Sandiago de Cuba

The revolution began here on July 26 with Castro´s unsuccessful attack on the barracks, and ended here with Castro giving a speech from the balony opposite our hotel. Today we will go through the museums and pay our respects.

This is the most together town we have been to so far. It is certainly wealthier and more organised. Our hotel was the place where Graham Greene sat and wrote Our Man in Havana, which I have not read, but apparently the hotel is described in great detail.

We took a turn around town in a big old Chevrolet, walked the streets and got offered all manner of services every 50 metres or so. One evening we went to the famous Casa de Trova where Buena Vista Social Club look alikes play. The club has about six dancers who perform, then dance with tourists for a small fee. Last night we went up to Plaza de Marte where regeatone, the preferred music of the youth of Cuba is played. Several hundred young people gather, huge speakers are stacked up and a party begins. There is a lot of cruising about and checking out of the scene, people dance and joke around, but there seemed to be little drinking. The dancing is all about the groin and even very young children do it with disarming expertise. We stayed for as long as we could stand the terrible music (even Charles and Josh found it repellant) then got ourselves home.


We are learning to be more discerning. The big lesson is to ask the price of everything and ask not just to see the menu, but to check what is actually available. Of course these lessons have been learnt the hard way, and while we have enjoyed the $2 mohitos, we did not enjoy the $80 fee for washing! On any given menu the things that are usually available are fried chicken or pork, rice and beans, and salad. Everything else in the menu is really just an idea of what they would like to serve if they could. Still we have not done too badly with the food.

Tony and I sat up with a delightful black couple from Germany and swapped stories. They had the most fantastic little acinine quips about their life in the country that wants to show the world how things should be done.