Guess who we saw last night...... Conan O'Brian.... and yes he is that tall. We heard that he will air some shows from here.
We checked out of the nicer hotel in Havana and little did we know the LAST internet of the trip. It was one of those things that you think you can't live without - but you can - but it was a little painful. Every once in while I looked longingly at the 3 computers sitting in Cienfuegos Jagua Hotel. They actually HAD internet but you had to have a "card" and they ran out of "cards" so ......no internet.
Anyway back to the Nacional Hotel.... I mailed 3 postcards from the hotel using their fancy antique "drop letters from any floor" post box. Supposedly they go to Mexico first to get to the US. We will see if Zac, Katrina and the girls get theirs.
3 hour bus ride to Cienfuegos with a couple of side trips. We drove past lots of farms, both big (government owned) and small (privately owned). It was the dry season so we did not see a lot of heavy farming equipment. Crops we did see were bananas, papayas. sugar cane, and beans. Animals - cows, horses and goats. Halfway we made a bathroom stop in the middle of a cow patty field. We figured that the private enterprise "Toilet Tissue Selling Lady" probably made way more than a college professor. Remember all government workers get the same salary, doctors, teachers, office workers, and anyone else that worked for a government owned business. a big 20 dollars a month. Yes, the rest stop was owned by the government but the extra service the TT lady was supplying was allowing her to quietly supplement her government income.
A lot of cookie cutter small cement block/flat roof houses in the country - I would guess less than 700 sq ft. Fences were usually the 'living" kind - like cactus or prickly bushes. In this section of Cuba you see very few cars, mostly horse drawn carts.
During this ride Jose Luis showed us a subtitled documentary on the old cars of Havana. To be able to read the subtitles, you sort of had to grab the front seat and 'post' during the bumpy parts. We decided that for a large majority of the owners the cars are a part of their soul and culture and that they would never sell them. When asked the question "If they had to give up their car or their wife, which one would they choose" - A few of the guys hesitated a little too long before answering. Even though they look like the real thing - when you get close you can see all the repairs, bondo, and bad paint jobs, The movie also confessed that a lot of them had exchanged their engines for Chinese diesel engines because they were better gas mileage. Gasoline is still running about 5 dollars a gallon (US prices at this date are about $2.25/gal. I didn't see ONE woman driver during the entire week we were there - in ANY car. What's with that?
We stopped for lunch at Enrique's Hostel located on the beach very close to the Bay of Pigs area. We had a lecture from the local park ranger and then we went for a little "tropical fish research" in the clear blue water. (Remember Americans are only allowed to come to Cuba on a cultural exchange, education, research or medical reasons. We are not supposed to do tourist things like sit on the beach or swim in the water.)
The water was so clear - The Photo below is of a starfish 12 inches below the surface -
Lunch was nice with the requisite serving of beans and rice, followed with a choice of lobster, shrimp, snapper, octopus or pork. Interesting fact: We saw the pork being delivered in a horse drawn cart (obviously no refrigeration aboard)
Bay of Pigs Museum added a lot of information to an event that was generally skimmed over in American history books. Big surprise to me is that it was actually PLANNED by Eisenhower not Kennedy. It was funded mostly by the exiled Cubans living in Miami and trained by the CIA. It took place only 3 months after Kennedy took office so he got blamed for it.
We arrive in Cienfuegos later that afternoon with a quick walk around the empty square - just our tour bus, 1 bike taxi and 1 horse drawn cart. In the local bar we had a pushy but humorous guy wringing coins out of us for the privilege to use the nastiest bathrooms we have seen so far.
Youth Dance group performance then off to our Ex Hilton Hotel. It was finished in January 1960. It was nationalized (taken away) in April '60 so that Hilton only made 3 months worth of profits before they lost it. It appeared that it hadn't changed too much since 1960. BUT the location and the view were great. Our room had a great water view from both balconies. Mattresses and pillows needed replacing and the chair looked like it had some animal living in it. Housekeeping in this hotel seemed to be lacking a little - Kate and Barb were pretty sure they had a dirty towel on the floor refolded and put back on the shelve as if it was clean. The floor in the shower was extremely slippery. But in both hotels the housekeeping staff were very fluent in their good-bye notes that they left - grubbing for tips. Both places we left a few CUCs - because living on 20$ a month has got to be hard even with Ration Books.
