Another city, and one with little draw for us, we arrived via a squished-in collectivo taxi sharing with a couple from Victoria, BC, Canada. The trip was four hours in duration, driving at mad speeds with no seatbelts, dodging potholes and bumpy roads that were like a multi-media piece of art. We got to know Casey and Jim.

I'm on a mission to find people from other places to house-share with us so am collecting email addresses. I mention this possibility of house-sharing, likely too early in our relationship because I have had no enthusiastic responses and Jim has observed that people look at me quite warily. It is a perfect match; locating others who like to travel and offering our home in exchange for their's either simultaneously or asynchronously as Nova Scotia may not be the best place to visit in the winter.

The drive from Vinales to Cienfuegos was on the 4-lane divided highway. "Wow", one might think, "that sounds similar to a highway back home". It is similar only that it has 4 lanes; there is almost no traffic as car ownership in Cuba is 38 cars to every 1000 people vs 800 to every 1000 in the US (Lonely Planet Guide pg 468). Vignettes of Cuban life continue to emerge on the 'freeway’ – a man struggling with his rearing horse that threatens to escape and gallop out into our speeding car, another man underneath his car fixing it while his legs protrude into the lane with nothing there to warn cars, people on the side of the road flagging down anyone willing to give them a ride. No ride here is uninteresting.

In moving about Cienfuegos, we see traffic lights and roads shared by cars of every vintage, monster tourist buses, bicycles, motorcycles, oxcarts, coches (horse drawn wagons), bici-taxis (2-seater cyclist propelled vehicles), pedestrians and horses. Everyone maneuvers along on whichever side of the road that has the least bumps and potholes, swerving into their lane at the very last minute when another vehicle approaches on the opposite side. There is a level of respect and cooperation that underlies the chaos; horns alerting others that they are coming up from behind and big buses slowing down somewhat patiently behind bici-taxis.

Jim’s non-functioning camera battery charger continues to be a challenge. He absconds other travellers, seeking out a spare charger of his type. We met a lovely British couple who kindly gave him a spare battery. I am a proponent of the ‘pay it forward’ travel etiquette. We have been both recipients and donors of this fine ethos over our many years of travel. The key is to ask for what you need, offer what you can and remind people of the travellers' principle. Our most infamous example of this was in Nepal in 1985 where we ended up in the country with no access to our money and a fellow Canadian couple we had met in India gave us $700USD to continue our travels and to pay them back when we got home. Now that is trust.

We returned to our casa late one afternoon and noticed people in the street looking unhappy while speaking to men in green fatigues who were carrying gas masks and a contraption that looked like a watergun with a large canister and a greenish liquid inside. It turned out, Tuesdays are fumigation day on the street where we were staying. Because of the Zika virus, the Cuban government has enforced weekly fumigation "for our health", as Adas our casa host explained. We hastily removed all our bags and took a chair to sit on the opposite side of the street for an hour and a half, watching these men pump smoke into each house and into street drains with a cloud of whatever chemicals eking out into the street. I stared in awe of these goings-on while neighbours stared in awe of me sitting on the street in a dining room chair with my baggage beside me and a cloth over my mouth and nose. After 30 minutes, Adas invited us back into the house but we refused until darkness fell.

While out on the street a neighbour chatted with us. Jim asked if he had any idea how his camera charger could get fixed or replaced so his Cuban buddy offered excitedly, “I know an engineer who can fix anything. I will take it to him”, as he grabbed it out of Jim’s hands and stuffed it into his pocket. Reluctantly, Jim agreed and a couple of hours later, the man arrived on our doorstep and disappointedly returned the charger saying his friend was unable to fix it. We had hoped it could be done given what they do with cars and just about everything else here. Nothing is disposed of while it still has some semblance of life in it – a fixer somewhere will find a way to keep it functional. This is a far cry from what we do in North America and it is so wasteful

Mi amor mi vida
Internet in Cuba has been a mystery to us. We were not able to post our blog and photos until we got home because of access and band width. First we had to discover the access mystery. In Havana, we would trudge a couple of kilometers to the nearest big international hotel to buy expensive internet time and have to wait to get on their computers. Susanah, the Cuban woman who has been booking casas for us, told us that you can buy cheap internet time and each town has public internet site, usually a plaza. Bingo! This is where we have seen animated groups speaking loudly into their devices, presumably on Skype with family members afar and others, both tourists and locals huddled over their devices, typing diligently or grinning as they read. That's the sweet spot – wifi access.

Although not timely in that you have to find and get to the internet hub, at the very least we can connect and send an email or two periodically. Taking an hour or more, as I am apt to do at home over the course of a day, to peruse email and check into favourite websites is not an option. Which, in fact, is not a bad thing; it’s good to get out of that habit. However, I feel quite disconnected and sometimes lonely. Jim is in photography heaven, either roaming the streets for the perfect shot or on the computer sorting and preparing his photos to develop them. As an extravert with mobility issues on this trip, I have a limit to the amount of time and the numbers of past times I want to be doing by myself.


I had read in our guidebook that women’s clothing here ‘favour tight-fitting lycra’ which I had to reread a couple of times before we arrived, thinking that that couldn’t be right. The guidebooks for many other countries stress the importance of wearing shirts with sleeves and conservative clothing. As with the numerous surprises of Cuba, the women DO wear lycra and it doesn’t seem to matter the shape or size of the woman, they are obviously fans of multi-coloured tights and tops. Unlike other countries, there is no uniformity of traditional wear. I felt a freedom in my clothing choices!

All Jim's images from Cienfuegos can be seen in higher resolution here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimneale/ albums/72157669070048725
and the images from Trinidad are here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimneale/ albums/72157669322526165


Music/rain

Jims observation of stare at each other, wait, ‘work things out’

Kitschy ornaments, bed coverings

Casa owners shopping in Panama – living room filled with motor cycles, a dryer, …?

Mi amor mi vida