Cienfeugos

OK I'm going to start with excuses.  The internet in Cuba is not easy.  I throw down the words in a hurry as you only get a few minutes before it crashes.  So you have to live with less punctuation and more typos than I would like.

Cienfeugos is very pretty.  Everything happens around a large square devoted to some revolution or other they have had.  It is the first town Fidel came to on his march from two years in the hills heading for Havana.
The whole town is painted in variations of pastel colours.  The buildings are all large and like Spain they wrap around a central courtyard. 

It was really hot yesterday and being Sunday it was quite.  On Saturday nights everyone parties.

It is pre-hurricane season and every afternoon a storm rolls over.  It has been very dry and yesterday was the first time the storm broke and it rained.

It was fun, the clouds were amazing and they rolled over and over really low.  All the local kids came out and were running along and sliding on their bellies on the tiled footpaths.  It poured for half an hour so we went up to the roof to watch.  We can see over the whole town and as the pastle buildings got wet they looked even more like doll houses. 

They it cooled down and by eight o'clock most of the town had come out to play soccer in the park or wander the streets.

Everyone is beautiful and they all pour themselves into tight fitting clothes.  Hugo boss T-shirts seem to be the thing for the men and bright jeans and singlets for the women.  I have never been to a place where everyone is so attractive.

And so it begins, from eight until three in the morning there is music on the street and people wandering.  I have not stayed up till three in the morning for many years so I am very glad of my earplugs.  Even so, the other thing I have found with Latina women is they can be loud and I woke to laughing and Benny More music blaring out side on the street.

You just have to get up and join them .

Out of time.  Love Ya.

Dancing

Cubans dance from the waist down and it doesnt matter if they are eight or eighty they are so damn sexy. 
I have always thought that I could dance pretty well until I tried dancing with a 70 year old guy in the Plaza yesterday.  He started moving and I joined, trying to move from the waist down like he was and I looked like a chicken having an epileptic fit. 

I worked out that if I closed my eyes and couldn't see me or him it felt better.

I'll work on it,  there are so many opportunities.

We have headed out of Havana to Cienfeugos birthplace of Benny More.

It is very quiet, firstly because it is Sunday and secondly because it is 35 degrees.

It too is gorgeous.  I'm loving Cuba.

It's Saturday

It is market day and everyone is out on the street.  We decided to head for Centro Habana to check out some of the old buildings and one of the best restaurants I have ever eaten in.  Most restaurants are state owned but this one is privatized and is on the world food map.  It was divine.  I sat there working out how many more meals we would have in Havana and how much of the menu I could get through. 

Have I mentioned Havana is gorgeous?

The people are really friendly.  But I have noticed that there are loads of really attractive police people around and when they stop anyone the civilian looks very worried.

They seem to be there to keep locals away from tourists.  When you do get a chance to talk to the locals they tell you that there is no freedom here.  Cuba Libre................

Havana again

Every Cafe has a band playing and they are all good.  Pity the main fare is pork or ham or chicken and cheeswe.  And the portions are seriously ridiculous.  We have worked out that two meals a day aqre enough and we are still feeding all the taxi drivers.
Everyhting with wheels seems to be a taxi.

I am sitting here in a very swanky hotel which is one of the few places you can access the very slow internet and the band has just started playing .  You can't help but move your hips to this sound.

More Havana

In olod Havana they are restoring all the old buildings and every second one is a great museum to all sorts of things.  Most are to do with the revolution.  We strolled in and out of them all day.  Then we would rest in the Plaza or park or Cafe.   I managed to find the chocolate shop within an hour of hitting the streets.  The smell was amazing and the chocolate was better.  With all the other food I'm eating I am starting to fill out my lycra very nicely.

I don't blend in very well, the Latina women only come up to my shoulder and there are very few blondes.
As I walk along the men make kissing sounds or say things that I don't understand but I hope are nice.  They are not hassly or rude so I have decided to go with Renuka's advice and suck it up.  There should be more of it.  Share the love.

Havana Vieca

Havana is gorgeous.  The big buildings remind me of Paris.  The narrow cobbled streets remind me of Rome
It is gorgeous.  Give me crumbling beauty over modern boring anytime.
The people are all beautiful.  The women all seem to have melonous breasts stuffed into lycra a size too small and the men all seem to have butts you could bounce a Peso off.  At least the ones I notice. 
We checked into our Casa Particular.  Two rooms in Maria's house just off the main drag.  Then headed out for dinner.  We ordered a starter and main each and were given enough food to feed ten people.  We left with most of it and found six taxi drivers hanging on the corner to give it to. They couldn't beleive their luck.
After depositing Quinn with Maria we headed to the Jazz Club for a dose of Roberto Fonseca.  He playes ther on Thursdays.  But this week he is touring.  Bugger.  When you lay eyes on Roberto you know God is a woman.  When you see him move you know she was a lover when she made him.

Havana

The first thing I noticed were the cars.  I had heared and read about them, but in the flesh they are even more fantastic.  They made me smile.  The second thing I noticed was, it's Mango season.