La Boca

March 28^th:

We left Sancti Spiritus at 11am. The taxi driver had a hard time fitting our stuff in the trunk, we had accumulated so much snack food and bottles of water. It was a windy ride with no AC (78k for $30). Arrived in La Boca at 12:15N.

We stayed, for a week, at Hostal Giselda. It’s the one we chose when we were in Trinidad/La Boca area 2 weeks before. The owners are Odelki, her husband Yuni, and their darling baby girl age 18 months. She giggled every time she saw me – no idea why.

First off, there was no toilet seat, in the bathroom in our room, but I managed -- no big deal. Breakfast = $5, dinner = $10. There was hot water in the shower and fairly good water pressure.

The baby fussed a lot in the evenings. They would have company, outside, chatting until 9p or so. Thank goodness it was quiet by the time we were ready to go to bed. 

We did not feel catered to at all – they basically ignored us unless we went to them for something. The meals were NOT good -- a couple of them were awful. Shrimp and some kind of  fritter fried hard and tough!

It is a beautiful home looking out to the Caribbean Sea with mountains in the background. Brian said it seemed like we were back in Newfoundland.

                                                                     Courtyard

                                                           View from the porch

                                                      The porch in front of our room

                                     Casa across the street/view from bedroom window

La Boca is a small, quiet resort town filled with many casas. There are only 2 small stores, 2 sandwich/pizza stands, and a bar.

In the evenings, we’d sit out on the veranda looking out at the Caribbean Sea. Sometimes there’d be singers/music across the road at an outdoor bar -- nice and soft, not that noisy stuff.

During one of our walks, I saw a tiny crab on the sidewalk. I thought it was a big spider! Hahaha!

One morning, we sat on the veranda and it turned breezy and cool, enough for a jacket and Brian put on jeans! The locals probably thought we were nuts! That night Brian slept under TWO blankets – I sleep hot, so I was fine with just the sheet and bedspread.

It was so cool to sit on the bed and look out the window to my left -- lovely view of the sea/mountains. Then look out the window in front of me -- a view of beautiful flowers cascading down the fence in pinks/purples/reds and white.

I had a good giggle, one night, at Brian. He was sound asleep, snoring away, then he started humming this tune (similar to "aye yi yi yi, ol' sol a mio") he'd been singing while in Cuba (with his own made up words). Then he snored, then hummed again -- too funny!!

We met a 74 year old man, Rudy, who spoke English pretty good. We visited with him several times.

One afternoon we took an afternoon excursion (by taxi) to Playa Ancon which is 10k from La Boca. It’s a large resort with 2 hotels, 2 pools, a marina, and boat rentals. Brian inquired about riding a catamaran but those were out for the day. The man told him he’d have a good chance of riding one if he came in the mornings. 

                                                   Brian at the Playa Ancon marina

                                                               Hotel swim-up bar

The next morning, Brian left out on Yuni's bike for the 10K trek to Playa Ancon for a try at getting on a catamaran. (Oh my! He hasn’t ridden a bike in 15 years).

While he was gone, I was served breakfast. I put salt & pepper on my egg (they didn’t have any – it’s a good thing I’d brought fast food packets with us). She forgot the coffee cup and I tried to explain but she misunderstood. She picked up the plate of eggs and started blowing on it -- she thought the pepper was bugs! I said “no, that is sal and pimiento”. She finally understood about the cup and brought it to me. Jeez!

It was too hot to walk and we’d seen everything in this tiny place so, while Brian was gone, I read one of the e-books I had on the tablet. Thank goodness I had downloaded a bunch of those. With the low lighting in the casas, I could read easily on the tablet.

Brian came back around noon. He’d had a great time on the catamaran. There was a Canadian couple that went out too so they had some nice chats. He did pretty good on the bike although his butt was sure sore!