We are going to stay in Cienfuegos one more night because there are no rooms in Villas or Havana for tonight. We will go back to Havana tomorrow for one night then to Villas for one night and our last night in Havana. (Our last two nights were reserved and set).
Sent from my iPhone
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