Cuba - Day 7 - Challenge Accepted.

Our last day in Trinidad and our last full day in Cuba, so not surprisingly, we decided to pack in a huge day.  Our pick up was scheduled for 8:30am (middle of the night by Cuba standards), but our Casa hosts had the standard monster breakfast ready and waiting for us on our rooftop table.  Today’s adventure was a trip to Topes de Collantes, a nature reserve park, for a day of hiking and swimming in a waterfall.  Very educational, obviously.  We had a private guide, let’s call him Antonio.  And he was wearing a “Chicago” baseball hat when he came to pick us up!  Complete coincidence.

Antonio is probably in his late 20’s or early 30’s and is fluent in English, possibly the most fluent we have come across since we’ve been here, so it was very easy to talk to him and boy did he like to talk, so we learned a lot.  Antonio’s take on Cuba was a little bit different from others as we was employed by the government as a park tour guide and had been for years.  He is clearly a sharp guy and very well informed in politics, which was interesting since it was obvious that his first love is the outdoors.  He grew up in “the mountains” of Cuba and was resistant to moving to the big town (Trinidad).  His family still lived in the mountains but he did make the move to town. Keep in mind that mountains in Cuba are not Colorado sized, but maybe more Wisconsin or Michigan sized, and they are only about 10 minutes from Trinidad. 

The taxi dropped us off at the “trailhead”.  Using that term loosely since essentially we were dropped off in what seemed like an apartment building parking lot that had a dirt path leading into a foresty area.  The apartment buildings, by our standards were in shambles – by now we were used to seeing the crumbling buildings with laundry drying everywhere, so not shocking in any way.  And of course, sadly, there was the garbage.  To a certain extent, I understand the garbage in more populated and dense areas, but to see the piles of garbage everywhere in what is supposed to be a nature reserve was kind of a bummer. 

We made our way down the path, followed by chickens, through some “mountain houses” and coffee crops.  There are a lot of people who still live in the mountains and they live in small houses tucked in the trees just off the path and they farm coffee and other plants.  When Antonio was first explaining this, I’m envisioning houses on the side of a mountain with perfectly groomed crops planted and tended.  But every time Antonio pointed into the woods to show us “crops”, Damon and I were like “um, where” – he would point to a bunch of plants and said, “there – see how they are planted in rows”.  All we could see was the typical forest trees with a bunch of bushes and plants growing randomly everywhere. 

We were able to recognize coffee been bushes after a while, but never, not once, did I ever recognize anything that appeared to be a row or crop.  And this was fairly dense forest with trees all over.  We did pass by a house that had a enormous ox in front - just lounging around.  The ox only had one horn.  Apparently a tree fell in a storm and broke the other horn clean off.  First, can you imagine the loss to the owner if the tree had killed the ox, which is used to help plow the coffee fields?  Second, how this ox was able to maneuver around the "fields" is beyond me because, as stated, I couldn't figure out the difference between a coffee field and a forest.

We learned about the plants that grow around in the area – as I said earlier, Antonio is definitely a nature guy.  Which plants require shade vs sun and why certain plants grown or don’t grow.  But I can’t remember any of it.  Oh well.  Antonio pointed out some cool colorful birds

and at one point he was very excited to show us a giant rat poop that came from something he referred to as a giant tree rat.  Now I live in Chicago and have seen my share of Chicago sewer rats, and I have seen their poop.  And judging by the size of the tree rat poop, I can assure you that was one rodent I had absolutely no desire to see – especially jumping around in the trees above me.  And Antonio made sure to make us look closely at how shiny the rat poop was so we could see how fresh it was.  Awesome.

We walked a few miles and he talked and talked and talked.  He was not as negative about the government, more rationale about the situation, but he certainly understood the limitations of their lives – just more accepting of it, I suppose.  He told us about his sister who had gone to the University for a degree in language and wanted to be an English conversational translator.  She spoke several languages but instead of putting her in a translator position, the government assigned her to a hospital where her job was to translate medical jargon.  She was not able to actually practice speaking, just written translation of medical files.  She told Antonio how lucky he was to be in the tourist industry because he was able to speak and practice English on a daily basis.  Antonio did not have any formal English training, but he does have the opportunity to practice constantly and it has made him very conversant in English.

Antonio is married with two young children.  He told us about some German friends he had made during a tour.  They remained close and the Germans sent Antonio’s son some Legos as an 8^th birthday gift.  These Legos became the most popular toy in the neighborhood and all of the local kids would come over and play Legos every day.  Antonio said that their house is so small, that when the kids were all playing,  they couldn’t even get through their living room and had to move furniture just so they could play.  The Legos were so popular that the threat of being asked to leave the house if a kid behaved badly was enough to deter an 8 year old boy from mis-behaving.  The Germans wanted to send more toys but Antonio said, and get this, that he didn’t want to spoil his son.  The set of Legos was plenty.  Here is a family that has almost nothing, and one set of Legos is more than enough for them.  Still feel guilty about not buying your kid an iPhone 7???  In addition to Legos, apparently the movie “Cars” & Lightening McQueen are hugely popular with the boys.  Both Marcus’s 6-year old and Antonio’s 8 year old were huge fans.  The Germans also bought the son Lightening McQueen sheets, pillows and blankets – and Antonio considered that moderately spoiled.

We had a lengthy conversation about credit in Cuba.  If I understood this correctly, there is credit, but only with the government, and it is incredibly restrictive.  Antonio explained how this worked using a new refrigerator as an example.  The government decided that everyone had to buy a new more energy efficient refrigerator.  But in order to get one, they had to turn in an old, inefficient refrigerator.  They received no credit for the old one and had to pay full price for a new one.  I don’t know how much they cost, but these are not GE Profile, stainless steel, they are about ¾ size, plain white refrigerators, but I’m guessing $600-$1000.  Antonio need a refrigerator but did not have an old one, so first, he had to go out and find an old crappy refrigerator to buy, so he could turn it in and get nothing for it, and then pay full price for the new one – on credit.  He said it took him 9 years to pay off the refrigerator.  And then his mom needed one, so he is currently paying off that one as well.  Now here is the rub – if you have any credit, you cannot get more credit.  So while he is paying off his mom’s refrigerator, he cannot get credit for anything else.  AND, if you have any outstanding credit, you cannot get a passport because the government thinks you will leave and bail on your debt.  So if you recall from a few days ago when I wrote about the expense of passports and the difficulty in leaving the country, here is yet another obstacle they have to overcome.  A mandatory refrigerator upgrade.  I asked Antonio if he wanted to leave Cuba and visit any other countries, specifically his friends in Germany, and he basically said, maybe one day, but it will be at least 5 years before I can even think about getting a passport.

At one point, we learned that Antonio had bought a Sunbeam air conditioner.  I don’t recall how he got it, but at some point, I’m guessing he may have filled out a warranty card – in any case, he ended up providing his email address to Sunbeam.  He was telling us how strange it was that he kept getting emails from the company since he lived in Cuba – he had absolutely no concept of SPAM and had to open his phone and show us, in awe, all of the emails he was getting from Sunbeam.  Remember back in the late ‘90’s when we were still getting used to email and SPAM???

Last story.  Antonio, as I mentioned was a pretty sharp guy and understands but seems to grudgingly accept the limitations imposed by the Cuban government.  But he seemed especially affected when we were talking about education and job opportunities and he told us how he had asked a little girl what she wanted to be when she grew up and her answer was that she wanted to marry a tourist.  That was her goal in life that had been ingrained in her by friends and family.

Back to our hike.  We hiked for an hour or so and eventually got to a beautiful waterfall. 

As we had been promised a swim, Damon and I both brought bathing suits.  There were about 10 other people around when we got there.  I had debated wearing my suit but didn’t really want to hike in it and Damon had assured me – there will be somewhere to change.  HA HA HA.  There were steep paths, rocks, and brambles.  And people.  Again – when in Cuba.  Damon held up a mini-towel and I just put my suit on hoping the giant rock I was huddled next to give me just a touch of privacy. This picture is facing the rock - I was basically in the bushes on the left trying not to fall down the rock.

It was a nice warm day and we were happy to jump in – I let Damon go first.  I believe his reaction was, “well, it will take some getting used to”.  I jumped in and, I kid you not, my heart literally stopped.  This was the coldest freaking water I’ve ever jumped into.  I started to panic since my lungs were constricting and as I was already in above my head, literally, I panic doggie paddled to the side of the pool until I felt rocks under my feet and sort of walk/swam/hobbled my way over to the waterfall clinging to the outside edge of the pool.

Obvious question – dumbass – why did you have to go all the way to the waterfall???  Well, the short version is that I was challenged in a bet that I would take a picture of me smoking a cigar under a waterfall in Cuba.  And I accepted that challenge.  And we had carried the cigar all the way to the waterfall.  And I don’t take challenges lightly.  So I made Damon go freeze his butt off treading water in the middle of the freezing pool to take the picture while I stood under the waterfall with my cigar. 

I did suck it up and swim across the pool to get out.  Not the refreshing dip in a mountain waterfall I had been anticipating, but if it provides good fodder for a story, I’m all in.

After our hike, we stopped for lunch at a little restaurant and enjoyed more company and conversation with Antonio… and our taxi driver.  And then we made a stop at a local café (Paladar) where we could try local mountain coffee and see how it is ground up and made.  Another delicious coffee stop.  By this point, we were probably an hour behind schedule – apparently they didn’t think we would spend so much time in the water… and Marcus was calling because our ride to get us back to Havana was waiting.  A wonderful day in the forest with Antonio, but the day was only half over.

The taxi ride back to Havana was slightly calmer, although since I didn’t sleep, I did pick up on a few more things.  The car was not as luxurious as our way out – no air conditioning, no seat belts, no headrests.  Oh well, you should never get used to the finer things here. 

Now for the drive - there were goats – everywhere.  At least on the 2-lane portion of the highway.  The goats just roamed free on and around the road.  I noticed that oncoming drivers were always flashing their lights at us and figured out that it is like the Cuban driver defense system – drivers flash warnings whenever there is anything potentially hazardous in the road ahead – goats, police, slow moving vehicles.  Needless to say, there was a lot of flashing going on.  I also paid more attention to the big highway on the way back.  There were still very few cars on the road, which made me wonder why we were riding in what was essentially the inner emergency lane – until I realized up ahead there were massive craters in the road.  No warning – just huge gaps where the pavement (or lack thereof) would have wrecked these cars, already driving on basically no suspension.  And there were no lane markings.  Sometimes you might see a very faint line, but for the most part, people just sort of stayed out of each other’s way.  I didn’t notice any street lamps, which made me wonder how this road would be to drive in the dark.  I asked our driver if he lived in Havana and he said he had to go back to Cienfuegos (a town about an hour shy of Trinidad), so basically, he was driving almost the entire way in the dark.  Hope he made is safely…

We were dropped at our final Casa – this one I booked on-line and opted to try something new – it was in Havana Vieja, the really cute part of town and was on the main Plaza Vieja square – the one with the statute of the naked lady riding the chicken.  Given that we had no idea that we would even like this area, it was cool to see that we would spend our last night in our favorite spot.  This Casa was a shared space (bathroom), which I think creeped Damon out a little bit, but we took a chance.  Our host was waiting for us outside – how he knew when we would be there is beyond me as it was about 7pm.  He led us through this amazing massive house – I think it was a former palace, Damon thought it was just a cool apartment building.  The ceilings had to be 20’ everywhere and there were marble staircases and murals on the walls. 

We went through one door after another until we got onto what seemed to be an internal house with a living room and huge kitchen plus a bunch of locked doors – bedrooms and bathrooms on two floors.  We had reserved a bedroom and it did share a bathroom with 2 other rooms/4 other guests.  We never did see them, so it really wasn’t much of an issue.  The living room had a balcony that wrapped around the corner of the building and we had a perfect view of the square.  The chicken is smack in the middle of the picture.

We showered and headed out in search of dinner.  We found a Paladar and each had a huge lobster tail and several plates of fried plantains, and mojitos - less than $40.  Another of my obsessions is clearly how inexpensive some things are…

We decided to walk in search of dessert and laughed about how quickly we got used to the craziness of the streets.  Dogs and cats everywhere and some good territory fights.  We've seen dogs chasing dogs, cats screeching at cats, and tonight we witnessed two dogs chasing and barking at a cat all over until they scared it into a building.

One thing I think I forgot to mention which is so funny about this area is wifi.  There is very little access to the internet (in our experience) and quite frankly, we’ve enjoyed never being bothered with phones, and watching people interact with each other rather than have their faces buried.  However, as you wander the streets of Havana Vieja, occasionally you will see large groups of people sitting on the sidewalk or curb, or standing in the street with their faces down, which means… wifi.  To get internet in Cuba (have I talked about this???) you need a wifi spot and an access card, which you have to pay for - about 2-5 CUC/hour.  That is about the only time I felt like we were back home again where people were just so engrossed in their phones, oblivious to everything around them.  We didn’t bother.

We spent our last evening wandering the streets listening to live music, eating dessert, drinking coffee, and recounting our amazing week.  Then we headed back to our Casa for our (sob) last night. 

As I put these posts up, I'm realizing that generally our pictures are kind of awful.  I think we were so busy looking around that half the time we forgot to take out the camera.  Hopefully the descriptions and the few decent pictures are enough :) 

Cuba - Day 6 - Sugar Sugar & the Canchanchara

Today we had, shockingly, another full day planned touring in and around Trinidad.  Our guide negotiated a 10:30am start time (we are always raring to go before that), but we still woke up early to the sound of roosters cock-a-doodle-doing, dogs barking, and horses clip-clopping on the cobblestone.  Thank goodness our street was a bit off the main area and everyone went to bed early because you can hear absolutely everything that goes on outside.

We started with breakfast out on the “back porch”, which was actually just the roof right of the back half of the building and just off our kitchen.  The previous Casa inhabitants (our good friend Danae) had requested that the kitchen table be put outside, so we just kept it out there since it was so nice in the mornings.

Trinidad is/was well known for sugar production pre-revolution, so the first stop on our tour was a lookout over a huge valley that used to be covered in sugar plantations and worked by 16,000 thousand of slaves.  Right now, only a very small percentage of the fields are in use.  From what we learned, since people can neither own nor profit from a sugar crop, no one works it.  So what was once one of the largest sugar producing regions in the world, now just sits there mostly empty.

Our second stop was what used to be an active sugar plantation – we could see the main house (or “white house” as our guide referred to it since it is where the white people lived) and there were ruins where the sugar cauldrons boiled the sugar as well as ruins of the slave quarters.  There was also a tower that the guards used to watch for slaves escaping – apparently every plantation had a tower for this reason, although few remain. 

And for some reason, there were cows just roaming around.  As was typical, the safety precautions were nil – there were a places where tape sort of blocked areas, but we just went around everything, and tried not to trip over stuff or fall in holes.

Our third stop was at one of the more famous sugar plantations as it had the tallest tower in the area – 45 meters – and we climbed to the top for an amazing view of the sugar valley.  The area had a long drive way leading up to another main house that is in the process of being restored.  The driveway is lined with locals selling their wares to tourists.  Our guide, whose family name is the same as the town we were in as well as the tower, commented that it was sad that he had to pay an entrance fee to the tower that his family had built.  He also commented that his family had occupied the main house years earlier.

Damon's artistic shot deserves a special shout out:

As we were climbing the 10 trillion steps to the top, our guide told us the story of the tower – that years ago, there were two brothers, each in love with the same woman.  One built a tower 45 meters high to impress her and the other dug a well 45 meters deep.  We are not sure who got the lady, but I’m guessing it was the tower guy.  Given that our guide new the history of the place fairly well, he asked us if we wanted to go see the well – of course we did!  So we went behind the house, climbed over a pile of debris and up some rusty steps, and in a pile of crap was the well – we threw some stuff down it to see how deep it was, and it was deep.  Now I’m not saying that it wasn’t a nice looking well, but the tower guy probably won that contest.

On the way out of our sugar tour, we stopped at a juice stand where a guy was just juicing raw sugar cane – we got the double dose of juiced sugar along with sugar cane.  Highly recommend that experience.   

Back in Trinidad, we visited a well-known pottery making place where the owner is somewhat famous – at least in Cuba.  We saw the owner and saw one guy making pottery on a wheel – but I guess it was lunchtime so everyone was gone. 

There was a cool car back in one of the rooms – apparently from 1917. 

Post pottery, a delicious lunch in a rooftop café and then we toured the town.  Sadly, I cannot recount half of what we were told about the history of Trinidad, but there were some churches, some squares, some museums – I do recall learning that Cuba was the last country to abolish slavery.  For all of you blog readers who have suggested that I become a travel writer – I’m not so good with the details.  I didn’t have a chance to write this day down when it was happening, so I’m going from memory more than a week later!  

These steps lead to the outdoor dance area from last night:

There was a lady statue at the entrance to one of the squares – you are supposed to rub her for good dancing juju.  Based on our dancing experience last night, we rubbed the heck out of her in case we went dancing later that night.

We found a bar that serves the famous “Canchanchara” drink.  Holy deliciousness – it has honey, lemon, and a special kind of alcohol/rum and it is served in little clay cups (made in the pottery place).  The ingredients are on the sign, but as it is all in Spanish, I have no clue what was in it.  I think aguardiente must be Spanish for crack because they were that good. 

This was our final stop before our guide let us loose on the town where we finally got to take some pictures of the cuteness.  Not surprisingly, we also headed to a bakery for pastries and more coffee.  I think these pictures much better depict Trinidad's charm & appeal.

Notice that the .25 CUC coin I'm holding is the exact view of the tower and building we are looking at.

Locals selling their wares on the street:

Old cars and cobblestone:

Dominoes in the street:

 Colorful buildings and horse drawn carts:

We had noticed that many of the streets had water running down the middle and apparently, it is from the leaking pipes under the town that have not/cannot be fixed – so the streets are always wet.  Damon thought it was because everyone likes washing their cars.  By the second day in Trinidad, I’m like, damn – there must be a lot of clean cars here!

I mentioned yesterday that our guide had sadly showed us the ruins of a palace that is family had once inhabited. We were told that the government is currently renovating it and turning it into a hotel.  

Eventually we got back to the Casa and YAY, our shower had a brand new pump, so we were able to take a hot shower that actually showered instead of dripped.  Our evening activity was dinner at a seafood place in a nearby fishing village.  Now I thought it would be a nice romantic last night in Trinidad with my husband sort of dinner, but alas, it was us, our guide and our taxi driver all having that nice romantic dinner!  Our taxi driver did not speak much English, but he enjoyed trying to communicate with us.  So we learned that he has two daughters, one of whom just turned 15 and had her Quinceañera.  As he described it, there is a requirement that the father spend every last penny on this particular event, so he laughingly told us he was basically dead broke.  Turns out his wife is one of the most renowned neo-natal surgeons in the Santa Clara area (where Trinidad is), yet he still has to drive a taxi to make money.  The restaurant had a roaming guitar player who played nice romantic melodies to our table – we were a motley crew, but had an enjoyable dinner.

Home at last.  Exhausted.  Tomorrow we head back to Havana for our last night in Cuba.

Cuba - Day 5 - Earning our visas

Another long and interesting day.  We had requested a taxi pick up for 7:30 am for our 4-5 hour drive from Havana to Trinidad.  Sure enough, our driver was already waiting when we got down at 7:28 – we learned that he had left Trinidad at 3am to come get us, and then had to make another trip back and forth after dropping us off.  Leaving the luxury of our “Red Room” was sad since we had no idea what was waiting for us in Trinidad.  One thing I kept saying to Damon whenever we experienced something new and uncomfortable was “just give it some time and we will figure it out”.  Words to live by when travelling the way we did in Cuba.

The car that showed up, thankfully, was relatively modern.  Our Peugeot, circa 1985, was comfortable with cushy cloth seats, headrests, and had enough leg room for Damon.  It even had seat belts - possibly the first we’ve seen since we’ve been here.  Apparently it is the law for people in the front seat to wear seat belts (assuming the car has them) but no one seems to mind what goes on in the back.

The drive was uneventful but still lots to write about.  The major highway is in pretty good shape and generally had very few cars on it.  It was three or four lanes in each direction for the first half of the trip.  In addition to cars, and here is where it gets strange, you get bikers (not motorcycles), walkers (not zombies, just regular people, for those of you who watch TWD) and hitchhikers in and on the side of the road.  There were hitchhikers scattered the entire length of the highway – probably hundreds of people trying to catch a ride.  Now I slept on and off for the bulk of the ride so I’m sure I missed a few things… but we did make one pit stop at a gas station roughly halfway.  I think during the entire drive, I may have seen 2 gas stations – there are no exits with restaurants and services like we are used to.  There is a whole lot of nothing.  Our gas station seemed to be a major stop as it was packed with taxis and people stretching their legs.  They had a little counter where we could get a coffee for about $.40 and then hover over a toilet seat with the traditional 2 squares of toilet paper I paid 1 CUC to obtain from the lady out front. I travel with my own stash at all times.  Yes, I am STILL obsessed with toilets. 

Inside the gas station, there is almost nothing for sale - most display cases in Cuba tend to be lightly stocked if at all; however, this gas station had one display case and it was fully stocked with small bags of olives.  I suppose Cubans either love or hate olives, either of which could explain the stock pile.  But olives?  Pretty random.

As has become the norm, and for some reason that was never explained to us, we pulled into a small town, Rodas, to pick up another guy who rode the rest of the way to Trinidad with us.  We have no idea who he was or why he was with us, but that is just how it works.  Unfortunately, neither our driver nor the new guy spoke any English and their Spanish was very difficult to understand, so we gave up and rode (slept) mostly in silence.  

Once we got off the main highway, things got more interesting.  We dropped to a two lane highway – one in each direction with no shoulder.  The modes of transportation on the road ranged from old and new cars to motorcycles to bikes to, and this one is new, horse drawn carts.  And lots of them.  Imagine a sort of mini-cart made of wood that was cobbled together with a seat in front - often car seats - with big rubber tires – usually car or motorcycle tires - pulled by a single horse.  There were tons of these.  Now keep in mind that the typical drive to Trinidad takes 4-5 hours and we clocked in at 3:45 with our gas station stop and picking up random guy.  Our driver, clearly in a hurry to drop us off, was weaving in and out around horses and bikers and trucks - there were a few times I had to close my eyes, but he seemed to know what he was doing.   We would get within inches of clipping the back of a horse cart, swerve around it, with a trucking coming at us at full speed, and then swerve back in just missing the horse’s nose &/or getting slammed head on by the truck.  It was a little unnerving. 

On the small road, we were, once again, pulled over by the police.  Not sure if we just had an unlucky run or if it is just that common.  I’d guess the latter.  I was not so subtly trying to watch the exchange to see if money changed hands while Damon was trying to be very discrete.  I couldn’t see if the cop was paid off.  This stop was a bit more intrusive – the policeman opened the trunk and searched pretty much everything back there – interestingly, he seemed to stay away from our luggage and focused on everything else in the trunk.  There were two policemen who just kept pulling cars over one after another.  Later we asked one of our tour guides about these stops and it seems there is no love lost between the police and everyone else.

Closer to Trinidad, we saw a bunch of cars stopped and people just standing around.  We thought it was an accident until Damon realized it was some sort of crab run.   Thousands of crabs trying to get across the road and most of them not making it - there were hundreds and hundreds of squished crab gut piles on the road for about mile.  Apparently this run happens every morning for a few weeks.  Once we got ahead of the main section, you just saw crabs running back and forth on the road - again, trying not to get hit – it was comical if you can imagine fairly large crabs with their claws up just running in circles.  I think our driver may have been squishing them on purpose - hard to be sure.  We agreed to stop and take pictures on the way back (NOTE:  we drove back in the afternoon and missed them, so sad but I did find these pictures on-line fairly accurately depicting what it looked like, minus the cars and people.  Squished crabs and all.  I’ve never seen anything quite like it).

Finally, we arrived at our new Casa around noon and met our host/guide for the next few days, Marcus. (NOTE:  Our guy’s name was not Marcus, but he did have some very strong opinions on Cuba.  On the very slim chance this blog goes beyond entertaining my friends and family, I wouldn’t want his identity confirmed).  We are staying in Marcus’ house that he recently renovated and we were the second guests to rent the room.  Actually it is two rooms - one room with two double beds and one room with a partially finished kitchen and full bathroom - and no toilet seat.  During our stay, I asked what the deal was with the lack of toilet seats in Cuba and the answer was not that people didn’t have the money to buy them, but rather there just aren’t any available to buy.  Marcus built the house from the ground up over the last ten years and improves it whenever he has the money.  It was sparse, but clean.  Our room was on the second floor and to access it, you had to climb up this super skinny little spiral staircase – the staircase was too narrow for us to bring up our overnight bags so they were brought up the back stairs.  Marcus looked at Damon (6’4”, 220 and me – 5’10”, not telling), then looked at the stairs and said - I made this for me and I am very skinny.  Every single time we go up he says "try not to hit your head".  It became a mantra.

We took a few minutes to unpack and then headed out for our first “educational” activity - taking a taxi to Playa Ancon to go snorkeling.  Our taxi was a moderately beat up ’57 Chevy Catalina with the Mercedes iconic emblem attached to the trunk. 

Playa Ancon is well known with a beautiful white sand beach, and given that it is in all of the guide books, I was surprised that there were only a handful of people around. 

We picked up our snorkeling guide (who didn’t speak English) on the way to the beach and once we got there, it was basically just - let's put on our flippers and go.  Sadly the reef was pretty dead - it is in shallow water and I guess the warm water kills everything.  Our guide still found some cool stuff to show us - live starfish, live conch, urchins, and even a sunken cash register supposedly from the 1700s. At one point, Damon was attached by this little fish - it wouldn't leave him alone - kept going up his shorts and attaching to his leg - it was hilarious.  Later he told me the thing hitched a ride on my wetsuit after it left him.

Snorkeling in Cuba is a little different than in the US – there were no life jackets, no explanations, no safety checks, admittedly, since our guide didn’t speak English, there was really not much communication period.  No towels, and no showers to wash off ocean water, but as pretty much everyone in Cuba says - no problem!  If I haven’t made it clear yet, you really have to learn to just go with it here.

We taxi’d back to the Casa, “showered” and then went off to our salsa lessons.  Our shower had no pump; so while there was hot water, the water literally fell by sheer force of gravity out of the shower head one droplet at a time. 

Our salsa lessons were in a theater – I believe the only one in town.  It had an auditorium feel and the screen up front was sort of torn up. Seems like everything "theatrical" from moves to dances, etc. happens in this theater.

We had a private lesson for an hour and learned basic salsa steps.  It was fun but salsa experts we are not.  Damon was a counting machine “1-2-3 5-6-7… 1-2-3  5-6-7”  My problem was getting reprimanded regularly - "LADY no lead.  LADY no lead!"  Apparently I have challenges following my dance partner.  After the lesson, we were left to explore and went in search of ice cream and coffee which are never hard to find and always delicious.

While we haven't done our full exploration of Trinidad yet, it does require some description.  The streets are mainly cobblestone - not brick evenly laid out, but ocean rocks that are just placed in the road.  Some roads seemed to have a filler to smooth it out a little bit.  High heels would be an impossibility – the roads are very pretty, but not easy to walk on.  The streets are narrow with low 1-2 story houses lining each side of the street with no space between.  Many of the houses are painted in bright colors or pastels so it is quite charming to look at.  Trinidad is much cleaner than Havana and while there is some disrepair, it is definitely in better shape.  Trinidad is sustained primarily by tourist money, and apparently they get 10,000 tourists a day to their 50,000 permanent residents, so it is thriving, relatively speaking.

In these super narrow streets, there is a mix of cars, bikes, motorcycles, fairly large tour buses (how they maneuver is beyond me), horse drawn carts, pedi cabs, plus kids regularly playing soccer barefoot (in the dirt and horse poop), and domino tables just plopped in the middle of the street.  Cars just have to go around the tables everything else.  Dominos are big here.  And if you are wondering if the feral dogs and cats inhabit the streets of Trinidad?  The answer is yes.  There are definitely dogs roaming the streets.

These were just some cool extra pictures that don't naturally fit into my story - but good example of the horse carts we saw everywhere.

We headed out for dinner to "the best Paladar in Trinidad" (San Jose Paladar – HIGHLY recommended) and waited - with modern hand held buzzers - for our table to be ready.  And we drank mojitos in the street.  I struck up a conversation with a British couple while we were waiting and we ended up getting a table with them.  It was interesting to hear about their Cuba experience as they were on a three week vacation and had rented a car, which we found insane but they thought was not too bad.  They made fun of our President and we made fun of Brexit – fair is fair! It was great conversation and the food was fantastic - for $36 including drinks,

At 9:30, we met up with Marcus to go on a nightlife tour of all of Trinidad's hot spots.  The city is open 24 hours a day and has a very “alive” type of vibe – especially at night.  One of the main squares in town, Plaza Mayor, has music and dancing outdoors every night for a small cover fee (1 CUC) – it was packed.  Marcus made us hit the dance floor to practice our new salsa dancing skills and we failed miserably – stepping on each other and forgetting the steps.  Luckily it was so crowded that I’m sure no one noticed.  Without slow music and someone counting out the beat for us, we were done for.  The music and mojitos were flowing and people just came out of the woodwork.  We stopped by a few places (Beatles bar, bar built into a cave, but as there were lines everywhere and we are old and tired, we eventually went to a café and just ordered coffee and talked with Marcus since we really did want to learn more about Cuban culture.

Everything in Cuba seems to have some focus on the revolution as that is really the turning point for them in modern history, and we were very curious to learn whether the average Cuban thinks socialism is a positive or a negative.  Let’s assume that we spoke with a number of different Cubans and here is a summary of some of the stories we heard.  As strange as it sounds, I don’t want to attribute any story to any one individual as I have no idea what could happen to that person if any individual views or stories were made public. 

One person we met told us told us that his family had been one of richest families in a small town we visited – 8^th generation - he even showed us the (currently in ruins) palace his grandfather had once lived in.  After the revolution, basically wealthy people were completely screwed over - everything they had was taken practically overnight so his family lost everything - homes, money, and the family business.  Let’s assume that my knowledge of Cuban/American history is pretty bad and I’m interpreting what this person told us, so if historically inaccurate, blame it on his telling, my understanding, my re-telling, or something lost in translation. 

In any case… from what I gathered, his grandfather was part of the Cuban resistance and tried to help the Americans at the Bay of Pigs along with a number of other Cuban resistance fighters, but the Cuban resistance thought the Americans were landing somewhere else and basically they all missed each other.  Imagine what the result could have been if the two groups had just met up – maybe Castro would never have taken power?  I know this person wonders that… you could always feel a current of underlying resentment about the whole situation.  An incredibly wealthy family reduced to scraping together money from tourists just to buy the basics. 

Back to the story… his grandfather was captured and imprisoned for 20 years in Cuba and eventually was released to the US during a prisoner dump – Castro allowed tens of thousands of people to leave Cuba, but only the “bad” ones – prisoners, mentally ill, drug addicts and such.  The grandfather landed in a southern state and the US government allowed him to bring two children to the US - he had three sons and one daughter.  He brought one son and one daughter.  The rest of the family had to stay, and still remains, in Cuba.  It was our impression that they were all doing whatever they could to make enough money to join the rest of their family or otherwise get out.

 Some of the people we spoke with were fairly outspoken about their dislike of the socialist government – when I asked if they ever feared retribution if they were caught, we were told that a small percentage of people in Cuba speak fluent English, so they would only state their views in English, and they would look around before speaking.  In the smaller villages, it seems that everyone knows everyone and they can spot the military & police.  The most positive thing we heard about the revolution was that it worked for the less privileged people for the first 10 years.  But after that, pretty much everything went to shit and everyone rich or poor, was suffering.

I was also curious about how Cubans feel about Americans.  While we never felt anything other than warmth and friendliness, I think that American is so intertwined in Cuba history (although not the other way around), that they do have mixed feelings.  It is obvious that America represents an incredible opportunity for tourism and getting more money into the country, so sometimes it was hard to tell if they liked us or our money.  The embargo has made their lives very difficult, but they also realize the fault lies with their government as much as ours.  As to how they feel about the future – things have been changing over the past few years, but VERY slowly.  I think they recognize that things are moving forward, but they see it as decades before any significant progress is made – and this is really sad for people in their 20s and 30s because they will likely never know anything other than the lives they have now.

We asked about travel and who had ever been out of the country.  We learned that until recently, Cubans were not allowed to have passports.  Even now, they are very expensive to get and they don’t last very long before requiring a renewal.  Also, even for those few people who can get a passport, and the even fewer number who would have enough money to buy a plane ticket somewhere, they can’t get visas to enter other countries because everyone knows that there is high likelihood they will never go back to Cuba, and therefore will not grant entry visas.  The whole situation was just very sad – especially for someone like me who loves to travel.  They are literally stuck on this island with no way out.

Now to end on a higher note – education in Cuba is free.  It is required that people go through high school, and we understood that college entry is based on test scores, so people who test well can get college degrees as well as masters degrees.  Most of the people we met were very well educated – doctors, computer science majors, language majors, etc.  In many respects, I think that overall, they are better educated than the average American.  We heard, and I still have to confirm this, that (one of) the biggest export of Cuba is not sugar or tobacco or rum, it is doctors.  Cubans are required to “give” 3 years to the government after schooling – it seems that doctors can leave the country and are paid by other countries to serve their time in underserved parts of other countries.  Another thing that was interesting about Cubans – to the extent we were able to see (or not see) it, there was little if any racial or gender discrimination.  When it came to doctors, I swear – everyone and their mother, sister, or female cousin was a doctor!  (NOTE:  I just googled it, and apparently the Cuban government earns $8 billion a year from exporting doctors – in 2015 there were 37,000 Cuban doctors in 77 different countries).  Doctors in Cuba get paid almost nothing and of course I was curious as to why they do it.  The reasons were simple – because they want to help people.

Hey US Government – how is that for “person to person” interactions!  We are definitely earning our Visas J