Cuba: Where Every Day is an Adventure!

SATURDAY night, August 6, 2016

There was a downpour on the way to dinner last night,  but a couple of blocks down my street I found a place where the waiter who was not  mine  and  I got to talking  and he offered to take me  to  Old Town on  his day  off (today). So I took him up on it and it turned into another 5 wonderful hours of walking new places in Havana.  I had  my fortune told and she basically said I was a very, very good and kind person  and that I care deeply for my parents and family, and I would have money  in my life but that  I needed to put a glass of water  on some church's steps and buy a white  rosary.  She kept saying (Diego translated it all) that I should be careful about my legs.  (I don't know what that was about; perhaps because I have been getting injections in one knee to avoid pain. When I was in Colorado with Janet last summer, I  slipped on some gravel up on Breckenridge mountain and twisted my knee up real good.  It swole to twice its size and I had to ice it for 3-4 days. )  I asked the fortune teller about my love life.  I will tell Sam about that  later, but it was all good.  She said my man was a good man and  would be my teacher in life.

Diago took me to an antiques mercado next and I bought a silver Saint Barbara medallion necklace (she is a Cuban saint who is known for being a strong warrior woman), and a white rosary.  I was looking for some silver earrings for my sisters, but we didn't find any today, so I have to go back to that little shop a couple of miles from here where I bought them yesterday.

I also met and had photos  taken with a  "dandy," who  is basically an  old man who  dresses  nice, is a sugar daddy and has  lots of women.  He was a cute old guy with a big cigar.  And I  had my photo taken  with some little dogs who were dressed up who were just too cute to pass by.

We went to Hemmingway's two favorite bars and drank a mohito in one and a daiquiri in the other, which is,  after all, what Hemmingway recommended! lol  Who am I  to break tradition?! lol  Both  bars had outstanding Cuban bands/singers, one of whom I posed with.  Diago tried to get me to dance some combination of salsa and the swing, but I just wasn't feeling his lead, so we both  laughed and sat down as he laughed and kept saying, "I know, I'm terrible!"  But I did have him put together a list of good bands/cds (they wanted $10 each cd in the bars), and I bought three of them while walking home for $2/each.  So now I have some excellent, authentic Cuban music to play for my friends when I get home.

Then, while we were in the Florida Bar (the one where you need to drink a daiquiri), a woman who  came up to our window and asked us if we were married (Diago is 23) and  begged money was later the very one who was standing in the park  with her  pants  down under question by the police as we left.  Poor thing.  She was telling us at the window that she was sleeping in the park, so maybe in addition to a mental illness, she just wanted a bed (in jail) for a night.

Also on the way home,  we stopped for lunch and I got a big, delicious piece of some fish I've never heard of and rice and beans and plantain and cucumber salad, and a Crystil beer.  He had a fish sandwich and a pop.  The whole thing cost me $8.

We also stopped at this huge factory-sized art mart, where I bought a "Widdow," which is one of those gourds with grooves cut in it that you strum with a stick to keep the beat.  I also bought a print of Che Guavera (sp??), one of Cuba's main revolutionary heroes, and a painting of nightlife in Havana, the latter of which you will see a photo of with me and Diago and the artist.

A bunch of people walked by us on stilts,  and Diago sang to me the whole time we  were walking the streets and touring around.  He was reall
y quite cute.  He  went home (he lives  "on  the beach") at 3 and I walked the last mile home and dove straight in the shower.   Another scorcher.

Tonight is dance/club night, but I have no one  to go  with so I  think I'll just  get  dinner and stay home.  Tomorrow I  have  to buy a bus ticket to Vinales,  which is a couple hours away, and  way up in  the  mountains where  the vistas are supposed to be spectacular.  I leave  for there on the 8th-11th,
Then I fly back to Mexico and  stay with  Jacque  for a day and leave for Chicago on August 3 to arrive at home at  10:56 p.m. at O'Hare.

My hair is getting blond streaks and I'm careful to put on sun screen 50 each day.  Janet, my no-chip manicure is still good after one week!  I can't believe it (I never got one before).  Thanks for the suggestion.


Today Diago took me to see the Havana Social Club, the hottest spot in town, which 2-3 other people had told me to check out.  But, again, I really don't want to go to a night club alone...in a foreign country.  Oh, one last thing, we stopped and talked to a woman who does black Cuban magic.   Diago pointed out a sign that stood below all of the talismans and tools for the trade that said something like "If you don't understand it, don't mess with it."  And we didn't.  Still she agreed to pose for a picture.

It's dinner time and I just watched an hour of TV- a strange thing for me, not having one and all.  It was a mystery/detective show where they had to catch a manic-depressive sociopath.

 Rosa, the owner of this house just stopped in for 5 minutes, I paid her $100 for four nights, she said a bunch of stuff to me in Spanish, and I kept saying "No problemos.  Mucho gracias por des casa!" So, basically, she left after having no conversation to speak of, at all!