Over the next couple of days we explored the islands with Pat and Jes and wondered why with all these hundreds of boats here that we could still find secluded anchorages and great restaurants that only the locals seemed to patronize. Everyone seems to cram themselves into 3 or 4 anchorages, and don’t wander too far for their food and drink either. I don’t want to be too hard on these folks though, the majority seem to be genuinely good people. It just seems a little strange to us that so many fall into this super structured floating suburb of a routine… for months!

Within the same week we found ourselves saying goodbye to dear friends. It’s always amazing to us how fast you get to know people when you travel with them like this. A couple of weeks seems to equal a year or two at home. That made it especially difficult to part ways with Dave and Jan from Zing, Tom and Carol from Some Day’s A Diamond, Charles and Giselle from Wild Ride, and John and Jolanda from JoHo. We are all going our separate ways, but are certain that we’ll see each other again somewhere down the road. Actually we may see Wild Ride sooner than later. We learned a day before they were to leave that they may be planning to cross the Pacific at the same time we are. They’re taking a different route but we hope to see them in Panama sometime in the coming weeks.

Speaking of Panama, we’ve got some decisions to make. Our unavoidable delay leaving Florida has left us with fewer options. We still plan to cross the Pacific this year, but getting to Panama in time will require some creative route planning. Our original plan may not be feasible anymore. We are going to talk this over during the next day or two and make a fast decision. Stay tuned.

tuesday march 11, 2008 (georgetown, bahamas)

We’ve spent the last couple of days finishing off the list of chores that we started nipping at back in Warderick Wells. The next leg of our trip will be through the Ragged Islands (or Jumentos). They are very remote and almost totally uninhabited. The only population is on one small island near the end of the chain which consists of 90 people living in Duncantown. So we needed to make sure that anything we might need is already on the boat. This meant a lot of trips ferrying fuel, water, groceries, laundry etc back and forth in the dink.

We will get underway today sometime. After we leave Georgetown we probably won’t have internet access until we arrive in Cuba. From Cuba we’ll need to make a straight shot to Panama in order to make it in time for a Pacific crossing. All that’s left for us to decide is whether to turn right or left once we get to Cuba. That’s the plan d’jour anyway. We had seriously considered spending an extra year visiting all the central American countries before we crossed but traded that for more time in the South Pacific. We made the decision thinking that it would be easy for us to get back to Central and South America some day, but the little islands in the South Pacific could be a once in a lifetime thing.

So, one more visit to town to drop off the garbage, update the website and send off some emails and then we’re on the move and on our own again.

Jaime too the first shift and I took over at 10PM. We would do 4 hour each until we arrived. This would leave us both with some time to try and get some sleep. There was a lot of big ship traffic so we needed a watch on at all times. During our shifts we would chat with Meander, avoid ocean going container ships, and pick away at the brown bag lunches that Jaime built. When things get rough it can be a very unpleasant job to prepare food, so it was nice to have some sandwiches made up in advance for a quick eat.

The moon and stars were incredible which made it easy to see the flying fish skimming along the surface beside the boat. I started my second shift at 6AM and we reduced sail so that we wouldn’t arrive in Cuba before sunrise. When the sun came up we were about seven miles off shore and I had my first glimpse of Cuba. It was quite a sight to see the green mountains raise up from the horizon. I sipped on my coffee and watched Cuba get bigger and bigger…

monday march 17, 2008 (bahia de vita, cuba)

We arrived at Bahia De Vita just before 9AM. Our calls to the Guarda Frontera (Coast Guard) went unanswered so we just made our way into the marina pretty soon they hailed us and I finally got to put my scripted response to good use. “Estamos el yate de vela Slapdash de Canada” or something like that. I have no idea what their reply was, so I just said “si, gracias” and headed for the marina. The marina is in this incredible little pocket bay with protection from all sides. It’s the best natural harbor that we’ve seen, but once we saw the docks we realized that we were going to be tested again. I think I’ve said this before but its tough to arrive after a passage and still have the hardest job ahead of you. We would need to bring slapdash in backwards perpendicular to a concrete dock. There’s a mooring ball about 80 feet from the dock, we needed to fix a bow line there and then back into our spot trying not to hit the boats that were on both sides of us or the concrete dock behind us. I was at the helm and Jaime was at the bow keeping tension on the line to keep the bow from swinging around while I backed in. Everything was going well until Jaime looked back and said “that’s it”. Like I said, the mooring ball was 80 feet from the dock, but our line was only 30 feet so there was still 50 feet of water between us and the safety of setting a couple secure stern lines. It was a precarious position, and we noticed that our neighbors were casually gathering their fenders up just in case. Jaime tied in a second line while I used the engine to keep us centered and pretty soon we were making progress… for another 30 feet. Now we were only 20 feet from the dock. I threw a stern line to the dock and then went forward to help Jaime attach our third line. To our relief (and our neighbors) we were finally able to reach the dock and secure the back end of our boat. Other than taking a little longer than it should have I would say that we pretty much nailed it. We felt better after watching several other boats do exactly the same thing. I guess they set the mooring balls so far out so that they can accommodate any length of vessel, but it would have been nice to know in advance. Come to think of it, maybe that’s what the Guarda Frontera was trying to tell us?

We’ve heard all about the complicated Cuban check-in process so already knew that it would be a long day. They lived up to their reputation, we lost count of the amount of officials we had on and off the boat that day. First the doctor, then customs, immigration, harbor master (2), some guy who sprayed insecticide in our bathroom, and a dog to sniff around the boat. They all asked pretty much the same questions and each had multiple forms to be filled out. It might sound like a nightmare, but we actually had a lot of fun with it. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures, which is too bad because at one point I think we had six people on the boat. Every one of them was great. Very friendly, very polite, applauded our attempts at completely butchering their language, and even took their shoes off on the dock and hopped aboard in their socks. Once we had satisfied all of the criteria (we didn’t have the plague, weren’t smuggling drugs or humans, weren’t infested with bugs etc etc) we were invited to take down the quarantine flag and officially welcomed into Cuba with flowers and a complimentary cocktail. The total cost of clearing in was about 100 dollars to be paid out in varying amounts to 6 different officials, and not one of them asked for immediate payment. They said that they would be around so we should just come and find them once we were all settled and comfortable, at our convenience. They still had a job to do, but sincerely tried to accommodate us in any way that they could. You usually think of clearing in as a big hassle and usually it is, and here they had more documents to complete than most countries, but when we think about the experience we mostly remember friendly people and laughing all afternoon. 

wednesday march 19, 2008 (bahia de vita, cuba)

Back in December I snapped a tooth on a corn nut or something and made some comment about getting a filling in Cuba. Today I made good on that statement, and learned that I should be more careful about running my mouth off like that.

By 10:00AM I was on my way from the marina to the clinic in an ambulance. It was actually looked a lot like a station wagon, but they called it an ambulance for some reason. Since I had been assured that this ambulance would be cheaper than taking a cab I didn’t mind. We arrived at a small but tidy clinic after a 20 minute drive. The driver told me that he would wait around to take me back to the marina once the dentist was through with me. The dentist introduced himself, asked me to take a seat, and fired up his drill after nothing more than a perfunctory glance at my broken tooth. I was a little taken back by the efficiency of it all, this being my first bit of dentistry in a foreign country. At home there’s the waiting room, the magazines, and the soft music. After you are finally seated you visit with at least a couple of pleasant assistants before the doctor swoops in and makes his grand appearance. The time span between showing up for your appointment and hearing a drill fire up that’s actually meant to be used on your face can easily be an hour. But let’s not forget the anesthetic. You know, the liquid content of the two or three needles injected sometime between getting comfy in that big chair and before any real work begins? The stuff that’s meant to save you the unpleasant bit of gut wrenching agony generally associated with having your teeth drilled and leaves you a drooling mess for a couple of hours afterwards?  Yeah, well they don’t have that here. The speed with which you are seated and work commences is to minimize the time available for you to consider the implications of a stone cold sober dental treatment. Because if you did have the time to consider the implications of a stone cold sober dental treatment, you would likely be running for the door before the dentist could say “just a little wider please”. None of this trickery was necessary for me. It’s not that I have a great tolerance for pain or because I’m a masochist or anything. It wasn’t necessary because as I’ve already mentioned this was my first non-Canadian dental experience and in my wildest dreams I wouldn’t have guessed that the drilling and filling I was about to enjoy would be without any freezing.

I think I was in a mild state of shock because the next thing I remember was the dentist saying “rinse please”. No fancy nurse with fancy implements like water picks and suction tubes here. Nope, there was a little cup and a porcelain bowl beside the chair to be used for this purpose. What the system lacked in sophistication it made up for in being an opportunity to escape the drill. The water was cool and refreshing and like a live wire in my now exposed nerve endings but I lingered over the bowl swooshing it around in my mouth delaying as long as possible. After a considerable amount of swooshing I spat, and for some reason expected to see water come out of my mouth which left me completely unprepared to watch my own blood swirling around the nice white bowl. I nearly fainted. On the brighter side my consequent light headedness served as a mild anesthetic as I squirmed in the chair, gargling and gagging on little bits of teeth and blood for the next ten minutes. Then another perfectly pleasant “rinse please”. I think this was the extent of his English, which was probably a good thing because the language I was using between rinse and torture cycles could have peeled paint off the walls.

It was about an hour in total I guess. Certainly one of the most unpleasant hours of my life but in the end I had a perfectly good filling, and a solid bite. As much as I wanted to brutally murder the dentist from time to time during that hour, I have to admit that for a guy who has to work on his patients without using any freezing, he did an incredible job. Oh and the best part, I paid 40 bucks total which included the ride both ways, a huge filling, a lifetime phobia of dentists, and some other minor adjustments.

friday march 21, 2008 (baracoa, cuba)

With pork hangovers we made our way to Holguin with Tim and Steffi. The drive was spectacular, mostly because of the constantly changing scenery, but also due to the fact that we were all ready to do a little traveling without being attached to a boat.

Holguin was only a couple hours away and made for a nice spot to lunch. There was a maze of roads into town, all easily navigated due to the help from a nice local guy on a bike wearing bright orange pants. He met us at an intersection on the way into town, picked up on the confused looks we were all wearing on our faces, and motioned for us to follow him. Easier said than done. Our guide dodged horse and carriage, dozens of bike taxis, chickens, goats, school kids, street baseball games, antique cars, street soccer games, tractors, trucks, and cows like he had been doing it his whole life (which of course he had been). If it wasn’t for his orange pants we would have lost him a dozen times, even so he still had to stop and wait for us more than once.

We arrived at the town square and the orange pant wearing daredevil introduced himself as Carlos. The Germans were in need of a church and we were in need of some beer. Carlos helped us both find what we were looking for. Then Jaime and I hung out with him for a while. He was a chef and was happy to practice his English on us while waiting for his shift to start. Carlos was really proud of his town and showed us all the sights, which included this place where a nice lady gave Jaime a manicure and asked for 5 pesos, so we paid her 20 (about a dollar). That seemed crazy until Carlos told us that even at 5 pesos each she could still earn more than a doctor if she was able to do only 5 or 6 a day. We’ve since heard a variety of different amounts that the average Cuban Doctor officially makes, but most figures seem to settle somewhere between 20 and 40 dollars a month. 

A bit about Cuban currency. There’s the Cuban National money, or pesos, which the locals are paid with and use for some things. There’s Convertible Pesos or CUC’s (called cooks) that the tourists are supposed to use and just for fun, the Euro is accepted in a lot of tourist places here as well. There’s about 25 pesos to a CUC, and the CUC is worth a bit more than a Canadian dollar. There’s a 20 percent fee levied on changing the USD, and they haven’t accepted it anywhere here for the last few years so don’t even bother with that. You will have to pay for anything which is government controlled (mostly everything – rental cars, hotel, marina, busses, a lot of restaurants etc) in CUC’s but there is a market for the local money too. If you can get some pesos and find a place to use them you can travel incredibly cheap. I changed 20 CUC’s into pesos and it nearly lasted us the whole trip. You can use pesos for things like local restaurants, farmers markets, or roadside stands. For example, we would pay between 40-50 pesos (50 pesos = 2 CUC’s) for drinks and dinner for both of us, and a lot less if we were just eating peso pizza or some other Cuban version of fast food from a roadside stand. It’s a little confusing at first but it doesn’t take long to get used to the system.

Our new friend Carlos promised the best mohitos in Cuba, and we would later have that promise repeated to us about 37 times a day over the next couple of weeks. According to our rigorous testing though, this was the one mohito promise that was actually kept. It was in the beautiful bar and restaurant where Carlos worked. There was an inner courtyard complete with trees, flowers and fine marble pillars everywhere. Jaime thought the bartender looked like Humphrey Bogart and I suppose that added to the exciting ambiance. This was the kind of polished place that back home we would have expected to pay 30 bucks for a couple of cocktails, here we paid 4.

We met up with Tim and Steffi back at the car at 2:00PM. We wanted to get to Baracoa before nightfall so we needed to get moving. For spending such a short time in Holguin we saw all kinds of great things (like a hundred year old printing press still being used), made a new friend, Jaime got her nails did, we ate some great peso pizza, and had (in our opinion) the best mohitos in Cuba in a beautiful setting. I’m sure the Germans were sick of hearing about all of this since all they had time for was a church service. Actually that’s all Steffi had time for, since Tim is an Atheist all he had time for was reading a newspaper while he waited for Steffi outside the church.

Within a couple of hours it became obvious that we wouldn’t make it to Baracoa before nightfall. It was obvious because the sun had set and we weren’t even in Moa yet. Moa is a little more than half way though, and we thought that staying there might be a better idea than continuing along on the goat trail of a road in the dark. I referred to the guidebook to see what it had to say about Moa. It said this:

“Important economically and horrendous ecologically, Moa is a big ugly mine.”

And that’s only the introduction! The single small paragraph devoted to this poor town goes on to say;

“Unless you are a mining technician or an environmentalist investigating impending ecological disasters there’s absolutely no reason to come here. ‘A better world is possible’ proclaims one of the billboards as you leave the town behind. Absolutely.”

It was tempting to check it out, but the fine red dust that was coating the road along with our car, clothing, and lungs convinced us otherwise and a few hours of slow progress later we were feeling our way into Baracoa.

saturday march 22, 2008 (santiago, cuba)

We checked out the baseball stadium. Cubans seem to take baseball very seriously, and they are incredibly good at. We’re no experts but 15 minutes of watching these kids play was all it took to convince us that they could give most major league teams a serious run for their money.

On the way to Santiago we were all impressed with the constantly changing scenery. We went from agricultural farm land to striking coastline complete with huge crashing waves, through dessert to lush rolling hills with jungle-like vegetation. It was all very cool, and then we ran over a chicken. It was a stupid suicidal chicken that literally threw itself against the side of our car as we passed by. There are chickens everywhere in Cuba, it’s the one thing you can count on. Check any restaurant or roadside stand and they will invariably have pollo frito (fried chicken), and it’s usually pretty good. We were at one restaurant where the lady stood there and shook her head at every selection we made from the menu. She let us go through the whole thing like this before we finally got to the last item which was of course, pollo frito. It was a 3 page menu and that was the one thing they had. Why she didn’t just tell us that in the first place I have no idea but I just wanted to illustrate to you the fact that if nothing else, you can always count on a chicken being readily available in Cuba. I guess it was just a matter of time before we ran one over. We backed up to check on the chicken, it was of course very dead. There are always a lot of people on the roads in Cuba, in fact they sometimes even outnumber the chickens. Fortunately we didn’t hit any of them, and fortunately there were a few on this particular stretch of road that were happy to take this chicken off of our hands. With that bit of unpleasant business behind us we carried on for Santiago.

We arrived in Santiago, located a Casa Particular, dropped off our bags and headed straight down to the Grand Hotel which was a treat and overlooked a nice 16^th century plaza. We were starved and thirsty after a hot and dusty travel day, and the Bucanero went down like water. Like every other place in Cuba, there was of course an incredible band. After more rounds than I can recall and entrees for both of us, we departed the restaurant with the live music and unbeatable view at about 1AM after paying our 23 dollar bill. Cuba? Si.

sunday march 23, 2008 (santiago, cuba)

Today the Germans left and we explored Santiago by foot. There’s so much life here that it makes us wonder if anyone ever stays home. The nearly half million residents in Santiago always seem to pack into the streets, and everybody is busy at something. Street games include soccer, handball, baseball with a stick and bottle cap, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. People are selling stuff, people are buying stuff and old men are in the park on a bench talking about old ladies (or baseball) over a shared bottle of rum. T-shirts are apparently a popular gift to bring to Cuba, because you see every variety, genre, language and era emblazoned on them. We saw everything from the cowboy in the country wearing a Canadian national olympic hockey team shirt to the old lady in Santiago wearing a “Gnomies are my homies” shirt. Vibrant color, endless sound, laughing, kissing sounds (mostly for Jaime), whistles (also mostly for Jaime) and an incredible 6 piece band hiding behind a non descript doorway on a non descript street inviting you in to listen to them jam. These things are all typical, very typical. We absolutely loved it.

We had dinner at the former Bacardi residence (yes, the Rum people) and ordered way to much food by accident. It was a relatively upscale place and since we couldn’t understand the menu very well we decided to use the prices as a rough guide. They were so low that we assumed that it was an a-la-carte thing and ordered an entrée, a salad and a side each. They turned out to be full entrées despite the ridiculously low prices, so we ended up with two of those plus 4 side dishes on the table. It was really embarrassing having all this food on the table so we tried to scrape all the sides onto one plate and stack the empty ones underneath. I can just imagine what we must have looked like to the locals but the funny thing is that the waitress didn’t even flinch when we ordered all this food. We must have looked really hungry.

After dinner we stumbled upon an impromptu street party complete with live music and dancing. Apparently these incredible bands just find a little square, set up and play all night. People hear the music, grab a bottle of Rum and join the party. It’s really amazing, and now we are certain that the houses in Santiago are the most unused buildings around. There wasn’t one time day or night that we didn’t go outside to find the streets, squares and parks packed. We rounded off the evening by hanging out in a park and people watching, which is apparently the thing to do in this neighborhood because we had a hard time finding a seat.

From toddlers taking their first steps, to dozens of little kids running around like uncontrollable hellions (the knee to waist height varieties). Teenagers posturing, flirting, and for a lucky few kissing. Young couples, young families (somebody had to bring all those kids) and the same old men still sitting around, presumably with a new bottle of Rum. Some were still talking about old women and others had moved on to playing dominos or chess. The square was like this huge outdoor living room full of a big extended family. No fights, no drugs, and everyone seemed to know each other. We’ve never seen anything like it and were really envious. We found the same kind of thing all over Cuba.

monday march 24, 2008 (bayamo, cuba)

Off to Bayamo. We took a horse and cart to the bus stop for one peso each (5 cents). At the bus stop we caught a truck, I think it was an old Russian military transport. Along with 55 of our closest friends we paid our 5 pesos and crammed into the back. There were rows of small steel benches to sit on and we were lucky because our truck that had a canvas top. Some didn’t which would have been miserable today because it rained gatos and perros (working on my Spanish).

There’s a bit of a transportation problem in Cuba. That’s why people subject themselves to being stuffed in the back of a 50 year old military transport and suck diesel fumes while being mercilessly jostled all the way to their destination. It’s also why the horse and carriage, oxen and cart, Chinese bicycle, and 50’s vintage automobiles are all extensively used modes of transportation. You can find every variety in the small rural towns to the largest cities. Sure you could pay 40 CUC for the same trip and ride in the comfortable, air conditioned and almost always empty tourist busses but that would be forgoing one of the most fundamental of all Cuban experiences. Crappy transportation is as Cuban as Rum or the cigar. To miss it would be like going to La Habana and choosing a Coors Light over a Mohito. Only a Coors Light probably wouldn’t kill you. The Cuban train system with the abysmal safety record just might.

There weren’t any other tourists on the military transport truck, and I can’t say that the Cubans looked especially happy about being there either. But here’s a little secret, they aren’t that bad. As long as you are making short hops (we limited our longest truck day to 5 hours) and if it doesn’t rain, which it did. When it rains they fold all the side flaps down so you are in what feels a lot like a big canvas covered tomb. The roof leaks everywhere and you continue to get fumigated and jostled around relentlessly. Minus the diesel fumes, it would be a lot like the log ride at an amusement park, except that this one lasts for hours. But as far as 20 cent travel goes, it was great! 

We finally bounced into Bayamo where we went for hamburgers and a movie for which we were charged 2 pesos (10 cents) admission. We thought this was a great deal until we saw the movie and realized that we had been overcharged. On the way back to our Casa we met a young Cuban guy called Raul that knew more about Canadian politics that we did. Those of you who know us may have laughed at that statement because we admittedly know only slightly more about Canadian politics than the Canadian politicians do (and that’s not very much at all), but this guy was really something. After he finished explaining how our parliament worked to us, we weren’t at all surprised to learn that he was a political science major. We had Raul up there on a pedestal for a while, until we found out that he was at the same movie that we were, and that he liked it. Then we weren’t too sure about him at all.  

Bayamo was beautiful. We chanced upon this cobblestone pedestrian street that was lined with galleries, music shops and art classes. The street itself was full of sculptures, even the benches were pieces of art. The lamp posts each had a big tube of paint sculpted at the base, which I won’t even try to describe, just look at the picture and you’ll see what I mean. It went on like this for blocks and we were completely enamored. This country is full of surprises.

Jaime was downstairs using the first internet connection that we’ve seen in Cuba. Apparently the chain smoking casa owner was a “friend of the state” or something like that. He was allowed to keep a PC in the house but only foreigners were allowed access to the internet. For that privilege we paid 5 CUC’s per hour. When I came down from the roof I asked Jaime how it was going. She was trying to update the website and said that it was going good except that every few minutes the screen would go fuzzy and the lights would buzz and then go dim. I explained what was happening on the roof, and we decided to leave.

We trucked our way from Bayamo to Las Tunas where we caught another truck to Camaguey. It poured rain on the second leg so we were once again subjected to the canvas tomb of doom. We arrived just outside of town and had to catch a ride with a local guy who was selling seats in his 20 year old Lada for $7.50 each. We had just spent 5 hours on the trucks and it was still raining so we were in no mood to haggle. Besides 15 bucks was actually a pretty good deal considering that the truck had randomly stopped 30 kilometers from our destination. We said goodbye to the kid from New York we had met on the truck and hopped in. He (the kid from New York) was doing a good job of blending in. He was making his way to Habana as well, sponsored by a language class through NYU of all places. He was a cool guy and we were both glad to see an American sneaking through the country, more of them should. Funny thing about that though, the three of us were told to keep a low profile and not talk to anyone. We weren’t supposed to be traveling this way and apparently the driver could get into trouble for transporting us. We were to be very sneaky. After that little pep talk he lead us onto the truck in front of everyone. So here’s 50 plus locals waiting in the rain to board while these three stupid gringos are ushered in front of them… yeah, real low key there buddy. I’m sure that nobody noticed.

Camaguey sucked. I’m sorry but it did. Maybe it was the rain, maybe it was the dog shit everywhere, but it did. Get this, three or four hundred years ago pirates had a nasty habit of sacking this city. They would leave their boats at anchor somewhere and come all this way inland just to rape, rob and steal in Camaguey. The people of Camaguey eventually tired of being robbed and raped and stuff so they came up with a very clever idea. They designed the city to be utterly impossible to navigate. The city is actually purpose built to be confusing as hell. Streets wind and turn through narrow passages and join up with other streets in the most confounding manner imaginable. I guess the idea was to frustrate the marauding packs of pirates to the point where they just gave up and moved along to do their raping and robbing in the next city. I guess it worked because the totally exasperating concoction of streets and avenues are still in place. Even the locals had no idea how to get from one place to another. There are probably pirates that came, got lost, and never left. We are no pirates but after 5 hours on a truck to get here, the rain, the dog shit and then walking around endlessly trying to find our bloody Casa, we were ready to move on to the next city too.

I’m sure that there are people who have had an incredible time in Camaguey. I’m sure that they have wonderful museums, charming people and a fascinating history. I’m sure that you could even get caught up in the quirky pirate baffling city design, but we didn’t. Circumstantial or not, we hated Cameguey. In fact, it was the only place in Cuba that we didn’t like. Did I mention the hustlers? The place is crawling with them. Every turn you take you are greeted with some sleaze ball pretending to be your friend in order to sell you some fake cigars, a room, a taxi, recommend a restaurant… oh, and of course you are from Canada, what a remarkable coincidence that every single person in Camaguey has a brother, sister, or cousin in Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal.

We fought our way through the throngs of scammers and bici-taxi rip off artists and managed to find a cool bar in a 200 year old building full of pirate artifacts. We drank cheap beer and talked about our next stop. We know just how those pirates must have felt.

wednesday march 26, 2008 (camaguey, cuba)

We missed the truck. Then we missed the train. We were so desperate to leave that we decided to pay the premium and ride the tourist bus, by then we had missed that too. We resigned ourselves to a second night in Camaguey.

monday march 31, 2008 (habana, cuba)