El ron de Cienfuegos
Arrived late afternoon on the Viazul bus. Winging Cienfuegos - we forgot to book accommodation in advance for this stop.
A friendly Ivan took us to his uncle's place to look at and if we liked it we could stay. The casa (house) was magnificent. High ceilings, majestic bedrooms, grand verandah overlooking with a garden filled with lizards. Juanita wanted to stay and live there.
Spent the evening wandering town, walked the boulevard down to the jetty. Quite a modern town, built in criss-cross roads. Had a beverage on the jetty admiring the bay. Then polished off most of the rum bottle mixed with a lime and lemon refresco (soft drink).
Monday is a quiet day in Cienfuegos - a lot of things were closed. So we had to entertain ourselves in the small town. Some exercise. Walked the entire length of the town along the water's edge, that took a couple of hours. Jumped in a bici-taxi to rest our legs, back to town to by some cigars for the folks back home.
Our original plan for the day was to go in a taxi-boat across the bay to see Fortuleza, the fort. If only Juanita had better Spanish. The tourist office agent sold us a ticket for a boat tour leaving the marina at 3pm. So, with that limited knowledge of what the ticket was we'd bought, we did decide we'd go back to the marina and see what the tour was exactly. Lucky we took the bottle of rum and a packet of Pringles for the boat ride, as we didn't end at the fort, was a slow cruise around the bay of Cienfuegos, with a tour group (not a fan of huge tour groups being herded around like sheep, we like travellers, not tourists).
Stumbled off the boat and made our way back to town. Had a relaxing night at the house, great dinner by our house Elias and wife Magdara, roast chicken and home made frites.
You'd think we'd be having early night to bed whilst on holiday as it's not like we've got work or chores to do etc but there always seems to be something to see, then a late dinner, travel stories to write, rum to be drunk, cigars to be smoked ( had to be done ), Spanish practice with our hosts, and then eventually make it to bed. Another good day travelling Cuba.
Cienfuegos is a beautiful town with a mix of new and old, quite modern by Cuban standards but with the charm of horse and cart pulling the local buses. We would have liked more time there considering everything is closed on Sunday's and Monday's but onwards back to Havana for 1 more day exploring the capital. We spent a few hours in Castilla San de Carlos, the fort over looking Havana before dinner on the town and bed.
Mañana , Costa Rica !
