April 2 -
We ate brekkies at Cafe O'Reilly across the street, they have such good coffee.... it's only for sale in the mornings in bags of beans or ground. None left, so I have to wake up early tomorrow to get some to bring home.
A young couple was seated next to us and they asked Bill if he knew how to get to the beach, as he looked so well prepared. Bill, in his wonderful self way, gave the guy our guide books to look at and leaf through to find out what he wanted to know.
We headed to the hop on/hop off bus stop at Parque Central and found that Tour 1 (T1) was the bus that was pulled up. On we got! 10 CUC each and off we went sitting on the top of the double decker. The commentary was not too good, mostly Spanish, with a little bit of English thrown in for good measure. We could never tell where the stops were, because they didn't stop if there was no one to pick up unless you were very quick to get down stairs and yell, abierto, and then maybe the doors would open.
We took the loop about 3/4 of the way around and got out at the Necropolis and wandered around there. We've seen a couple of cemeteries that are quite impressive, City of the Dead in Buenos Aires and the Cemetery in Savannah. This one was huge, it had streets and calles and a chapel as well as open areas . It was crowded, really crowded with graves, with people, just a handful. We saw a memorial to bomberos who lost their lives fighting fires, the grave of Dr. Finlay who discovered that yellow fever came from mosquitoes or developed a cure, not sure which one it is right now. It covered an enormous amount of acreage within the city limits. There were families buried in small "double wide" plots, as well as shrines that housed generations of the family. If it wasn't so hot and breeze-less, I could have spent longer there, it was very calming and quiet. As it should be. We went to the chapel, but found that there was a service going on, and then we saw all these hearses coming into the cemetery. I guess Sunday is burial day. 
We went across the street to the 125 cafeteria. Cafeteria's in Cuba are for locals and the prices are often given in moneda nacional not in CUC, this one gave both. We got a strong beer and a sandwich, 2 of each, and the total came to 7,80 CUC.....less than one dish in a restaurant. Food is not ridiculously cheap in Cuba in restaurants and paladars, but in cafeterias it is. The issue for tourists, is that you may or may not be served, it isn't a racial thing, it's a tourist thing.
We hop back on the bus and hit the Plaza de Revoluccion where there are iron images of both Che and Camilo hanging on the walls of 2 governmental buildings with Marti's monument at the back of what looked like an asphalt parking lot which was the Plaza.
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| Che Guevara |
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| Camilo Cienfuegos |
At the next bus stop we meet a young Polish guy who is on crutches and visiting Cuba. Turns out he tore his Achilles' tendon playing football and will heal in about 2 months. Yikes! He did make a very funny joke, "I came to Cuba and found out my name was Taxi!".
This is funny because whenever you walk on the street and a car drives by, the driver yells "Taxi" out the window at you.....
We got off the bus at Parque Central and went into the self-same Hotel on the Parque to cool off and get a drink. We both were quite sun burnt and sweaty and looked worse for the wear.
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| Jose Mari |
Dinner was an interesting experiment, we went to Chef Ivan Justo's place again, and were given the sniff test, and failed it! I made a reservation for Tuesday just to spite them. We wandered down some of the streets in this part of town and came to a restaurant glut. We picked Cafe del Angel Fumero Jacqueline. There was a statue of an angle in the square, and lots of stray dogs and cats. We sat down and behind Bill there was a table of 2 women and 1 man. The man was very sweaty and decided to take his shirt off. And he sat shirtless at the table. If I were the owner, I would have run right out there and told him to leave or put a shirt on. He eventually put a shirt on and went into the air conditioning. All very strange....but not as weird as the kids playing in the square while we had our gazpacho and I had grilled salmon, and Bill had a fillet mignon. These were clearly kids from the neighborhood who all knew each other. At first, Bill commented "so this is what children used to do before the Internet and X-Boxes" .  |
| golden hour |
However, after a while, there was a lot of cruelty. One boy was clearly the butt of every one's ire, he was constantly hit, things thrown at him, generally treated terribly. While there was another boy, who in a break in the beatings, decided to pee on the wall of the church across the street. He wasn't discreet, he just climbed up and braced himself on 2 pillars and took a wee. The entire group eating were slack jawed.
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| The Cathedral in the Plaza Cathedral |
Another nightcap at Ambos Mundo and then to shower and bed.
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