Camaguey, Mi adora

March 21-

We awoke quite early to finish packing up and get ready to fly to Camaguey.  We were flying domestic, which was out of terminal 1.  It seems that there are 3 terminals which are no where near each other.  We thought that we might be able to get a bite to eat at the airport, but when we drove up, I realized that was a fantasy.  There were 2 shacks, snack shacks, outside the building and nothing prior to checkin. The food choices in the shacks were: two types of cookies, espresso coffee, Cristal Cuban beer and five kinds of rum. Typical .... no, really, .... EVERY store sells rum.

One thing that was less anxiety producing in the airport was that Cubans understand queuing.  They understood where to find the end of the line, did not try to push their way in at an earlier junction.  It was great, so un-China.

We had, the previous day, contemplated hitting the cambio at the airport, but forgot that we were going domestic so there would be NO cambio.  So glad that we got money at the Hotel Habana Libre the day before.

They check in flights one at a time, as we found out once we arrived.  So we sat waiting for the sign for Camaguey to be put up.  Slowly the line grew and inched its way toward the check in counter.  We checked our bags and were told to go to Salon B to wait some more....This is a common occurrence around transportation in Cuba.  Bill found a sandwich stand in Salon B and was ordering sandwiches to go when our flight was called.  A moment of anxiety ... again, the line moved so slowly that he could have been there for another 15 minutes and it would have been ok. 

The flight was full, which surprised me.  I'm not sure why, but it was clear that lots of people were heading to visit relatives with their small children.  Our time in the waiting room before the flight was checked in was spent watching a young mother chase after her willful daughter in a beautiful white dress around and around the waiting area.  Every chance the kid got, she took off for the non-working escalator and started crawling up the steps.  There was an abuela there, but she was more focused on eating a fried chicken leg than running after the little one.  It was fun to watch, but scary at the same time.  Poor young mom was trying very hard to keep her girl clean, as well as herself from looking like crap and covered in kid drool or snot, or whatever bit of detritus the girl picked up on her hands or feet!  Abuela sat munching away, unconcerned, to my eye. 

The flight was uneventful and we landed smoothly.  We grabbed our bags and headed to a taxi stand.  We were luck to pick a man and his daughter who were very attentive and drove us to the door, and made sure that we understood that we were exactly where the piece of paper said to take us.  

We rang the bell and were lead into Laura's House, the name of our Casa Particular (basically a B&B).  Our room in the house was large with private bath, airy with 2 balconies.  One with a view onto the street, the other has a small table and chairs for lounging at.  There are louvre windows and French door to street balcony. We overlooked "Cinema Street", in which all shops and restaurants were movie-themed (and three theatres in between.)  The parking lot gate looked like an old time wooden movie making "clapper". The street itself was a film strip, with "celluloid frames" in the middle of the street and sprockets on the sidewalk !

Our hosts, Roberto and Aneli, made sure to show us all of the little quirks of the space.  There is an overhead water heater that dispenses hot water from the shower head without a tank.  Ingenious! 

We were given a key to the room and told that no matter what time, we just needed to ring the bell outside and someone would come down and let us in.  

The room had a private terrace AND a private  balcony….living large!

We rested up, changed into shorts, and headed out to explore the historic center.  We wandered down to a park and made a right turn and kept going on that to a pedestrian street, Republica, and wandered that for much of the rest of the afternoon.  We did stop for an adult beverage at a Hotel Camino del Hierro, which used to be the office for the railroad.  The drink was good, but the service left a lot to be desired.  This was the first time in Cuba that the service was media-a-media.  

Later, we ate at La Isabella, an Italian restaurant nearby our casa on "Cinema Street".  The interior was quite interesting.  There were movie posters all on the walls, and the seating was director's chairs with famous directors names on the back.

We came back to the casa, and I promptly fell soundly to sleep.  Bill stayed up and read....