Cienfuegos

March 7^th:

We took a taxi to Cienfuegos. It was a 2 ½ hour drive (200k which only cost $60!) with one 15 minute stop for smoking/bathroom. We saw lots of coconut groves/farms and a sugar cane field. Driving around here is crazy! Lots of tailgating, and honking every time passing some other car/horse cart/etc.

By far, my favorite city during the entire 6 weeks -- lots of stores close by with all we need. Streets were the easiest to navigate -- avenues ran East/West, Calles (streets) ran North/South.

 We had reservations at Hostal La Cueva but, when we arrived, the toilet was broken. The owner’s daughter was there and took us to her casa -- Hostal Amigos Del Mundo.

Boy, did we luck out! Tatiana’s home is very nice! She had excellent food (fish, chicken, pork) and LOTS OF IT! Her staff (various family members) cleaned the room every day while we went out for morning jaunts. Sweet Tatiana, spoke fairly good English. She gave me sugar and ice trays to use in our room for the whole stay (for my iced tea) – which I greatly appreciated. We had a private courtyard/kitchen area with an electric griddle and electric pot (I used it to heat water to steep tea). Plus a full size fridge/freezer! 

                                        Our room - beds were made different each day

                                      Private courtyard/kitchen connected to our room

                                                         The public courtyard

Our first supper was absolutely delicious! A wonderful chicken soup to start. There was a different soup every night. Fish, a sort of sweet potato, yummy cole slaw, rice – which neither of us care for -- a huge salad platter neither of us touched (too much food!), and flan for dessert. It was here that we started asking for one meal to share.

We walked somewhere every morning, then again in the evenings after supper. Brian kept getting lost/ backtracking when he went out alone. He finally learned to keep the casa business cards on him as they had a map of the neighborhood on the back.

Brian was usually impressed with the museums and art galleries. My interests were more toward the local trees, flowers, other nature related things and, also the art. It was only 4 blocks to one of the theaters and 2 museums all set around a big park area called Parque Jose Marta. We went there many times during the week we were there. 

                                      3D art -- feathers are real, attached to the artwork

                                                           One of the museums

                                                          One of the museums

                                                    Statues just my size! hahahaha!



There is a beautiful theater there called Teatro Tomas Terry. Brian took several photos of it.  

                                                      Me sitting in the theater


Our first full day there, we stopped at a boutique plaza where there were many booths with handmade crafts – very intriguing and a wide variety of items. We stepped into an art gallery and browsed. Beautiful works of arts by local artists. 

We walked down to the marina  and saw a huge ship amongst the fishing boats and sailboats! On leaving, to go back to casa, we were stopped by 1/2 dozen hustlers for horse cart or bici-taxi rides. We told them all 'manana' (tomorrow) to get them off our backs. We walked forever to get back – all and all, round trip, we’d walked 26 blocks! I was sooo drained!

After being there a few days, we needed to exchange more of our CAD for CUC’s. We walked to the bank, thinking it was 7 blocks but it was more like 14! We had to wait outside because they were doing a money pick-up (like our armored trucks), and the police were outside with machine guns! Whoa! Actually, that was the only police presence we saw during the entire trip. 

One morning, I woke up to Brian calling for me. He had been taking a shower and the water shut off  in the shower! He had just lathered up and had shampoo in his hair. I had to fill a cup from the sink for him, about a dozen  times, so he could rinse off – I was laughing and said, "This is an adventure, huh?!" He laughed, too. Even bad experiences were funny to us (well, except for the Customs crap).

We had another walk to the park again, and noticed huge flowers dropping on the ground. We looked up to see the most beautiful flower tree -- real tall and FULL of purple blossoms! No one could tell us the name of the tree. I looked it up on the internet, once we were home, to find it is called a Jacaranda.     

We went back to the casa and I realized my legs were a lot stronger. I handled the long walk just fine plus I kept up with Brian easier. I had 4 blisters (wearing Crocs) but they were healing.

Poor Brian had tooth pain AGAIN! (He has a lot of tooth problems) He’d lost his center bottom tooth. His jaw was swollen and he was really hurting. Luckily, he had antibiotics with him, took those for a week, and the pain and swelling went away. By the end of the trip, he’d lost 2 bottom teeth altogether. Oh my.

Another day, another walk to the park and we saw the most amazing sight! There were 4 people (2 on one side of the park, 2 on the other) standing posed and absolutely still. They were painted to look like sculptures. Their face, hands, and clothing. Brian told me they were living sculptures. Absolutely impressive, I’d never heard of such a thing! A guy, nearby, started playing a guitar and singing to us -- very sweet. What a nice afternoon we had.    

 

The day before we left, Brian walked around the corner to the local school and donated art supplies that he’d packed (quite a lot – they took up almost ½ his suitcase). The English teacher came to the office to talk to him. They were very thankful for the supplies – many of which were not available there.