March 28 -
Early Tuesday morning, we got up, had a delicious brekkies, loaded our beasts onto our backs and headed down to Cespedes Plaza to catch the bus to Havana. We arrived at the square at about 8:30 for the 9:00 bus. We were told by the doorman at the Iberostar that we should wait across the street in the park. While waiting, we chatted with 2 other customers, Jane, from England, and Jeff from Nashua. The scrum to get on the bus was rather intense, and Bill and I were unable to sit together let alone sit with our new friends....
Just after leaving town, we drove along a coastal road. The road was literally covered with red clawed crabs heading away from the water into the scrubby brush. We got a free treat of some wild life happenings. There was a mass of crabs that were leaving the beach and heading into the woods, scrub land, out of the water. The number was immense, but the crushed carcasses on the road way spoke to more numbers than were seen. These suckers were quite large, fist sized or larger and at one point along this road were climbing up a vertical bank with ease. A little further on, they had no difficulty climbing the walls of houses. The owners were sitting outside holding sticks and brooms which they used to swat them from the walls. On some houses, they had already made it to the roof, which to my thinking was a Darwinian epic fail as they were going to be cooked by the sun if they didn't figure out a way to get down. I'm sorry that I couldn't get any photos of this massive migration nor was there anyone on the bus who could explain what was going on. My amateur naturalist guess was that they had laid eggs close to the water and were retreating back to their natural habitat.
The bus continued along at a moderate pace. It seems that there is a bell or noise maker installed on the speedometer of the bus. Anything over 50 mph and it goes off, thereby forcing the driver to slow down. At around 1 pm we pulled into a rest stop/lunch break place and had a bite to eat. We were told it would be a 30 minute break, it turned out to be a Cuban 30 minutes, which roughly translated to 1 hour.
Back on the bus, and at roughly 4:30 we arrived in Havana. Bill and I got dropped off at Havana Street and the Malecon. After walking for about 15 minutes, we finally were in familiar territory. We got to the Casa, had our reunion with Erik and Elvis, and hit the AC and had a short lie down before heading out to meet Jeff and Jane on the Hotel Inglaterra roof top bar.
After a couple of mojitos each, or Bucaneros for Bill, we headed out of the hotel to find some dinner. We ended up at a place called the Pino de la Plata or something like that just behind the famous bar Floridita. Its fame is attributed to Hemingway drinking there regularly and fully so that now they sell their daiquiris for a greatly inflated price!
It was about 8:30 or 9 when we arrived at the restaurant. A tout outside said it was closed, which it wasn't so we headed in only to find that it was getting close to closing, and there were very little items from the menu that were still available. Turns out Jane is a vegetarian, and she was having a devil of a time finding something that was available and did not contain fish or meat.
After dinner, Jeff headed to his casa which was in Centro and Bill and I walked Jane back to hers. She was on San Ignacio a long walk from Plaza Vieja. I felt better that we did walk her home. She was very comfortable, I guess I wasn't.
We get home to Erik and Elvis' place safe and sound and slept deeply.
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