Jeff and Joanne's trip to Cuba, February 2005
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DAY 3
The choking smell of diesel fumes wafting through our window screens woke us up in the early morning hours. I tried to get back to sleep by hiding my head under the blankets, using them as a filter, and managed to get another half hour or so of snooze time in before Jeff decided he was getting up. He went out onto the outside balcony to read a book on Cuba that Jose had loaned us the night before. After I got up Marta came to offer us breakfast at a cost of $5 pesos each - we took her up on it and sat back in our patio chairs to enjoy the sunshine.
The balcony was a beautiful place in the bright morning sun, and Jeff and I were sneaky about taking photos of each other without each other knowing! I painted my toenails and flipped through the book as Marta cooked for us.
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About an hour later, Marta was still cooking up a storm, and we were starving! Jeff went to check on the status of breakfast and within about 10 minutes Jose was serving us. He first brought out a brightly coloured yellow and red tablecloth, matching coffee cups, saucers, cutlery, napkins, and juice glasses, and then brought out a carafe filled with coffee. I had figured out "coffee with hot milk" - cafe con leche - and low and behold it was very much like a cappuccino. What welcomed pleasure to my tastebuds! The rest of our breakfast was very good: a ham & cheese omelette, 2 slices of cooked ham on top of the omelette, a very large cup of fresh fruit sliced into tiny slivered bits (guava, melon, peaches), a large jug of fresh pineapple juice (a taste of pure heaven), and toast. The toast was a white french-type of loaf, thickly sliced and hard & crispy. Really crispy! As if it had been warming in the oven for the last hour (maybe that's what took so long). It tasted good with guava jelly on it though!
Jeff didn't like the ham (too fatty) but also didn't want to offend our wonderful hosts, so when Marta and Jose were inside, Jeff tossed his ham slices onto the roof of the apartment building next door, where 2 cats who had been fighting during the night were still having a stand-off! I was sure we were going to have a hard time explaining this one, but the flying disc of ham was a welcomed distraction and was devoured right away. Whew!
Our day in La Habana
The locals don't say Havana, but rather, "La Habana", or sometimes just "Habana". The street signs that we did start seeing in the city also spelled Habana with a "b" instead of "v". We spent a few hours walking through what seemed like a "town square" with performers and quite a crowd, and took in the sights, smells, and sounds of life in this dusty Cuban city.
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After spending a bright sunny morning in La Habana, we tried to get in on a cigar factory tour, but were too late. We saw some very expensive cigars though: $250 for a cheap box!
It was hard to decipher if we were technically in "Old" Havana, or if it all looked old to us and perhaps we hadn't seen the city's wonder that draws people from around the world. We are not history buffs, and agreed we'd seen enough crumbling architecture, and made plans to drive to Cienfeugos ("Seen-fway-go") which was on the Caribbean side of Cuba, approximately 200km's away.
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