Day 32: Finale, Las Islas

A great idea by Dana made for a fine day. She booked a day trip to Isla Contoy with Scuba Cancun. Betty (bless her heart) drove us to the dock and we boarded a good sized boat, along with about 15 others, mostly Mexicans. We first stopped at Isla Muheres for about an hour...


which I used to buy a disposable underwater camera.

We then sailed to a reef near Isla Contoy with pretty clear water, great coral...









and beautiful fish.









We went on to Isla Contoy, which is a national park.


There was a rookery of frigate birds...


and some were mating (big orange ballon under the bill)...


We had a fantastic fresh barbecued fish lunch and got in some end-of-vacation relaxation time on the powdery white beach.




On the way back to Cancun, the sky filled with spectacular squalls, all of which missed us, but for a few raindrops.



Outta here tomorrow. Hasta luego.

Location:Cancun

Day 31: Marking time

Bit of a business day. The bad news: migraine meds on the local economy are prohibitively expensive. The good news, we can get a flight change to Thursday, in business class, for less. We choose the latter.

Excellent Mexican dinner with Karen, Betty and Gary at an up-scale chain, Toks. I had a great mole', but I coveted Karen's pile of assorted meats, which she proudly demolished, without so much as a shred for me to sample.

Location:Cancun

Day 30: Hasta luego, Cuba

A pleasant last morning with Isobel and Yusniel, including lessons in Ocho Loco and Rummy quinientos...




followed by our last vintage car ride, to the airport.



to Terminal 3, the newest and nicest, for our last Cuban grilled Jamon y Queso.



Thankfully, the checking etc went without a hitch, but for a brief panic looking for D's immigration slip (which was in my passport, put there by the airline agent, I insist), and we spent a few minutes in a nice boarding area before boarding and taking off...


bit of a "wheels up" Argo feeling, to be honest - a sharply reduced dread of something going awry.

Despite our landing at a different terminal, Gary and Betty found us, and after leaving our stuff at Gary's place, treated us to a dinner at the most popular restaurant in town, which had an excellent Caesar salad...



and an oddly familiar look, and smell.

Location:Cancun

Day 29: Back to Quivican

Morning stroll on the beach..



and a detour to the other side of the spit for a sunrise shot.



then one more fruity breakfast, including some great fresh-squeezed pineapple juice, then various odds and ends and packing for the trip and we're off in our private taxi for Quivican. The driver floundered a bit since we were crossing his usual routes to avoid Havana traffic.

After a stop at a cute burger place called Buganvilla (maybe a play on Burgerville and Bougainvillea?) we arrived in Quivican a half hour early, but caught Isobel and Yusniel as they were returning from the store. A happy reunion for sure, and we were glad to be back in somewhat familiar surroundings with such good, friendly folks whom we know.

Almost an immediate visit to another tia...




who lived in a surprisingly large and well-furnished home with a very modest front, like many of the homes we've seen here.

The rear faced a cemetery, which of course means it's very quiet, and she keeps a number of plants there, including orchids.




She also had an amazing closet for her granddaughter.




Several of the relatives dropped in again, and we had an excellent dinner with Yusniel and Ivan's and Yasi's parents. I couldn't resist a selfie - a bit blurred - don't do many of those.

Location:Quivican

Day 28: Veradero III

We started the day with a power walk on the beach a little after sunrise. The sand was so powdery one could even walk through the deeper stuff with ease. There was a crew picking up trash, including a guy with a metal detector, plus several guys with litter spike poles who appeared to be volunteers.

D had another memorable Etecsa experience, which she will describe (it gets a bit gross), but she did manage to get a message through to her cousin about our arrival in Cancun, and to hear from Adam that the Seahawks were winning the Super Bowl, and from Janet H. that there was snow in Portland.

We finally got on the tourist bus about 10.
Veradero 3

First stop was at a park where Cuban bikers who looked like Hell's Angels, were having some sort of rally.
Veradero 4

That was strange enough, but they were sharing the park with a recital of amateur pre-teen girl dance teams.
Veradero 5
Veradero 6
Veradero 7

Next stop was The Beatles Cafe, for which I'm sure there's a rational explanation, but I prefer the oddness of it.



Then a stop at a very nice park with duck-shaped paddleboats, but whose most interesting feature was a pigeon apartment complex...




followed by a visit to the municipal museum, in a neat old wooden building,



and a peek at the Mansion Xanadu, built by Irenee DuPont, the chemical company founder, now a very exclusive hotel...



ignored by the folks from the cheaper hotels learning salsa on the beach.
Veradero 8

Our last stop was the Reserva Ecologica, which has some unusual foliage...




including a 300 year old cacti that can grow to 500...


and that injures itself with needles that poke into the tree and leak water...



and has a strange relationship with a Ficus that strangles it, provides shade for it, and does not outlive it.



The plants grow on sharply eroded limestone that makes for a rough path



but also produces intriguing formations, including caves...



in one of which the 2000 yo bones of an extinct aboriginal were found, along with some utensils.



The place even has a history of occupation by Barbary pirates (called "muslims" by the Spanish) who used the mounded limestone as a lookout point for the Spanish fleet.

We returned to Salsa Suarez (the restaurant from last night) and had another great dinner. The restaurant is private, run by a Cuban who does a lot of traveling and picks up great ideas for food.

Location:Veradero

Day 27: Veradero II

Few non-aquatic things to see today, and no underwater camera, so this is almost all narrative, for journaling purposes.

A snorkeling morning. Sea was pretty calm and we caught a taxi for Playa Coral, a place 30 k south of Veradero where there is a reef right near shore. We arrived ahead of the crowd, got our gear, entered the water, and swam out to the reef, then followed it for about 100 yards, weaving in and out of huge crevices, and over shallow areas where the fish were almost in our faces. D spotted a lion fish, with its winglike appendages extended, and we watched it swim about for awhile, an amazing sight. We think we may never have seen one in the wild before. The coral was very impressive, though sandy in spots, possibly due to occasional strong north winds (Veradero is on the north side of the island, facing the Atlantic - the south side faces the Carribean), and they get El Nortes (north winds) from time to time.

There were not huge schools of fish, but looking carefully one could see quite a variety. We swam for about an hour and a half without realizing it, a common experience when the snorkeling is good, and when we came back to the dive center the water and shore was swarming with tour groups (mostly Canadian, I think, word is they stay at the all-inclusive hotels and tend to venture out in groups only, except for using the internet at Etecsa - to D's dismay - because they don't want to spend the higher fees at their hotels).

Fortunately, with all the coral the area was a little intimidating for beginners, and so they stuck pretty close to their guides, in small groups, and were not in the water for long, so their presence was not a problem. We came out for a break to lie in the sun, and then went back in for another 45 minutes. For some reason I saw more fish types then, even though the water was getting a little rougher, as it does in the afternoons when the wind picks up. When we came out our taxi was back and so we returned to our place.

After showering, I went to have lunch while D intrepidly continued her attempts to get off an email at Etecsa to her cousin in Cancun about our schedule change (which I'm sure those of you on her email list will hear about as only she can tell it). The short version is that she's been trying to do that for three days, and has been encountering problems that cannot possibly be duplicated outside of Cuba, involving shortages, infrastructure problems and queue idiosyncrasies.

Due to a shortage of vacancies in Havana, it looks like we'll be staying here until making a dash to the airport on Monday. That's a bit of a downer, since there is not that much to do here if your favorite passtimes do not include drinking rum and forming a sun-burned blob on a beach recliner. I was grousing about that waiting for my half chicken when I got hit by a gratitude moment, and did a little video to remind myself of that.
Veradero 2

Veradero has an open-top hop-on, hop-off tourist bus that runs the length of the spit, and we'll probably do that tomorrow after D takes an early shot at Etecsa. There actually are a couple of things of interest to see here besides sun-burned Canadians - hey I love 'em, they're the nicest people, like the guy in the queue at the bank today who shared some of his dearest family secrets with me.

Great dinner tonight at a surprisingly nouveau restaurant, about as far from Moros yi Cristianos as one can get, with smartly uniformed waitresses, tablecloths, and an amazing menu - I had little albacore steaks in a chimichurri sauce that was terrific, better than D's swordfish, by her admission.

And an inspiration, we will go back to Quivican on Sunday and spend the night with D's student's parents, from where it will be a short taxi ride to the airport. A little more of the really real Cuba with some very nice people. Hopefully, my Cuban Spanish comprehension has improved to the point that I won't be a complete idiot.

Location:Veradero

Day 26: To Veradero

OK, another change of plan. After a foggy sunrise on the public circuit weight set-up across the street from our CP...


the taxi for our trip to the airport showed up, only to have the fixer (a middleman who arranges for taxis and other tourist needs) try to charge us extra because the other two people he had lined up bogued. I did the "let's take it to the police" bit again (without the eruption), and he backed off.

The driver turned out to be a really nice guy (a lawyer, believe it or not) who could make more money driving a taxi. Hard to feel sorry for a lawyer, I know, but feel sorry for him as a Cuban, or better yet, feel sorry for Cuba. Anyway, he spoke excellent English, and let it be known he didn't think much of the fixer, who apparently also works as a pimp. D had a lengthy conversation with him, in English, correcting his grammar and pronunciation with great relish. Most of the route was on the 4 lane autopista, and so we made it in about 2.5 hours.

Not that it did us that much good. D had him drop us Terminal 2, and despite several people telling us the AeroMexico flight to Cancun left from Terminal 3, it took some very sincere begging to get D to give Terminal 3 a look (they were several minutes apart by taxi), and so we finally did that. Terminal 3 was quite new, a stark contrast to 2 (which was primarily domestic), and the place we needed to be.

Not that it did us much good. We saw quite quickly on the departure board that the Aeromexico flight to Cancun was cancelled. Believing the next Aeromexico flight was not until a week later, we wait-listed on a Cubana flight leaving soon and reserved seats for their Saturday flight.

Not that it did us much good. While I was eating lunch, D found an Aeromexico office (down a little hall undergoing a messy remodel - amazing what she can accomplish when motivated by a chance to save a little money) and found out they had a Monday flight with available seats that we could get on for a $100 p/p change fee (more than $230 p/p for the Cubana flight), and we jumped at that, leaving us with three+ days to get in some time beach time at Veradero, on the north coast 130k east of Havana (the Canadian Cancun). Not wanting to waste time with bus/taxi exchanges, we went to the taxi stand, with D determined to get a taxi to Veradero for $80, rather than the $100 the first 5 drivers she talked to insisted it would cost. She succeeded.

Not that it did us much good. As we were working our way through the Havana suburbs, the driver got a call from his boss to come to an urgent meeting, and so he headed into downtown Havana to find a driver who would take us to Veradero, which he did, but he failed to give the new driver the card of the CP we wanted. We eventually gave up on that and told him to just get on with it and so we we finally headed out east along the north coast on another four lane highway that got us there relatively quickly.



Veradero is a 20k long powdery, white sand beach/spit, longest in the Carribean...
Veradero 1

and is totally given over to snowbird tourism from Canada and Europe, e.g. the restaurant where I had an excellent Cuban paella (didn't think there was such a thing), had pear and grape as the juice choices, which we had seen nowhere else in Cuba.

The driver found a decent CP for us, and we will stay here three nights, before spending the last night in Havana, mainly getting in beach time and some snorkeling, maybe a few power walks as well.

Location:Veradero

Day 25: Venales Final

Breakfast on our rooftop "terrace" (under development).
Vinales 8

Plan for the day changed. Due to the impending exhaustion of D's migraine medicine supply, and Aeromexico's one flight (Thursday) a week to Cancun, we had to go back to Havana to change our flight, and leave for Cancun immediately. Sooooooooo...

We arranged for a taxi to the Havana airport on Thursday (tomorrow as I'm writing), and for a tour of the valley by taxi on Wednesday (today as I'm writing).

First stop on the tour was La Queva Los Indios, which had some ok formations...


and a little boat trip.
Vinales 9

Our next visit, to a tobacco plantation, sold to us as different from the one we'd done yesterday (supposed to be a lot of folks rolling cigars) was a fiasco. Our driver took a wrong road to get there, and when we did finally arrive, it was to be exactly what we'd seen, so we skipped it. I did get a shot of a guy riding the skids they use with the oxen, smoothing the soil for planting, I believe. Some of the oxen teams have a rough beauty, si no?



We next went to a government organic farm, with a nice view of the valley...



where we shared a stress-reducing drink.



Based on our misunderstanding, we next went to what we thought was primitive cave painting, but which turned out to be a gigantic defacement of a cliff by a student of Diego Rivera, charitably referred to as a "mural". D made me take a picture of it, and it is offered here for comment.


My own comment,"What in God's name were they thinking!?"

There followed a lengthy episode with the police at a road checkpoint, apparently something not being right about our driver's papers.

The next stop in the itinerary again tested our driver. It was Los Aquaticos, a group of folks in the hills who treat illnesses etc. with no medicines other than pure water from a spring on their land. Wouldn't it be loverly if that worked on migraines. The driver obviously had no clue how to get us there, though he was not afraid to ask directions, 7 - 8 times, one of them from this guy hauling tobacco to a curing shed.
Vinales 10

We wound up at a little finca, from where we were going to have to find our own way on foot. Let's just say that didn't work out too well, until we saw some tourists heading down another path in the distance, asked directions from some campesinos, and were graciously led by one of them across a bridge to a path that got us there (after a little more help from other campesinos). Nice folks out in the country, and actually more stylish in an odd way.

We chatted with an Aquatico kid of 16, who told us the story of the families, now two (used to be five or six) who live there.
Vinales 11

He and his dad (who both had great skin - just sayin') squeezed a glass of sugar cane juice for me that was quite nice.
Vinales 12

As the video showed, they have a great view of the valley.




We had better luck finding our way back, following a well-used route...



and there were some nice views along the way, together with some trogon calls, one of which you may hear on the video (sort of a lower piping sound).
Vinales 13

When we reached the rice fields in the valley (the Aquatico place was on the highest little clearing in the hills, directly up from between the two oxen)


we knew how to get out the rest of the way.

We then went for views from two up-scale hotels at different ends of the valley.
South end first...


middle view, showing the town of Vinales...


and north end.




Last stop was a bit of an afterthought, La Caverna de San Tomas, which our driver again had to search for. It's reputed to be the second largest cave in the Americas, but it was poorly signed, and the "recepcion" looked abandoned. One of the guys in the parking lot said he was a guide, and so we went with him toward the cave.

After a very steep climb up really sharp rocks we reached the "entrance", which was invisible to someone who did not know where it was. He pulled some headlamps out of his pocket and we started down into it.
Vinales 14

The way through was extremely difficult, and dangerous, in many places, I thought, but the formations were quite varied and often dramatic, even in the limited light from the head lamps.











The cave would undoubtedly be a National Park in the US, with super safe paths and great lighting.

At one point, it had very musical stalactites...
Vinales 15

that doubled as hand holds along the edge of a little precipice (we cringed when we realized that, but used them anyway - no choice), and at another point, musical columns with deeper tones.


Vinales 16

On the way back to Vinales, our crack driver tried to coerce D into paying extra for the trip to the cave, but backed off after I erupted and suggested we have the police resolve the matter - the latter likely more persuasive than the former.

We ended the day with a nice sunset...




and an excellent lobster meal on our roof. Turns out our main CP host is a cook at a local restaurant.

Location:Venales