CUBA - NO ES FACIL

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It's been a while since I came around to this dusty pile of words. In fact, the last one was from when I moved back to Portland from Germany. It's been a pretty dynamic, although somewhat more stable, time since then, but this post will beg to differ.

I gotta say, after my trip to Cuba, I'm looking forward to completing and sharing this one quite a lot, because that's what I hope I do - share and help people get a glimpse of a place most people are intrigued by but may not know a ton about. In just a quick little snippet, it was a very impressionable trip. Awesome, yes; Unique, of course; Outstanding, in some ways; but I'm not quite sure the best quick way to describe it, because it's such a dichotomous country. Either way, it was a very memorable experience.

Departure and Start in Havana

Mommy and I spent Christmas together, went to a movie, had some good food, and then watched some football. Due to timing things up with Zack and overall time constraints, I flew out Christmas night and headed towards Havana. It was a pretty ok flight from Portland to Atlanta, but I gotta say, I was pretty impressed with Delta's cabin renovations. Job well done.

Atlanta was quick, I made use of my schnazzy new Priority Pass membership to get some food and shuteye in the lounge, then soon enough, it was time to board.

I was initially a little confused in Portland at check-in because the baggage agents were asking me if I wanted to buy my visa there or in Atlanta. I opted for Atlanta, so before boarding, I had to fill out a visa form (which cost $50 and if I made a mistake on it I'd have to buy another one) and then complete essentially a questionnaire outlining my reasoning for traveling to Cuba. That was the extent of the bureaucratic process for it, so it was more of a show than anything.

All that done, we boarded, and then got to sit delightfully in the plane at the gate for two hours because a) two crew members were late to work and b) the air traffic control center in Jacksonville was having problems and couldn't handle the normal traffic. That was annoying. But eventually I got into Havana and holy SHIT what a mess of a customs line. It was just a giant jumble of people with very little semblance of a line, and it took forever.

Quick Thought - One of the most annoying things about international travel, regardless of where, is all the messages over the intercom are given in two languages. Such a time kill. And especially annoying when you're watching a movie wearing headphones and the intercom through your headphones is like going from an empty church to front and center at a rock concert.

The baggage area wasn't labeled for my flight. There were ones for Lima, Santo Domingo, and a few others, but none of the two baggage claim things listed a flight from Atlanta. But, lo and behold, my bag made it! I quickly changed into shorts because it was freakin hot, and then waited forever to exchange money (lines and waiting, it's a very common theme).

From there, I split a cab with some Aussies (Austin and Rachel) to head downtown. While those two were exchanging money, I got to start using some of my Spanish and was able to help my cab driver with a quiz game. I didn’t have a plan for that night, but scored and got the last room of the casa where the Aussies were at. Checked in and hungry, we wandered out to find some dinner. It was another super long wait, but had some awesome shrimp dish in a swanky feeling Italian restaurant for dirt cheap.

Cuba Stuff - by saying a casa, I mean a casa particular. These are homes of Cuban citizens who have opened up a room/apartment for tourists to be able to rent. It could vary from having a room integrated into the family's house, one of multiple rooms in an apartment attached to a family's home, or a completely independent apartment. The government recently (last 10 years I think) allowed this, as before it was only legal to stay in hotels as tourists.

The next morning, I didn't want to get out of bed, but breakfast was set at 8. I chatted again with Austin and Rachel before bidding adieu and snagging a quick nap before I hit the road. I wasn't too sure what I wanted to get into, because Zack and I would be coming back to Havana in just a day and a half. So to keep it simple, I headed out to the Malecón to leisurely walk around.

I got out to the water, and it was a nice, windy, sunny day. After a stretch, I went back in towards the city and happened to meet a nice guy named Luis. Long story short, he took me to a cool place called Callejon de Hamel. Well, it was cool and quirky and all, but was just a tourist trap. He tried to sell me some cds, then just asked for milk money. But when I refused to give him any cash, he called me a communist. I definitely didn't expect that turn of events, especially in a communist country.

Quick Thought - Fuck I hate getting tourist trapped. It's such a con game and I feel totally duped every time.

But I kept walking, kept meandering. Kinda just killing time until Zack got there. My wandering led me past a few statues and memorials and some interesting streets. Eventually though, I happened upon a baseball game and pulled up to watch for a while.

Long story short, I struck up a conversation with a guy sitting close to me named David and we chatted for the rest of the game. I ended up being late to meet Zack because of this, but David and I talked for a good bit about:

• Baseball (his son was one of the pitchers)
• How hard it is for Cubans to travel (it's not only expensive, but the government dictates where you can go)
• How baseball is currently the best option for people to get out of the country
• How Trump sucks
• Some other stuff<

It was a really interesting conversation, although I didn't understand it all, I really enjoyed the insight into his life and country. This was the first of many great examples where, if they're not in the tourist industry, Cubans are very laid back and friendly people extremely willing to share their story and provide an insight into life in Cuba.

From the baseball game, I made my way to a taxi and headed to the meeting point to find Zack chilling and ready to go. Not having modern communication tools didn't prevent us from having a (relatively) seamless rendezvous without minute-to-minute updates. Hot damn! As was another theme I found out about, the buses were sold out. This is apparently a constant thing. Unless you book a few weeks in advance, you're not going to get onto the buses. But, it just so happened (as I would realize is the way to do it) that a few other tourists were looking to go to Viñales as well. Taxi ride, here we go.

Cuba Stuff - A similar sentiment to other setups, there are two bus systems in Cuba. Viazul is the one for tourists. Omnibus Nacional is (to my knowledge) a slightly more wider reaching network but also less frequent bus system only available for Cubans. I tried to get a ticket on the Omnibus, and the lady flat out told me I'm not allowed to.

Well, we got paired up with what turned out to be a really carefree taxi driver, a really boisterous and loud Hungarian guy, and his really quiet wife. The carefree taxi driver used our trip to get a few errands done (groceries, gas, and dropping stuff off at home), and at one point stopped off at a bar on the side of the road and went to grab himself a nice Cervezita. Because, you know, what's driving with out a road soda to go with it!?

The Hungarian guy wouldn't stop saying Dios Mio to whatever Victor (taxi driver) had to say and wouldn't shut up about the great lighting around sunset (it was great, but seriously, we get it). And his wife just got more pissed off the more hungry she got along the way.

Viñales

Eventually we got to Viñales, and somehow found our host at the bar he works at. We had a mojito, then went to the restaurant he recommended, which ended up feeling like an inside job (it totally was, as we found out the next day. Notably more expensive than most other places in town), but it was totally delicious. Then we went back to our awesome airbnb to take a quick break before following him back to the bar.

Well, that quick break ended up doing us in for the night. We apologized to our host that we weren't going to be able to make it out to the bar and hit the sack.

That next morning we got up right around sunrise and it was gorgeous, plus we awoke to a very quaint and delicious breakfast on the patio with Lassie, their Rottweiler, hanging around. It was a great start to the day. From there, we went and tried to secure a couple motorcycles for the day. No dice. Apparently there are only 8 motorcycles in the whole city to rent, although it's the 3rd most touristy city in all of Cuba (and you can feel it). So even though we went through Randy (our host), we got shut down pretty quickly.

We went back to a place with Quads, but they only had one, and we weren't in the mood to share. But as luck would have it (which is a way too common theme here), Randy knew a guy with bikes available to rent, and as we were walking there, a guy showed up with two bikes for us to take. Boom, and like that, we were on our way.

Two-wheeled and ready for adventure, we headed over to the valley opposite of the town, on the other side of a big mogote, where there were supposedly a few tobacco plantations. We veered in past a talkative old man offering his guidance through the area, and stumbled upon a humble drying shack and talked to the guy about cigars. It was quite a scenic setting, with two guys in the tobacco field digging troughs and one guy in the shack.

It was very interesting, talking to a farmer, hearing about how the tobacco growth works here in Viñales, but it too turned out to be a tourist trap (what seemed like literally every train of tourists on horseback stopped by that place). Bwuh, what a bummer. We did get to smoke one, however, and it turned out to be great. He whipped out a bottle of something before lighting it and dipped the end in what turned out to be honey, which really made it sweet and delicious. We (I) thought about buying a pack of 20, but didn't want to splurge so soon. I think it was the unfortunately correct call.

We rode on, hit a few dead ends, and went by a ton of tourists on horseback. Eventually we got to a cave, where most other people were too. However there was one little kid who was exceptionally persistent "offering" to show us through the cave, and because of his ridiculous persistence and the presence of everyone else likely to be packed into the cave, we decided against going in in favor of getting him off our trail.

So we ventured on, with our target being the other side of the valley. It took a few more turns than anticipated, but we got there and headed to the Mirador, a viewpoint on top of a hill. It was a gorgeous spot, with a view of the whole valley and the mogotes that surround it. Really a beautiful place to enjoy the scenery.

We had lunch at the little hut there, and it turned out to be pretty delicious and reasonably priced. From there we checked out the "prehistoric" mural (which actually wasn't prehistoric, but a work by a local aritist to represent the timeline from prehistoric to current times), and then went back to the house for a quick nap, which was definitely needed.

Post nap, we walked around the city, checked out a cigar shop and picked up a couple for lounging later on, walked through some markets for a bit, then people watched on the steps in the square. On our way back to the casa, we watched a neighbor working on his old car. It was a 1930s Chevy and really cool looking. He said he's replaced the engine and transmission on his car, and looks like he's doing a damn good job with all the work himself. While we passed by, he was working on the rear axle.

Cuba Stuff - this might be common knowledge, but because of the embargo, car maintenance (especially on the older 30s, 40s, 50s series American cars) is a tough thing. Getting replacement parts is difficult, and a lot of people find creative ways to either substitute parts, or cast/form/shape/build them from replicas. From there, most of the maintenance is done by the owner too, leading to a lot of handiwork and a 'work with what you've got' (in my impression) mentality. And it's damn impressive to see all these oldies still rip roaring around all over the country. They sure do take pride in their vehicular craftsmanship, as they should.

Well we arrived back at our delightful casa, and decided to sit around on the rooftop patio for a bit. It was a beautiful day to do so, with the mogotes as our backdrop and the sunset slowly approaching, we hung out, read some books, played some cards, and enjoyed the calm atmosphere in the valley.

From there it was dinner time. This is where we found out the night before was a total inside job and tourist trap. But we had ourselves a quite good dinner, then afterwards went for drinks at the Centro Nocturnal, where we met a guy named Rock from Chicago. A few drinks led to a few more, and then we went to Randy's bar for the total tourist experience. There were a good number of dancing acts and live music, and it was a good time.

Eventually we dipped out of the fun and I found out I drank a bit too much. It was not the best night, but it did include some stargazing on the patio after we got back. That was beautiful.

My wake up was all sorts of rough. We had breakfast planned at 8 and then a taxi booked through Randy to head back to Havana planned for 9. Well while we were eating our pleasant little breakfast, the taxi guy showed up saying we had to leave nowish because there's a taxi shortage. None of that made sense, but we wolfed down our breakfast and then scrambled to get ready in no time flat. Then we had a scenic but loud ride back to Havana.

La Habana

We got dropped off at a popular drop spot which was close to the Plaza de la Revolución, so we killed some time before our check in and walked through the plaza. There was another baseball game at the place where I met and talked to David, so we enjoyed the game while chilling and planning for a bit. I even got to throw back a home run! From there we took a coco (helmet-shaped taxi) to our place and met Alejandro and his mom (she joked that she was his secretary) at their loveley casa, threw our stuff down, and then hit the town!

Direct movement went towards Habana Vieja, aka the historic and touristy area of town. First stop was to the Partagas cigar factory, hoping for a tour. As luck would have it, reminiscent of our time in Moscow, the factory was closed for renovations, and naturally with no planned reopening date. Drat. But we scoped out the cigar shop with plans to return later.

Continuing on, we walked past the Capitolio, the Parque Central (swanky hotel downtown, and a good hub for us) and then we debated going to La Floridita, where Ernest Hemingway used to hang out and schmooze on some Daiquiris. But the place was a tourist magnet, and I personally had no desire to get swamped in with the rest of them.

The Obispo is the main street through Habana Vieja, so we took that on down past all the shops and stalls and stuff. Food was calling, so we grabbed a couple cuban sandwiches from (what I assume was) their type of McDonalds, which turned out to be pretty good to boot.

Our journey down the Obispo led us to the Plaza de Armas, a quaint and green square surrounded by a few cafes but filled with booths selling books and maps and artifacts and stuff. Zack was on the hunt for his prize, but unfortunately to no avail. We then decided to hang out and grab, as Zack's brother-in-law calls it, a "Cap-and-Snack". We found a quaint little café on the plaza, and chilled out in the shade with some live music nice and low key for a while.

Rested and energized, we walked over to the old fort that was just off the plaza, and wandered through the museum. They had some really cool information about maritime construction and such. Also, as a homer bonus for Zack, he found a replica of a ship built in Rostock. After enjoying the fort and the great view from the tower, we hit up the Malecón for a stroll along the waterfront.

The Malecón is quite the stretch. It's a very long boardwalk/highway along the north part of the city right on the water, and seems like a place to see and be seen. Sitting and watching the cars on the Malecón go by seemed to be a great analogy of Cuba itself. There's tons of old infrastructure (old cars, homes in disrepair) with the new sprinkling in (newer cars, very well renovated homes/offices/buildings). The new stuff is not widespread and not reached a high level of distribution, but it's growing, and doing so mixed right in with the old. Most Cubans want the new, but they have no feasible way to get it.

After our long walk down the way, we ended up at Hotel Nacional, which is the hotel to see and be seen. It's a really swanky joint up on a bluff overlooking the Malecón and Habana. We walked through the lobby and ended up chilling out on the bluff for a few beers watching the cars go by and the sun go down. It really was a cool spot, and a fun way to spend the early evening hanging around and watching the world go by.

Well during our exploration of the hotel itself, we stumbled upon a little nook tucked away past the dining room. I was intrigued but Zack was especially drawn to Bar Churchill. So after our time on the bluff, we timed it up right to be the first ones in and grabbed a spot at the bar named after and frequented by (I think) Winston Churchill.

Right away we had glasses of Habana Club 7 year and picked out our own stogies (a nice Cohiba for me) to go with it. Holy shit this was cool. And, it was a rum that I could sip and actually went really well with the cigar. We spent the time acting high society, talking deep things, discussing the world, and all that kind of stuff. Really awesome time.

Quick Thought - Zack is a damn cool dude. Driven, has some really awesome ideas about how he wants to develop as a teacher, has a strong idea of how he'd like to change things at his school for the better and be able to teach the way he thinks will best help his students, he's really killing it, and it's awesome to hear what he's got in front of him.

Quick Thought - This one courtesy of Zack. Talking politics should be like talking sports. You can be as passionate for your side as you want, can get fired up and be at total odds with someone over a topic, but the discussion/argument should be amicable and at the end you move on.

After our exquisite time at Bar Churchill, we were on the hunt for food, and we knew right where to go. We talked to a coco driver and told him where we were headed and he scoffed in our faces. But don't worry, he thankfully knew of this great place to go called the Buena Vista Social Club and even had a laminated map to show us where it's at..... :-| Screw that guy and his tourist bullshit. We quickly moved on, found a reputable taxi driver, and headed straight for...

Sloppy Joe's Bar. The home of the Sloppy Joe. Being Sloppy Joe Tilson, this was an absolute necessity. I couldn't be near the home, the founding location of the Sloppy Joe, and not visit the place. So, we did. The bar was actually pretty cool. The walls were lined with liquor bottles from all over and pictures of famous people and posters and old movies were going too. As was necessity, we ordered two Sloppy Joes and got ready to chow down.

To be honest, Manwich is clearly better. The Sloppy Joe was good, but it was a little salty and not too flavorful. But, regardless, it was an excellent meal and experience altogether. Definitely a necessity for anyone visiting Havana. Plus, it was a great end to another great travel day.

Waking up, we had a plan for the day. Find a place, rent some motorcycles, and hit the larger part of Havana and see what comes. Unfortunately, mother nature said 'no no no', as we woke up to a deluge of rain after getting ready. We shifted plans and decided on museums and exploring Havana Vieja a little more.

From the apartment we walked over to the Museo de la Revolución, housed in the formal Presidential Palace. The line was long but the place hadn't opened yet, so before we got too far in the day on an empty stomach, we broke fast at a very euro-style café in a plaza close by. Food and reading, a great way to pass a grey-turning-sunny morning.

Somewhat satisfied (quantities were lacking) from breakfast, we went and joined the line to get into the museum. Again with the lines (purely because there was only one person selling tickets at the door). The museum was actually pretty interesting, outlining a bunch of important events through Cuba's post-revolution history, including ample US-bashing as well. Case-in-point: The Wall of Cretins.

Cuba Stuff - before the trip I was expecting a little bit of "US Sucks" stuff. But it seemed like everything revolution-related that I set eyes on had a healthy amount of it. Most of it had to do with recounting failures of the US in regards to attempts to play a bigger role in Cuba or change the revolutionary government in a way (especially from the early 60s). But from talking with actual Cubans, I didn't hear a single negative sentiment towards the US.

But the gem of the museum is the actual boat that Fidel sailed on with 81 other revolutionaries from Mexico to Cuba to start the whole thing, The Granma. It's in a fully enclosed windowed building and is quite small for carrying 81 people. That must have been one helluvan uncomfortable ride. Around it was a bunch of military vehicles and equipment, as well as a piece of the U2 shot down over Cuba in the 60s. Needless to say, the government still seems very proud of such an accomplishment against the US.

From the museum, it was off to the train station for me to get a ticket for the start of my solo-journey. The way there led us through some very non-touristy areas, showing a slightly more accurate picture of life in Cuba. After a bit we got to the train station, and luck would have it, it was closed! So rather than wait the extra 40minutes just standing in line (very un-cuban of us), we walked to a giant market area and explored around a bit. It was full of a lot of the same stuff, but had a really cool artwork area with some pretty great paintings.

After the time was close to up, me and Zack split for a bit for him to go dive deep into the market while I went back to get a train ticket. I arrived and it was now open, but also lacking a lot of clarity and order. I waited in one line for a bit with very little movement and eventually got up to the window. I asked the lady for a train ticket on the 2nd to Santiago, and got a very cold response.

She initially told me something about how it was only for students and soldiers, and so I was a little confused, and then she said that she couldn't sell me a ticket, because the trains were just closed down for the next two weeks. No reason, just not running. Seriously... :-|

A little let down and already trying to rearrange my journey, I sat and waited for Zack to come back to our pre-arranged meeting point. Hungry and ready for a break, we walked back over to this big warehouse right on the water that ended up being a decent brewery with some great food. Our waiter there was really cool, and we chowed down on some delicious kabobs during our nice little lunch.

It was just a short walk from there to get to Plaza Vieja. It was quite the nice square, and we bookmarked it for later to return to, but continued walking around and essentially closed our wandering loop around Habana Vieja. Wanting to soak in a little more of Plaza Vieja, we wandered back and spotted an empty table in a café with a balcony overlooking the plaza. We mis-timed it, but eventually got to the table for a little break. Card games, espressos, and lots of people watching, a perfect way for an afternoon pit-stop.

Rest and rejuvenation bolstered us back towards the water. We timed it up absolutely perfectly to jump on a ferry headed towards the point across the water from the tourist part of town to Casablanca! Turned to just be the name of the section of town with the ferry stop, but still kinda fun.

From the port we walked up the hill to a big 'ole statue of Jesus. It being a communist country, it didn't make much sense to me why they had a statue of Jesus, but hey, why not. From that statue we were making our way over to the point overlooking the Malecón. On the walk we got to see a car accident, a bunch of missile replicas and some military armaments (including another piece of the shot-down U2), another part of a fort, and Che's old home when he lived in Havana.

The fort at the point was pretty cool. Unfortunately we got there a little bit too late, but we sat in the plaza just outside the fort with a great view of Havana Vieja and the ensuing sunset. A great place and way to wrap up the daylight. We then found another taxi to take us through the tunnel going across the water and back to the main part of town in search of dinner.

From our time in the fort and the tower a day earlier, we saw a few places that we went back to to check out. The first one was a sweet rooftop restaurant, but a litttttle overpriced for our tastes. We wandered to another quaint little place and were the ones to get the dinner rush started. They were super nice and opened up the doors so we could sit 'on the balcony' for the evening as well.

Well the overall experience was good, and funny too. When we were ordering drinks, I asked what a Cubanito is, and so they explained that it contains tomato juice, rum, a lime, pepper, and it's really spicy. I said I'd like one, and the waiter was a little shocked. Enough to ask me 'are you sure?'. Well he went over and got the bartender, who came over and explained again what it was, and I affirmed my desire to drink one. With seemingly a lot of reluctance and unsureness, she brought one over, I tried it, and she seemed pretty shocked that I didn’t burn in flames or something. As we were leaving, she retold her shock at us ordering Cubanitos, so I explained to her what a Bloody Mary was, and that seemed to make her a little more at ease.

With a successful and delicious dinner in us, we decided to wander around and see where the night took us. We did a little bit of speculating on what we wanted to do for New Year's the next day (including an offer from the awesome waiter at the restaurant to join their place), and turned up on the roof of the Parque Central for a mojito. It was right over the plaza overlooking most of the city, and was really quite cool. The drinks were overpriced, but the view was great, and we even debated coming in the next day and nonchalantly jumping in the rooftop pool.

The night ended with us heading back to our casa, chilling out, reading, and hitting the sack ready to ring out 2016 adventuring around on some motorcycles.

Waking up to a beautiful sunny day, it was off to rent two wheels of fury and explore around. We got to talk with Alejandro and his mom that morning and they invited us to their family celebration for New Years! How sweet of them! We figured out how to get there and set up a plan to get in contact with them either way, and then we were off!

This search began with a return to the Parque Central to get information from the concierge on who rents motorcycles. The guy was super skeptical the whole time, but we ended up with four names of potential places spread all throughout Havana. With a taxi, we started to head to each place. Long story short, it was disappointment after disappointment. Either there were just no available motorcycles or the location didn't actually exist, and we ran into another round of disappointment and a forced change of plans. Kind of a bummer.

For the most of that extended attempt, we had the same coco driver maneuvering us around to the different locations. While on the route, he reassured us we probably wouldn't find anything, and of course he ended up being right. He also gave us some more insight into the country. His big point was that Cuba wasn't a communist nation, but rather a Fidelist nation. He made some very astute points, and I have a feeling he probably wouldn't be well received by anyone in the government with that statement.

After the attempts, our coco driver dropped us off at the Plaza de la Revolucion. With the great weather, we soaked up the plaza, with giant figures of Che and Cienfuegos on a few of the governmental buildings, a big poster of Fidel on another, as well as the memorial to Jose Martí.

After the square, we walked over to the Omnibus Nacional station (the local Cuban bus system) to see if the stories were true. I walked up to the ticket lady, asked if I could buy a ticket and she flat out said no, the Viazul bus station is where I'd have to go. Welp, that was quick and clear.

Our walking journey the constant theme, we loitered a bit, but decided on a target. Eventually we made our way to John Lennon park, with a friendly bronze statue of John Lennon waiting for tourists to join him for a picture. A little lounging in the park was followed right up with a lunch break at a restaurant suggested by Zack's colleagues. It was quite delicious, and the rooftop patio in the shade was a huge bonus. Here we tried the main traditional cuban dish, Ropa Vieja, and it was quite yummy.

Turned out that the restaurant was paired with a casa, so I made an executive decision and got two nights, one to start and one to end my solo journey. Even with that (I'll touch on this later), my anticipation for those two weeks alone did not subside. They'd been building for a while to quite an unreasonable extent, but the time was slowly approaching either way.

Food in our bellies and our plan for the day clearly altered, we headed back to Havana Vieja to get some stuff down. Our first stop was back to the cigar shop for Zack to pick up some goods before his departure. A little bit more walking around followed, and then we headed back for a well needed siesta.

After our break, we regrouped at the Parque Central. Zack went and printed out his boarding pass for the next day, while I snuck upstairs to the lounge and watched a little football. Once he got his thing printed, we headed back out to the Obispo area and found some dinner. As the Buckeyes were the late game for New Year's Eve, we returned to Parque Central to get a glimpse at the pure unfiltered massacre of my beloved team. Such a sad day...

From there, we had a decision to make. We could head out to our hosts' celebration, but that was a long ways out of town, and that would be a long and expensive taxi ride. Or we could just kinda hang around town and see what comes up. Long story short, we decided for the latter in the interest of time and money. Looking back, I wish we would have gone to our hosts, but we made the right call in the moment; hindsight's always a crystal clear 20/20.

From the hotel, it was time to wander. We explored some more of the back streets and main areas too. As luck would have it, while we were walking around I ran into my buddy Doug! We had planned on trying to meet up, but me not having a phone made that a little difficult. So we set up a plan to meet the next day for dinner and to catch up.

From there, Zack and I continued on and ended up in Plaza Vieja. We got a couple of beers and just found a spot on the edge of the plaza to sit, people watch, and ring in the new year. It definitely was a nice new year celebration. Overall it was low key, and essentially just a bunch of tourists shouting in the plaza. From the looks and feel of it, all the locals seemed to stay home and celebrate with their families.

While we were sitting there, Zack and I did a little bit of reflecting. One year prior, we were walking along the banks of the Moskwa river in Moscow watching fireworks explode over The Kremlin. Within that time, we'd both done a whole helluva lot of stuff. 2016 was a good year for both of us, not without its struggles of course, but we put out some high hopes for 2017 and what it may bring.

Waking up the next morning, we both took it easy, repacked, and got ready to go. We said a big thank you to our hosts for their wonderful hospitality, then headed out. First stop was a bunch of postcards. Second stop was a café to fill out all of those post cards and eat. We sat and ate and wrote on a nice sunny and bustling New Year's morning. But sadly, after we finished up, it was already time to split up. Zack had a flight out later that day, and I was off on a two week romp on my own.

As always, I had an awesome time exploring with Zack. He is such an excellent travel buddy to have. We have great conversations exploring whatever comes up, he's helped me analyze a lot of things going on in my life, we know how to give each other shit, and I'm really thankful for his companionship and exploratory mind. I really look forward to our next adventure, and can't wait to see what it entails!!!

La Habana, solo yo

After our goodbyes, I went over to the Viazul bus station to see what kind of options I had to plan out the start of my journey. Well as soon as I arrived, I was informed that the tickets out of Havana were completely booked out until the 5th, three days in advance. Did I say that flexibility was an absolute necessity for traveling in Cuba? Well, it is. Taxi collectivo turned into my backup plan.

I headed off from the bus stop towards my casa and enjoyed the back streets and the returned smiles from passersby. When I got to the casa, my room wasn't yet ready, so I sat on the porch and got a good bit of reading done. After an hour and a half or so I was wondering what the hold up was, so I went and asked. Well they neglected to tell me that they didn't plan on having it ready for another few hours. How kind of them to inform me. Rather than wasting a whole day sitting around, I pulled out my day pack and walked around to kill some time.

I headed towards the water, and walked along the farther end of the Malecón. It was another warm and beautiful day, and the street was fairly quiet. I took a good number of stops to sit and soak it all in. At one point, I tucked into a little spot on the water, and as I was sitting there, a lady walked up to the water with (I'm assuming) some family, and just started lobbing fruit into the water. A few cocounts, a mango, and a few other things, all just tossed right in. Now I'm assuming that had something to do with the New Year, but I was still quite puzzled.

This was clearly not a very touristy side of Havana, but it still had a few cool things to explore and see. But after a while I walked back to the casa, checked in, and took a well-needed nap. Oh boy was it nice.

I woke up and started making my way to the meetup point to see Doug. First I walked over to the Plaza de la Revolución to check it out at night. It was pretty cool when it all was lit up. I then taxiied over to the Capitolio and waited at the meetup spot. After a few minutes, I turned around and saw Doug waving his arms making his way towards me. Once again, meetups without current technology are possible!

We went back to their casa for a while, chatted for a bit, and then me, him, and Doug's two friends headed out for dinner. Traveling with Doug is awesome, because he REALLY does his research when it comes to food. True to form, he had a reservation for us at a little hole in the wall called El Chanchullero. We had to wait a bit despite the reservation, but the actual line was huge. After a little while, they were ready for us.

We got in, and the place would totally have fit right in to anywhere in Portland. It was tiny, pretty dark, but quirky as hell, with random posters and fast-food joint hard hats and even a table in a jail cell. It was a really wicked cool establishment. To add to it, the menu was printed out on printer paper in the style of a memo. "Here are today's offerings" at the top with all that they had available. Really awesome vibe.

Everyone was hungry, so we dove right in. A few appetizers, some awesome entrees, and good drinks all around. Everything was absolutely delicious, and what made it even better, it was dirt cheap. Whuh, such a win. Food times with Doug are great times.

After we all were stuffed, we headed back to their casa for a bit to chat. Eventually Doug and I headed out to grab a drink, but I had to swing by the Parque Central again to check the Packers score. They were up when I tuned in, but we decided to get out of there because of the inch thick smoke layer in the room. From there, we found a quaint little bar for a drink and got to chatting about how things are going in Japan, how he works too much, what my plans are, and how we're going to make Boracay 2017 work.

Well, one drink turned to two as soon as a couple of his friends who were also in town ended up joining. They were quite the rowdy bunch, so we had a great time. But unfortunately I was tired and had a goal for the next day in mind. A little earlier than I would've liked, I bid adieu to Doug and his friends. A quick pitstop back at the hotel to check the score, and I timed it up perfectly as the guy was just shutting the lounge down. Thankfully, in my pleading for the guy to keep the TV on, some dudes overheard I just wanted the Packers score, and they told me we won. WAHOO!!! From there, I took a taxi on back to my casa along the Malecón and hit the sack.

That next morning there was a planned revolutionary parade at the Plaza de la Revolución, which was why I wanted to get to bed at a reasonable time. I woke up that morning a little later than expected, but I took my time and got ready in a relaxed manner. Once I was packed and ready to head out, I made my way to the Plaza. On the way, the streets were really quiet, which was very uncharacteristic, but also a little bit of foreshadowing of what was coming up.

I eventually got to the main avenue and descended upon the mass of people. From the looks of it, I only caught the tail end of the parade, as I walked up on a flat wall of people, but even then, there were still a ton of people present and putting forth a ton of enthusiasm. I worked my way through the crowd and walked past some meager stands filled with soldiers and students on the left, and on the right below the Jose Martí monument, likely dignitaries from all over. Once I got to the other side of the main plaza, I just stood around and watched.

To be honest, I was a little bummed, because I think I likely missed a big military procession of missiles and tanks and stuff. But woulda, coulda, shoulda... Despite that, it was still quite interesting to watch a flood of people move by. As I was standing around, I saw a bunch of little school kids dressed as bumblebees, a little guy with a fake beard and a sign saying 'Yo Soy Fidel', a little schoolgirl holding a sign of 'Soy Cuba, Soy Fidel, Soy Revolución', a few of the members of the Cuba Track and Field team, and even a military officer from North Korea.

At one point I was approached by some people who were looking at my backpack. I had my big pack on the ground, and they came up saying I needed to add El Salvador to my travel list. We talked a little bit about my travels, what I've enjoyed about Cuba, and when I plan on heading to El Salvador. They then took some pictures of my bag and went on their merry way.

I ended up going on my merry way as well, headed towards the bus station. It was quite the long walk, and without having breakfast that morning, I was getting worn down. Eventually I passed a little road-side stand and got two little bread rolls as some kind of sustenance (not healthy, but it was something). For my change, I got a hold of my first National Pesos.

Quick Thought - another government-enforced tourist/local divide is the currency. There are two currencies in use in Cuba. The tourist one is the Convertible Peso (CUC), and is matched exactly to the US Dollar. The other, for the locals, is the National Peso (CUP). Twenty-five CUP will get you one CUC.

Quick Thought - I had a very elitist feeling every time I used CUC, because compared to the people around me, I was swimming in CUP compared to what Cubans can earn and afford. Overall, it was really weird to have a divide between foreigners and locals be state sponsored and enforced. As per Zack - "... that's a good sign of a bad/shitty regime". Truth.

Just for shits and giggles, once I got to the bus station I checked on bus tickets. Just one day later, rather than til the 5th, they were sold out of bus tickets until the 8th. Talk about a ridiculous shortage of resources... With that, I started asking around for a ride to Santa Clara. While I was waiting, I finally found one.

Well, as I will never forget, my Ohio State Buckeyes were the first undisputed Champions of the College Football Playoff. As has long been a question of 'what happens to the loser's gear when the lose?' Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you this...

Long story short, I joined up with a Frenchman and Spanish woman heading that way too. We got a little gipped on the price, but the ride ended up being uneventful. But for some reason, Cuban taxi drivers always have a thing of randomly making stops at very nondescript locations without explaining themselves or just slowing down for reasons the riders couldn't understand.

Long Thought - For some reason, leading up to this trip, I became really anxious for the trip because of the whole blank-slate-ness of the last part of my adventure. I didn't have any places to stay booked, I had no bus tickets or transportation secured, and I didn't even have a set plan of where I was going to go. This reminded me a bit of my trip to Norway, how apprehensive I was leading up to and during it. There was no set plan, and it was all in the air, and that huge amount of unsureness does not sit well with me. There's so much room for Murphy's Law to wreak havoc!

True to form though, pretty much as soon as this day started, before the parade and more notably as soon as I got in the taxi to Santa Clara, the huge apprehension of my week and a half solo journey went 90% away. Before that, it was just purely unknown. But once it finally came to the point of having to make something happen, take action, shit or get off the pot, my mindset notably changed.

At that point it was now under my control. My decisions led directly to a plan, to action. With that action I was seeing something new, going to new places, essentially filling in that unplanned void. It came to the point where I had to act out on my own to forge ahead to get where I wanted, and everything I saw was something new with some amount of mystery or exploration involved.

That feeling, that mindset, is what I like. Taking action and having that action result in a new adventure. That prevailing apprehension is annoying, but for my personality, I think it'll always be present leading up to such adventures. That whole grey cloud of not knowing is not something I can easily push out of my mind. But once push finally comes to shove, THAT's when the real fun, adventuring, and learning really kicks into high gear.

Santa Clara

I got dropped off at the main square, which would turn into a great hub for the trip. From there I had a casa from a guide book in mind, so I headed that way. Unfortunately they were all filled up, but they took me to their friend's place and they had a free room. After a little haggling, I had myself a place to stay for the next few nights. While checking me in, Nico, the friendly Italian owner, introduced himself and said he's been living in Cuba for 12 years with his Cuban wife and really enjoys it. Definitely must have an interesting story.

With my room I got rearranged (aka pulled out my day pack) and hit the trails. First I wandered over to the monument of the armored train. This is where Che and a small group of revolutionaries de-railed a military transport train with the use of a bulldozer. It was a cool little monument, with the actual bulldozer used to derail the train, and they had some rail cars with exhibits inside showing some pictures and info from the war and the battles from the area.

After the monument, I continued wandering. My next location of interest was a monument setup on the top of a hill just outside of town. My route took me through some neighborhoods, where I could really see and feel the difference between Havana and Santa Clara. It was much more calm, a little bit of a slower feel, and wayyyy less touristy, which is a huge bonus. It was quite enjoyable walking off the beaten path, and it made my walk to the hill just that much quicker.

It was a pretty stair-casey hike up the hill, but the view at the top was great. It was right outside of Santa Clara, so the whole town was visible, which turned out to not be a very big town in terms of size, as well as the entire area around the town. It was an enjoyably hilly area, with plenty to look at from the top of the peak. I took my time to soak it all up, and enjoyed the nice shade I found to get out of the sun while doing so.

Eventually I decided to move once again, so I came down off the hill and made my way along a different route back home. Along the way (which I conveniently spotted up on the hill), I walked past the baseball stadium. Right next to the stadium there was a field, and a small group of guys were playing some backyard baseball. In no rush, I pulled up to watch for a bit. I started on the outside of the fence, then sat on the fence, then essentially posted up on a soccer goal right off of the outfield.

While I was watching, I had a few brief chats with the right fielder, getting in some more practice with my Spanish. Eventually he asked if I wanted to play, and I was stoked! One day into my solo journey and already playing backyard baseball with some new friends! Hell yeah!

Unfortunately the numbers weren't even, but eventually they shuffled the teams around and I got to jump in. I honestly can't remember the last time I'd played baseball before then, but I started out pretty hot. My first two at-bats I got a double then a triple, but it eventually went downhill from there. Nonetheless, it was a really cool experience playing with Frank, Alain, Omar, and the other friendly dudes. Eventually they all were headed home for the day, but I made sure to say thank you to everyone for letting me join, then continued on my way.

From there, I continued my route back to town. Along the way, there was some random Cuban aviation monument set up, with a plane and (iirc) the first Cuban helicopter in service. Kinda random, kinda cool. But something VERY uncharacteristic of myself, I lost track of my way, taking a turn I though was correct but was wrong, and got a little sidetracked. No worry, that just showed me a few different streets than I planned, and turned out to be a happy little accident.

I got back to the casa and crashed for a bit. As I've known for a while, no travel day is complete without a good nap. After my rest though, I asked Nico if he knew when the next baseball game was, and he said it was on the 4th (aka two days later)! Hot damn! That in mind, I already started scheming how I should change my plans to make that work. I was really itching to see a legit baseball game here in Cuba!

Plans flowing around in my head, I somehow found the motivation to get out of bed and search for food. Unfortunately, the first place I tried to visit was closed, but I had a nice walk through town on the way there. A little tired and hangriness starting to crescendo, I settled on some cheap street pizza with a beer. The place was really close to the city center, so I took my super healthy and nutritious dinner to the park to do some people watching.

Quick Thought - I've come to realize how annoyed I get when couples are touchy-feely around me. I think it just reminds me of what I don't have, and essentially is just a pure sign of jealousy. In contrast, I know when I'm in a relationship, I definitely tend towards that way as well. So does that mean I need to cut back when I have a relationship again, or get over when other couples do it? Likely both, but more prominently the latter. It doesn't affect me anyways, I just let it get to me. I gotta stop that.

People watching in the park was quite the enjoyable way to spend the evening. This city square was really good for it too, with a big open space for all the kids to run around, a gazebo for bands to play some relaxed tunes, and some pretty buildings to look at around the edges. It was hopping the whole night, with people and families coming and going and getting in touch the entire time.

Quick Thought - Another marker of their heavy-relational culture (and a very limited supply of internet access) is the popularity and commotion in big parks. Families come to spend the evening there with people all over the place. It was really fun people watching and especially seeing all the little kids play together. It's like a night-time daycare. The parents get to chat with family over internet and all the little kids play with all the other little kids and have a fun time doing it.

After my five-star meal and the fun people watching, I hit the sack. Despite the nap, I was pretty beat.

The next morning was super relaxed. I got up quite lazily after about 11 hours of sleep (I didn't know my body was capable of such a thing), did a little reading, got ready, then had a great breakfast at the casa. Nico and his wife really outdid them selves with a huge plate of fruit, a great omelette, and then a crepe to top it all off. Oh baby. Delicious.

It was a few days after the fact, but before I set out I went and found the post office to send off my postcards. While I was filling up my camelbak with water, I was also accosted by a guy trying to sell a newspaper, but really just beg for money. He was quite persistent, so I interpreted his inquiries as wanting the empty water bottles, so I gave them to him and just got the heck out of there.

First stop, the Che Guevara monument. It was a short walk to the other direction outside of town from the main square, and was on a slight hill with a bit of a view. The monument in and of itself was quite cool. It was a very prominent statue of Che overlooking the plaza. Along the column of the statue and on a wall adjacent to it, there were a couple murals, and inscriptions of some letters that Che wrote.

Beneath the statue is a memorial to Che with a museum about his life. I was under the assumption that this memorial would be really similar to Lenin's tomb in Moscow, with his body on display. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The line to get into the place was quite long, but I was a good Cuban and bided my time in the queue. Prior to going there, I read somewhere that Americans are not allowed in the memorial or museum. So when it was my turn to go in, the lady asked where I was from, and I said Germany. So with that I was headed in.

As I said, unfortunately his body wasn't on display. There were a ton of memorial plaques to a good number of soldiers from the revolution, with Che's clearly being the most prominent. Together with the plaques was an eternal flame. On the other half of the area was the museum to Che's life. It started (although not according to the building flow) from birth and covered all aspects of his life.

Quick Thought - granted, I'm not the most educated on his history or on the repercussions of his actions. But through this trip I gained a newfound respect and interest in Che's doings. To my very uneducated knowledge, he seemed like a guy who had his head right, trying to help people out when and where he could. Granted, I need to learn a helluva lot more to see the full picture, and of course the Government paints the picture with a very rosy viewpoint for their leaders, but he seems to me like someone with his head at least for the most part in the right place.

After going through the museum, walking through a memorial off to the side, and checking out the statues again, I made my way back towards town. Along the way, I passed by a cool wall alongside the main road with a bunch murals promoting peace, cooperation, and understanding across cultural and country borders. They were quite creative and well done (and of course, containing a direct attack on the US).

Continuing on, my way led me through some more neighborhoods. Eventually I made my way to a church park with a statue commemorating the founding of the city and those who contributed to its start. While wandering around in the park, a guy named Jesu started chatting to me. He was quite the interesting character, and we touched on a good number of topics:

• His family in the states
• How Cuba is a super relational culture
• How anyone will greet anyone regardless of if they know them or not
• How the standard greeting is a bro shake and kiss on the cheek for guys, and for girls a kiss on the cheek
• How the US is not like that, and Spain as well, but to an even more closed-off/distanced degree
• How what happens politically between two countries is not the same as what happens between the people (DAAAAAMN right. Hence the importance of intercultural exchange!!!)
• How it's also now easier for Cubans to travel to the US (although this contradicts what everyone else shared with me)
• How there is little crime (theft mostly), no violence, or any of that in Cuba

As I said, he was quite the character, and it led to quite the interesting conversation. Eventually, his sister showed up, and they started chatting, and they were planning on going to his buddy Pavel's house. I was a little bit sketched out, so I peace-d out and thanked him for the great insights and conversation.

Along my journey, I walked past a group of middle school-aged girls hanging out on their stoop. I noticed they were doing the classic teenage-giggle as I approached. So I whipped out my Spanish and said Hi and How are You, then wished them well as I passed by. They of course continued their giggling at the weird Extranjero wandering through their neighborhood.

Eventually I made my way back to the city square for a bit to get the city's pulse in the mid-afternoon. But, as always comes to pass, I went back to the casa to take a little siesta. It was well needed. In my break, due to all of my walking to that point, I elevated my legs to let the blood drain. They were quite pooped at that point, and I didn't realize how much I needed that little bit of care.

As per usual, I was a little bit sluggish getting back up and going from my siesta. But with the help of my stomach, I eventually made my way out. With some rejuvenated legs, I was ready to scope out and go find some dinner. I headed to a place in my travel guide, but I felt very unsure as to why it was recommended. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't all that spectacular. The saving grace, however, it was $2 for a small fish, rice, some kind of pickled vegetable, and a beer. At that price, I really couldn't complain.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do after dinner. I had my tripod with me and planned on doing a little bit of night photography, but wasn't sure how I wanted to spend the time before the sun went down. Not having a travel buddy, nights were kind of a toss up. From the restaurant, I just started wandering, past a bunch of skateboarders rolling around a statue, along a busy street on the south side of town, and then eventually turned in back towards the main square.

While on this random street, I passed by a group of guys with a makeshift dominoes table setup in the street. Curious, I stopped to watch for a bit. After a while of just hanging out, I slowly picked up how it went. Here's the rundown:

• Set of 55 dice
• Two teams of four (think pinochle)
• Everyone takes 10 dice, the extras are discarded for that round
• Winning team from the last round lays a double and then you go from there
• If you can't lay down, you check and get passed
• Towards the end the scoring got confusing
• The winning team is the first with a player out of dominoes, or the team with the lowest point total at an impasse
• Points are counted by the face value of your team's dominoes left over after the round
• You keep going until a team reaches a certain point level

After my many beginner-level questions, and once the round was over, they invited me to join! Hot damn!!! I think I jumped in pretty smoothly with my clearly more experienced partner. Luck just was not on my side that night, and I didn't do much to help us come through victorious. My partner and I lost, so we had to make room for the next players. I got to play once more (and lost again), but what a cool experience.

That was really an awesome time, not just being able to play with these guys, but seeing how much of a relaxed atmosphere it is. All the guys seemed to come from the houses right nearby the table, and it was a very loose and relaxed atmosphere of people hanging out, discussing the day's activities with a bit of competition to go with it. The grandpa from the house right behind the table came out for a bit to shoot the breeze, a bunch of guys seemed to come and go to watch and take part in the action, and it was just a really cool atmosphere. That's my kind of setup; I'd love to have that kind of a community after a long day at work.

After my awesome dominoes adventure, I pretty much retraced my steps from the morning to put my camera and tripod to use. Long story short, I didn't do a whole ton, but it was fun to put my skills to use. The whole vibe that night was laid back and relaxed, with people doing their thing, some hanging out by the monument, most just chilling out on their doorstep watching the night go by. I got some pictures of the Che monument (kinda felt like a similar night to the Motherland Calls statue), and some of the cars hanging out on the street.

Quick Thought - I will never be able to get over how shitty tungsten lighting makes things look. It's just so orange and unnatural and wrong on all accounts. This comes out most notably at night, when it makes everything look diseased compared to daylight or even LED light.

After my little night adventure, I headed back to wrap up the day by chilling and people watching in the main square. What a cool way to end a day.

That next morning I woke up quite lazily again, but a little earlier than the day before. Nothing like being on vacation... But while getting ready I had a very unusual first. I had to shower while kneeling down, because if the shower head was raised above the faucet (below my hip height), no water came out of the shower head. I gotta say, that was really weird. But I got cleaned up, had breakfast, and planned on having a relaxing day before going to the baseball game that night!

To pass the day, I initially intended on going to the cigar factory in town. While on the way, I smiled at a guy painting a window and it turned into a nice conversation with the guy named Julio Cesar. Here's the quick rundown of what I learned while talking to him:

• Despite being a biologist by education, he makes more as a painter than he does as a biologist
• He's working towards earning and saving enough to start up his own casa particular. Why? Because as a casa owner, he can make a helluva lot more money
• He doesn't understand American football, but sees it all over the place
• His 4 year old daughter loves baseball

Once we hit the topic of baseball, I asked him about the game that night, when it started and such. Well, to my surprise, he told me that the game that night wasn't in Santa Clara, but rather further south in Ciego de Avila. Furthermore, the next game in Santa Clara wasn't until that Saturday (4 days later or so). Well, that was a nice wrench thrown into my plans... Julio was really quite the friendly and helpful dude. So before I moved on, I thanked him for the info, and wished him a great day!

As per my luck, I walked up to the cigar factory and it was closed. Gah, there went the only remaining piece of that day's puzzle for me. Commence plan jumble. I walked back past Julio, told him about the factory being closed (he said no surprise there), and got his contact information in case I decided to come back for a baseball game. I said goodbye to him again, went back to the casa to cancel my last night, and packed my things to move on to the next new location. Talk about a very rapid development.

With all my stuff and wandering on my own two feet, I headed towards the main square en route to the bus station to find a taxi. Well, in the square, I got tracked down by a taxi guy. I told him where I was going (Cienfuegos), and he got a little sketchy about it. Long story short, he took me to the local's taxi collectivo place and told me to wait outside. After a few minutes, he came and got me, took me to a car, and the driver pulled me around the back of the taxi to put my bag in the trunk and take my CUC for payment for the ride, out of sight of the other passengers paying in CUP.

Quick Thought - I felt like a total elitist sleazeball being the one foreigner who pays more money than the locals to be able to ride with them. I could totally understand why Cubans don't like tourists because they're essentially put on a platter while citizens kinda get the raw end of things.

Quick Thought - As annoying as it is to have people hound you at every corner for a taxi or cigars or rum or whatever, it does seem like they just want to help. At least most of the time. My taxi to Cienfuegos for example, the guy was just trying to help, even though I felt really weird the whole time and as though he was trying to gyp me.

But, in the end, it ended up being a pretty quick ride over to Cienfuegos. I got plopped out right on the main avenue in town, and let the fun begin.

Cienfuegos

Once I jumped out of the taxi, I took a sec to get my bearings. From my guide book, similar to Santa Clara, I had a casa in mind and started making my way there. Once I turned down the side street, I got shouted at by a guy sitting on a stoop who asked me if I needed a casa. It being one of the times I actually did need one, I took him up and got introduced to Belkis and her casa. It turned out being pretty good, so I set up a few nights stay, took a quick break, then hit the town.

Since I wasn't all that far away, my first stop was to the main square. I'm not sure why, but it really just popped. The sun was up, blue sky overhead, everything just seemed extra vibrant and gorgeous! I perused a little bit around the square, but then hit up a recommended tuna sandwich place, that did not disappoint. The only annoyance (it was thankfully short-lived) was a group of very pushy and ignorant Germans that seemed to disregard all societal rules and semblance of order when convenient. After I was standing at the bar ready to order, they just decided to cut in and had no qualms in doing so. Dicks.

BUT. That spat aside, it was a nice little café. I had myself a delicious tuna sandwich, and was able to enjoy it on the patio quasi-overlooking the square. Along with my sammich I got some coffee and a water bottle to fill up my camelbak. Well while I was doing that, the people next to me (I think Italians) were totally flabbergasted with what I was doing. I don't think they'd seen a camelbak before, and they were pretty impressed at what I was doing. Happy to show them that.

Additionally, as I was enjoying my meal, some street-vendor-guy came up to me and put a piece of paper in front of me. He had painted a small picture of me eating my meal with a little Cuban flag coming out of the water bottle. I don't normally go for this, but the guy did a pretty damn good job on the painting, so I gave him a few pesos to take his work home as a nice little keepsake from the trip.

Reenergized, reorganized, and ready to go, I crossed the plaza and went in the main theater to check it out. It was cool, but afterwards I wandered over to Palacio Ferrer, also on the square. It wasn't much of a museum, per se, but it was awesome. It being right on the square, it had some great views. But on top of that, it had an awesome little tower where one can go up and get a view of the whole city, the bay, and even the mountains off in the distance. What a great view! I definitely took my time enjoying this great scenery on such a b-e-a-utiful day.

With a great view of the city in my pocket, I decided to chill around a bit more in order to figure out where I wanted to go next. I posted up in the rotunda in the park, did a little people watching, and consulted my travel guides. I decided on the naval history museum, which was actually fairly close by.

The walk took me outside of the tourist part of town once again, and in a quick second I was there. I walked in, and approached the ticket booth. Big surprise, it was free. Hot damn! The walkway was lined with some missiles and what not, so I explored those a bit before getting to the museum. I walked up to the building and started to go in, but before I could a lady came up and showed me the way through. I thought she was just gonna point me around real quick then go back to her seat, but she 'guided' me through the entire place.

The museum was pretty cool, with a little bit of Cuban naval history, a lot about maritime habitats in Cuba, but also a pretty standard "US-Sucks" was pretty prevalent. Despite all that, I was pretty weirded out by the lady 'guiding' me through the museum. It was weird having her watch me read the displays and stuff, and I have no idea what the need for that was. Oh well.

From there I walked a little further west through a very un-touristy part of town. On the way, I was greeted by a butcher and his buddies who were just chilling out on the sidewalk chopping up a bunch of chickens. Definitely not the sanitation standards I'm used to, but they were a friendly bunch and they wished me well on my journey. Shortly thereafter, I passed a couple kids hanging out on the side of the street, and they both had roosters with them. Who'da thunk, they let them loose and let me watch a quick cock fight.

Quick Thought - I think the presence of a waste management system in a country is a pretty clear sign of how developed it is. If there's trash all over the street, whatever dumpsters are present are overflowing, and even rural highways have a spot where there's just mounds of crap, that's probably a sign you're not in a developed country. Cuba fit that bill pretty well, unfortunately.

Eventually I made my way to a supposedly famous cemetery. It was completely empty, but then Louisa popped up from somewhere and gave me a tour. She asked where I was from, and I instinctively said Germany, not sure of if this was another place that might have been welcoming to all but Americans. The cemetery was pretty unique, being modeled off of a European style, having an eclectic mixture of French, Cuban, and Spanish influence, and still in use today.

Afterwards I made my way slowly back towards the main part of town. Eventually I got to a nice pier with a ton of benches and decided to pull up and chill out for a bit. I read some while doing some people watching and enjoying the great weather. Then, as the sun slowly made its way down, I went and grabbed a beer to watch to say goodbye for the day.

The sunset was very pretty, and after it started to wane, the colors in the sky provided a beautiful transition toward night time. I then decided to get up and keep walking around. At that point I was interrupted by a loud siren making its way toward me on the street. It was coming from a tiny truck and a ton of smoke was coming out from behind it. I was utterly confused and had no clue what the fuck was going on.

Not one to let shit go down without knowing a little what's going on, I asked someone what was up with the little siren truck of smoke. Well, turns out, it's mosquito repellant. I gotta say, it's gotta be one helluva mosquito problem if you need to drive around a car spouting repellent at dusk to keep the little things from taking over a city.

Hungry, I landed at a place for dinner to refuel. The food was good and stuff, but I've come to realize how weird I feel eating at a restaurant alone sometimes. Food is a joyous occasion, and not having someone to share it with is a bit of a bummer. But after dinner I headed home and had a nice little chat with my hosts on the stoop before heading up to the balcony to enjoy a cigar and my book. After that, it was time to hit the sack.

As was pretty prevalent through a good portion of my trip, I didn't sleep that well. It was long, but very inconsistent. Oh well. I lazily got ready for the day and got ready for breakfast. But thanks to the three anti-social Frenchmen that were also at the casa, I had to wait a bit as they were occupying the breakfast table. No worries, I did some reading on the balcony to start off the beautiful morning right. All of a sudden though, I was invited by my wonderful host to breakfast on the rooftop!

Needless to say, it was wayyyyy cooler up there. With the beautiful sunny morning, it was the perfect place to have a delicious, relaxing, and tranquil breakfast and feel the city slowly come to life with the sun. They had a really cool balcony, which provided a nice view of the area. And another thing (which seems to be pretty prevalent throughout Cuba), they had a decently sized bird cage with about 20 pigeons. (Zack, should I be concerned? Are they raising an army?!)

The plan for the day was take the ferry out to the inlet and explore the fort that was there leading out to the Caribbean. It was a relatively short walk to the ferry port, and I timed it up perfectly to make it an hour-long wait until it left. I put on my local-hat and waited like a local. Regardless, it surprises me how waiting is such an accepted thing here, that there's not more push back to get some timeliness going on. But hey, different cultures, right?

Quick Thought - unfortunately from my point of view, Cuba seems to be another place that suffers from 'resting bitch face' syndrome, or in more general terms, a majority seem to have a cold demeanor at first encounter. But similar to the Philippines, its neutralized in zero seconds flat (in most cases) by a warm smile.

Eventually everybody started making their way to the line, so I did the same, just before it became a clusterfuck. I asked the lady in front of me how much it costs, the ferry, and she told me 1peso. I pulled out 1CUC, she saw me, and told me, it costs 1CUP. Long story short, I don't think she knew that foreigners had an extra fee, because I had to pay the 1CUC as I first thought. That's how it goes.

I got on the boat and found a nice spot right at the front. Unfortunately it took a while for us to depart, and the sun was hot. But once we got under way, the wind picked up and it was a gorgeous ride across the bay. While I was standing there, I introduced myself to a couple other tourists, namely Anna from Germany and Marta from Spain. We had some nice chats on the way over to the port.

Since the three of us hit it off so well, we decided to explore the area together! But first, a quick water break. While sitting around at the restaurant overlooking the inlet, Marta was jamming out hard to the tunes they were playing. Nothing like some good music to get the fun rolling.

Hydrated and ready, we took the short walk from the restaurant over to the fort. Anna wasn't feeling it, so Marta and I jumped in to check it out. It was pretty cool, with a lot of explanations about military structure back then, they had a timeline of the fort's life side-by-side to a timeline of the world, and a few other things. I think the best part though was it's location. The inlet to Cienfuegos heads north from the Caribbean, then takes an easterly bend into the bay. Well the fort is located right at that bend, so it's in a prime position to check all the traffic in and out of the place.

Satisfied with the fort, we walked back down to the port area. I'm not sure how, but Marta is a very sociable and energetic person and through this she started chatting with a few of the guys hanging out near our previous restaurant. Long story short, Anna and Marta had some other stuff they wanted to check out that day on the other side of the water, so they took the boat over, and I hung out and chatted with Juliesky and Tito until the last boat back to town.

Juliesky was a tour guide in the area, but I think he was on his day off, so he was just hanging around with Tito and a couple of his other buddies. A friendy bit of small talk turned into an afternoon-long conversation about life in Cuba and what's going down:

• Juliesky studied in Canada and became an electrician and mathematician, among other things
• At some point he had to (legally) return to Cuba rather than stay and work abroad, now he said he struggles to get by
• Cuba is a tough place
• They don't earn much, 25CUC per month or so
• It's hard to make a living like that
• Because of that, they watch after their own and make sure their kids have what they need to grow and make a living
• Cubans want to make it to the US to work, but it's illegal and damn near impossible
• If they were to attempt and get caught, 3 days in jail and 3000CUC fine, which would likely be damn near everything they had
• Talked about the government and how they think something needs to change
• Talked about how there's no competition and that’s a big reason for the bad economy
• No competition breeds apathy, stagnation
• It's illegal for Cubans to eat lobster, shrimp, and beef
• What!?!?
• More on that later
• Very difficult life as a Cuban
• Hard to get what you need even if you work day and night to get it
• How the people that own casas and such are the 1% of Cuba, not your typical citizen

While I was hanging out with them, they went/took me on a horse and buggy ride outside of the port area to what they call the nuclear city. In the 80s, the Soviets were building a nuclear plant a few miles away from the fort, but when the Iron Curtain came down, they abandoned it. The nuclear plant wasn't finished and is still just sitting there (I wish I would've had time to go explore that!), but the dormitories and city infrastructure meant for the Russians who would be running the plant was finished and is fully used as a city today.

Long Thought - As a country that touts its educational and health systems, it's quite intriguing and confusing for me to see what little those two systems really provide to Cuba. Yes, a strong and thorough education is one of the most important things a person can receive, and all education is free regardless of what level you aspire to. Yes, their healthcare system is top-notch, with cuban doctors being well regarded (to my knowledge). But why do they (it appears) mostly go to waste here?

Shouldn't an education as demanding as those lead to a career that utilizes those skills with a way to sustain, thrive, and provide for yourself and your family? It's not the case here, where wages are pretty equal across the board regardless of education level, training, and/or prowess, which is quite confusing. When you study to become a doctor, why is there incentive for doctors to become taxi drivers? Or for biologists to become painters with an eye on becoming a landlord? Because you make more money that way. In my opinion, that's a bad sign, and a sign that you've got some work to do as a country.

The city is very secluded from everything, despite being a quick boat ride away from Cienfuegos. Going through it, it felt like a pretty gutted infrastructure, but despite the buildings looking abandoned, the place was quite lively. There definitely seemed to be a nice little community going on there, with fruit stands and a make shift supermarket down a side street and everything.

Juliesky, Tito, and I continued our conversation after the ride, but not so long thereafter I had to jump onto the last boat of the day to head back to town. I thanked them for the fun afternoon, and headed back. Once I got back, it was Siesta time baby...

Post-napattack, I got up and headed out to go get some dinner. Beforehand, I wanted to explore south of town, along the Malecón and down to the south point on the bay. The boardwalk was really pretty, and the weather really helped out with the day. It was a nice long walk, and I took a few stops to enjoy the view.

Something I've taken away from this trip is that, no matter what kind of a cold look I receive, I'm going to always try and smile at passersby. It's awesome what you can get out of it. Case in point, I smiled at a guy along the Malecón and it turned into a great conversation with Reinier, a 22 year old controller for a local asphalt plant. To start, he had some questions about the US, in specific, if inter-racial relationships are more prevalent or desired than non-interracial relationships. Additionally, he asked if other cities have boardwalks like their Malecón, we talked about the gaping difference between government-government relationships and people-people relationships, and he seemed to be intrigued as to how I was single, and that I should find myself a Cuban wife. What a nice young, inquisitive man. My hunger was egging at me, so I bid him a wonderful evening, and continued my evening stroll.

From there, I continued further south along the board walk and headed towards the southern point. I didn't make it to the southern point, and ended up settling for the Cuban version of McDonalds for dinner. It wasn't too impressive, but it was something in terms of sustenance. From there, I walked back up towards town.

Along the walk, a fellow solo-traveler introduced herself and we started chatting. Christine, from Nürnberg, was also on a solo journey through Cuba, and we had a nice chat over some beers about our experiences and views of Cuba as a foreigner, also as someone along a similar life-vein as myself. It was interesting to hear confirmation about a lot of the things that I'd seen, and really nice to have someone to discuss those things with.

I was planning on meeting up with Anna and Marta later for a drink, but unfortunately Christine wasn't able to join due trying to jump in with a potential ride to her next destination the following day. Although short, it was great to chat with a fellow world wanderer!

Later on, I met back up with Anna and Marta at the rooftop bar of the Hotel Union, a pretty schnazzy venue. Schnazzy in terms of atmosphere and building, but the service and drink quality was pretty subpar, and Marta apparently made them aware of that. But with our watered down drinks in hand, we chatted about their little adventure after we split earlier in the day. They said they went to a dolphin show just south of the inlet, and it seemed to be pretty cool. They also stopped off at the local beach along the way, and said it was worth the trip. Unfortunately, all three of us were pretty wiped after the long day, so we called it an early night in favor of an early rise and adventure the next day.

The early rise was way earlier than I would have liked, especially because I didn't get to have breakfast at Belki's (Belki was the owner, along with Esteban her husband, of my casa in Cienfuegos, a really great duo to chat with!). Because of this, before I got picked up for our adventure, I had to take advantage of the traditional bread bicyclists that are prevalent everywhere. Unfortunately it wasn't good and was really crusty, but it was some kind of sustenance necessary before a day of wandering around.

Cuba Stuff - in the morning, the streets are riddled with guys on bikes riding around blowing a whistle trying to sell bread. I saw it a couple of times from Belkis. When she needed bread in the morning, she just waited on the balcony until someone was coming by and selling it. But the dudes just ride around and have a giant box of bread on the back selling it to everyone.

After my crusty breakfast, Anna and Marta picked me up in the taxi they acquired for the day, and we headed off to a boat trip at a local Nature Preserve! It was a damn good thing we got there early, because their system was pretty fucked up. One is able to buy a voucher for the excursion in town, but the places in town have no way to communicate how many tickets were sold to the ticket booth. So the day that we arrived, they just changed it all to a first come, first served setup. Whuh.

We got there early enough where, after the long wait, we made it into the first group. Which was huge. But the whole thing was a disaster. Someone's taxi driver was standing in line for another full car that wasn't there yet, so when they arrived they cut the whole line. Which was total bullshit, and Marta called them out for it. But, as I said, we got into the first group, so crisis averted.

Well, boat trip, you ask? Hell yeah, turned out to be awesome. It was at the Guanaroca Nature Preserve, which is a popular nesting area for flamingos! So our boat tour was planned to walk us through the preserve to the lagoon, then take a boat out on the water to the flamingos.

We three got into a boat with our awesome captain Ricardo rowing us along the way. We started on one side of the lagoon and he provided us little tidbits of information and pointed out a bunch of the local bird species hanging out along our path. Ricardo was working hard and got us over to the other side of the lagoon where the flamingos were, and wow, they are quite interesting birds. They look really weird in flight, super elongated and just abnormal, but watching them in the water on the calm and peaceful lagoon was quite relaxing.

Ricardo, as I mentioned, did a wonderful job rowing us around the lake, and he shared some of the hard truths of his life doing so. Not only did he reiterate the fact that wages are low (~$25/month), but he works 7 days a week and does his best just to survive and provide. Then on top of that, he says the boats we were riding in were supposed to just be for three total people, but likely to increase the gains, they're putting four people into the boats now to get some money, not to mention the extra labor required to lug a whole other person around on a rowboat. Ipso facto, it's not an easy life.

After the boat ride, I knew there was a botanical garden in the area, so I shared that with Anna and Marta, and they were open to the idea. It was a quick ride there, and once we got there, before entering, we were presented with a perfect example of the different treatment between locals and foreigners.

Tickets paid, our taxi guy took us in to the park, and we were confronted with a completely new experience. Normally with gardens like that, you have maps and signs pointing to different areas and well groomed pathways and such. Well, not here. At this place, we got in, parked, and the taxi driver was just like, "Have fun". None of what you'd think would be there was there. But, to be honest, I think that made it so awesome.

Well, as I said, we got in, and got sent on our way, so I just picked a path and we started wandering. Thankfully my map had a path of the place, and the biggest downside was not knowing what was what. Another kicker that really made it cool, was that nature maintained itself. All the trees and plants and stuff that were there were all growing how they saw fit with no influence or help. It made it feel more like a jungle than a garden in a lot of respects, but I think I liked it better that way.

Post-Cuban safari, we pulled up at the café for a bit to take a breather and chill out. Once again, Marta was in her groove again with the music. Caffeinated and rested, our lovely taxi driver took us back to the city. Once we got back to the city, we kinda retraced my steps along Punta Gorda (the Malecón area and point south of town), but hunger slowly set in. With their help, we went to a place with some dope-delicious paella, and commenced to stuff our faces.

From there, I parted ways with Anna and Marta, as they had a bus to catch and I still had some time left for myself to explore Cienfuegos. It was great sharing some travel time with them, talking about a huge variety of stuff, sharing an outsiders' viewpoint on this country, and being able to explore and experience a good bit with them too! After lunch, I added a quality nap to my day, as is necessary.

Rested and ready, I took another attempt at reaching the end of Punta Gorda. This time I was successful. First, I walked along the Malecón and it was gorgeous again on a beautiful day. The only negative were the shittons of bicycle taxi guys asking if I needed a ride. But alas, I journeyed through it and had a pretty walk all the way down to the point. Once I got there, I pulled up on a bench to do some reading and intermittent people watching. Eventually, the sun decided to check out for the day, so I walked over to the water and watched the sun go down.

On the way back, I walked past the Palacio de Valle, a renowned building on the point, and I went up to the rooftop to get a gorgeous view. From there, I could see all the way out to the fort, up and down the entire bay, and back towards the center of Cienfuegos. A great place to watch the day fade, but I didn't stay long because old drunk tourists.

On my way back towards town I plopped down on a bench to rest my feet for a bit, and ended up finishing The Rievers in the process. All the walking the past few days were catching up with me, and despite the urge to go to bed, I didn't want to be the asocial traveler who goes to bed at 8pm every night because of a perceived nothing to do. So I pressed on, and damn cool that I did.

I walked through the main square again, and was confronted with a ton of people. No idea what the hell was going on with a stage and lights and stuff all set up so I asked, and apparently it was a celebration of the anniversary of the landing of the Granma (which kinda kicked off the revolution). Happy accidents are so great.

I found a nice bench to post up for a bit and did some extensive people watching. Despite this supposedly being an official party event, it felt like a high school and middle school dance. There were little kids in their school uniforms running around everywhere. Add in a little bit of a country fair flair, and that's the vibe I was getting.

Quick Thought - Cuba has not escaped the dangerous and hilarious influence of child leashes. It's only downhill from there...

Eventually I could feel the energy rise a little bit, and then a bunch of kids rolled up packed in the back of Deuce-and-a-halfs with Cuban and Revolution flags waving all over the place headed for the stage. The kids got out and went and posted up on the balcony of the city wall as a flag-waving backdrop above the stage. Then, the show began.

For me, there was a somewhat eerie feel the entire time. It wasn't so much a celebration of the Granma but moreso purely a celebration of Fidel Castro, but I'll let the videos, pictures, and this quick explanation explain what I experienced:

• A lady somehow tied to the revolutionary party came out and said some names and they did a condensed clap after each one (the two clap)
• Next, some old guy who apparently rode with Fidel in the revolutionary caravan came out and spoke about something (he was hard to understand), and after he was done the whole crowd there did some kind of call and response, ending with "Patria o Muerte"
• There was a bunch of pretty kitschy music performances, including the youth ballet, a quartet of singers, then a soloist with some ballet dancers behind her. A little out of place imho
• The emcee came out and read a love letter essentially to Fidel complimenting him on his life and work
• A different lady came out and sang a love song to the same effects
• The local art school 'donated' some quite good paintings of Fidel and awarded them to two governmental offices (surprise winners?)
• Lady director of youth or youth education or something came up with way too much energy and blasting through the speakers with some very impassioned words about kids and education
• Afterwards she was done, here was the call and response:
• Viva Cuba - viva
• Viva Fidel - viva
• Viva el partido - viva
• Patria o muerte - venceremos
• Then a pop singer who seemed to be from Cienfuegos came on and sang with the feel-good music video playing in the background

Once the pop singer was done, it came to a weirdly abrupt end. People all of a sudden started shuffling around, starting with a few, then the whole crowd, and eventually it was just another group of people in the square on a Saturday night, rather than a Revolutionary Party celebration.

At this point, my feet were killing me and I had a very interesting experience under my belt, so I shuffled home, talked briefly with Belkis, read for a bit, then crashed.

The next morning, I woke up to a knocking Belkis with a very low key breakfast (this time with mango juice!). While we were hanging out, she helped me with my plans for the day, namely trying to give Julio Cesa in Santa Clara a call to talk about the baseball game that night. My plan for the day was beach in the morning, taxi back to Santa Clara to watch the baseball game, then taxi back to Cienfuegos afterwards to sleep. Unfortunately we couldn't get a hold of him, but I was pretty set on going either way.

While we were hoping to get a hold of him, Belkis and I had a really nice conversation.

• Her daughter in Toronto has two kids (5, 6) but she's going through a divorce which is really hard, especially that Belkis can't visit to help support
• Belkis has a cousin in Palm Beach, another case of not being able to visit
• Thankfully she can communicate with her family in the USA and Canada, but difficult/impossible to visit as a Cuban
• Her husband has a Spanish passport, so he can go quite easily, but not her
• If I understood it correctly, if she wanted to go, she'd have to pay a ton of money and take a test in order to be allowed
• Told her a bit about my family situation
• Compared US and Cuban family importance, how in Cuba the family stays together and how the country is one big family
• Compared it to the US which is not the same case, more an individual mentality

I'm always happy when I can engage in such an exchange, telling people about my country and comparing that to what they experience/have in theirs. I hope it's of as much a benefit to them as it is to me; getting a (hopefully) unfiltered view into their world really helps broaden a global understanding, directly and indirectly (look at you reaping the benefits, you lovely reader!).

After breakfast, Esteban, Belkis' husband, helped me snag a taxi to the beach. It was a beautiful drive down there. Once we got there, true to the Cuban helpful nature, the taxi driver pointed me to a dude walking by, who pointed me to a waitress near the beach, who showed me where I could find a beach umbrella and relax on the white sand. Hot damn.

This beach was a great place to hang out for a long morning. I posted up, put my towel out, and then went straight down to the sweet, salty, refreshing ocean. I hit it on a perfect day, with nothing but sunshine the entire time, a great ocean breeze coming through all day, and just an overall wonderful atmosphere.

I swam and walked around a lot, took a little nap, and did my best to relax and enjoy the time there. While I was walking around, I stumbled upon what seemed to be a sport school practicing/playing volleyball on the beach, and it seemed really intense. One girl started crying after her game, and the instructor dude was really grilling everyone, and the games were pretty high-level competitive. To be honest, it kinda reminded me of what a sumo house is supposed to be like, where you just keep playing and try to win. There's no drills, no practicing stuff, just playing where you learn through defeat.

More chilling, more reading, more sleeping. Then eventually I bumped back into a German couple that I met waiting for a taxi in Havana. We chatted about the state of Cuba and how something's gotta give, a bit about the rest of their plans there, and the comparison between Germany and America. Then I walked around a bit down the other direction around the point, and took a few pictures of the mountainous backdrop down the way.

As I was wrapping things up, an Ecuadorian guy named Lenin introduced himself and we got to chatting about Cuba and traveling. It turns out that he's a truck driver in Ecuador, so we chatted a good bit about trucking, and traveling in South America and how he'd love to help me out once I make my way down there. We exchanged contact info for that eventuality, said a quick goodbye, then I was off into my taxi back to town. And, true to form, I started to feel the sunburn on the way. Sure enough, my whole back was toast.

When I got back, I thought about taking a siesta, but figured I'd better use my time in accordance with my plan for the day. With that, I was off in a taxi headed back to Santa Clara for a baseball game! The way over was pretty quiet, and on the way there there was a huge fire going on the side of the road, likely from a sugar plantation. Either way, the giant black cloud it was giving off was ridiculous.

I got in, and stopped off to get some food before the evening. I got the 'super burger', which I severely underestimated. It was a giant bacon burger with a slab of ham and cheese with two patties. It was greasy as all get out, and I think it took a year off of my life.

From there I had to find a way to get in contact with Julio. Obviously I didn't have a working phone there, but I had his number. I went into the hotel off the main square, and long story short, the security guard let me use his calling card to get a hold of Julio. With him on the line and my slowly-improving Spanish, we set up where we were going to meet and I don't think he understood that I was already in town. But with that, it was time to kill two hours.

How so, you ask? Sitting and people watching in the main square, of course! To be honest, there was a long period of a really weird energy and impending commotion. On the way over, I could see some threatening storm clouds, and while I was sitting there, the threat was growing. It started off with just a few drops and sustained for a bit. With that, a good portion of the park emptied, likely coincidentally, but still changed the life of the plaza. Then, seemingly all black birds in a 20 mile radius flocked to the square and concentrated themselves in three trees in one corner of the place. They caused a huge raucous, but would periodically just stop and all would be quiet. To top it off, with the impending clouds, I was worried they were going to cancel the game, which would suck.

Sensing the impending deluge of water, and having neglected to bring my rain jacket, I started walking in circles around the square, ready to jump under one of the awnings once it hit. Sure enough, I made it under cover right as it started to dump. It was quite the downpour, and the square emptied in a flash because of it. Eventually it died down, and life returned to the square. Quite the interesting energy and atmosphere in a two hour span.

Eventually, Julio and I met up! Again, success to those without modern communication! We walked by his friends' place to see if anyone wanted to join, then headed to the stadium. To be honest, I was really excited for this experience. I knew baseball is the national sport of Cuba, so I was really looking forward to experiencing it here for myself to see if it was any different. On top of that, I timed it up perfectly, as the game I was heading to see was the first round of the playoffs between Villa Clara (Santa Clara's home team) and Ciego de Avila.

Cuba Stuff - As I learned from Julio, there are no teams split up by city, but rather there is one team in the Cuban national baseball league for each province. So for Santa Clara, it's province (Villa Clara) had a team, and they were playing Ciego de Avila province's team. Kinda cool way to split it up, as if each US state were granted its own team.

Apparently it was dirt cheap to get in, as in a few CUP, aka a few US cents for entry into the stadium. Which is awesome. I grabbed us a couple of sodas, he got the tickets, and we entered the stadium. Let's just say this was an extremely unique and awesome experience from the beginning.

For starters, there was zero security or any sort of checkpoint like in US stadiums. This was a raw experience. As soon as we entered the stadium area, I got a feel of the reggaeton band going hard up in the stands. They were playing hard at the start, and didn't let up the whole game, giving all the lovely peoples in the stands some music to groove to. The seats and stuff were pretty junky, but we stood for most of the game anyway, so infrastructure was irrelevant.

Overall, it was an extremely lively and energetic experience. The band was playing the whole time, people were dancing the whole time, and anytime something awesome happened, the place just went wild. And to top it off, what a helluva game! Villa Clara was down for most of it, and it wasn't looking good. But they rallied from down and came to pull off the win for the home crowd!

Quick Thought - I don't get how the catcalling and gawking culture of Latin America persists. Seriously, if anyone reading this has an insight into how it seems to be just taken as normal (from my limited exposure), I'd love to have a better understanding of it. For me, it just seems wrong and way out of line, whistling at every chick that passes by, but there it seems to be taken as completely normal.

Quick Thought - With that, I get the impression that Latin women are some headstrong people. Having to face that kind of interaction down seemingly every street, you gotta have an iron will to not pay attention to all that stuff.

Sadly, after the game, I had to get back to Cienfuegos for some sleep, as the next morning I was planning on moving further down the coast to Trinidad. Julio helped me snag a cab, I thanked him for the wonderful hospitality and welcoming spirit while showing me a unique side to life in Cuba, and we said adios. The taxi ride back felt a little sketchy, but I eventually made it back to my bed and passed out.

The next morning I was a little slow in getting ready and re-packing my bag. That was ok, because I just chilled out on the balcony until the house came to life. Eventually I had my delicious breakfast, and then wrapped things up with Belkis and Esteban. It was a little sad to leave them, because they were such great hosts, super welcoming and helpful during my entire stay!

Their casa was pretty close to the bus station, so I went and did the usual waiting for a taxi. It was a relaxing wait with a little bit of people watching and picture taking, I even got a pretty cool time lapse while chilling out. While there, I got to the point where I was totally cool just sitting and waiting for my ride to come to me. That's not necessarily the best financial or temporal way to approach getting a taxi, but hey, I was relaxed and comfortable with whatever came.

Along those lines, during the entirety of the trip I'd gotten pretty complacent with money too. I had a good rough idea of what things might cost but surprisingly didn’t do much bargaining during transactions. I'm not sure if it was out of laziness, or because of how shitty people have it here. I've got the money budgeted for a trip like this, and they can definitely use any help they can get. Either way, it wasn't my usual cutthroat, save-all-you-can kind of mentality, and it was pretty relaxed having that mindset about.

Eventually I got paired up with a couple of Swedes (Frederick and Johan), and we hit the road headed south along the coast. Along the way I had a nice chat with those guys about their travels and plans. Then, before we knew it, we were rolling into Trinidad for the next leg of the trip!

Trinidad

As with the rest of my journey, I didn't have a casa booked prior to arrival in town, so first thing on the list was to find a place to stay. I was subconsciously expecting a quick and easy casa search upon arrival. But oh boy it's funny how your expectations get flipped on its head.

Well, I had an idea of getting one north of the city, as the city is on a hill overlooking the ocean, and trying to get one with a balcony to have a place to chill out and watch the view. I headed up that way and one guy approached me and took me to one that was pretty unimpressive, so I continued on. I kept walking and got flagged down again. The guy's wife walked me (at an inhumanly slow rate) to another one a few blocks away, but she wasn't willing to budge on her crazy price, so I continued. I asked a few places and most were full, which was a little annoying.

With my bag in tow, I was getting a little worn down. So I pulled up in a park for a bit to gather myself and rest up for a bit. While there, a lady came over and asked if I needed a casa. I humored her, thinking it was her place she was inquiring about, but as we were walking to her place, she called the owner, essentially saying, "Hey, I got one coming", and I was not having anything to do with that kind of cousin's friend's brother's got a hookup kind of thing. I said fuck this and dipped to continue on my own.

One block later, I knocked at a place that seemed empty, but eventually a lady with a broom came up, I finally found a spot to stay. I took a quick nap to rest up from that tiring adventure. Afterwards, a little more ready to go, I headed out to explore the town.

Walking on a bum foot really sucks. And my foot was killing me after nearly two weeks of a ton of walking every day. It was slow going, but it was going. To start, I headed to the main square, and from there went to the church that is now a museum showcasing US barbarism in Cuba. It was quite the interesting exhibition, outlining all the places where we infidels tried to flip-turn Cuba on its head. They even had a piece of the downed U2 in it along with all of the exhibits and memorials. But the icing on the cake was the bell tower with a gorgeous view of the entire town and area. Well worth it.

As I said, Trinidad is a town on a hill. A little past the town is a small peak, and Trinidad sits on the west-face of the peak with a great view of the water and most of the surrounding area. After getting a short glimpse of that, I went to a park to chill and sit down for a bit. Thirsty and hungry, I went to La Canchánchara, a touristy bar where its namesake is the local drink of choice, namely rum, sugar, and honey. It was actually a really good drink, kinda yummy having the honey to suck on with the rum. Well there I read a bit and hung out listening to the touristy band bring in visitors to try their hand at the rhythm stuff.

From there I walked around a little bit more, then went to the steps off of the main square to sit around a bit more and people watch before heading to dinner. After a chilly dinner on the patio, I continued walking around, really slowly. The whole foot pain was really getting to me, but I think it definitely helped me take in the city. Slowing down to enjoy what I passed gave me a good pace.

Despite being a strapping young man of 26 years, I was unbelievably ready to roll into bed at 6pm and say bye to the world for the day. But to try and at least wait until 7pm, I continued walking around, a little towards the south side of town. My journey took me past the cigar factory, as a sort of scouting mission to see when they opened. But before I got there I got whistled down by a couple of guys in a shack who invited me to play dominoes with them! There were a fun bunch of dudes, lively as most Cubans, and were really welcoming. I only won two rounds, but again had a great time playing with them. And it turned out that Rudy works at the cigar factory in town, so I asked him about the hours. They were closed for the next two weeks. Just. My. Luck.

I thanked those gentlemen and bid them a great evening, and then made my way back to the casa for bed.

The next morning I woke up energized and ready. The breakfast there was pretty meager, but as I was leaving, I met the German guy who doesn't own the place but helps run it. It was a weird encounter, because he said I technically shouldn't be there, because there was already a reservation for my room for the next few days. The lady who checked me in done fucked up (I knew there was something off with her...). The guy was nice enough to go out and help me find a new place, so he went searching and I re-packed my stuff. Definitely not what I was intending for the morning, but that's how it goes.

Long story short, he said he found me one, so we jumped on his electromotorcycle to go check it out. The place turned out fine, we agreed on a price, so I returned to place A to get my things to take them to place B. On the way back, I went and exchanged some more money, but the place only had 5CUC bills. Seriously? Wasn't intending on having to walk around with a fat stack of cash, but they gave me no option. I eventually made it back to place B to throw my stuff down and finally start my day...

...until the lady told me I can't stay in that room that they showed me because it's actually reserved. Apparently she didn't know because her husband was away when I was first there looking at it, but they had another room available inside the house. Seriously? WTF kind of disconnect is that? I was fit to be tied and really frustrated with this whole proceeding. I wanted it for a cheaper price because of the poor handling on their part of the thing, but they said no, claiming they had to pay the state, yadayadayada.

I was really pissed at the lack of fluidity and disconnect in information at places. How can there be such disorder in an establishment like that? Do they not know how to keep track of things? I was fed up, so I left there wanting to find something better to spite them. But, fed up with the process, I didn't want to have to search again and go through that whole process once more. Hit with a blunt Catch-22, I swallowed a bit of pride, went back and apologized for my frustration, and ended up taking the place. Long story short, I could finally start my day.

Quick Thought - This was an event I am not proud of, but the combination of shitty infrastructure, poor organization, and exhaustion with a terrible process really caught up to me. It's a different place, a different setup, and a different way of doing things, and this time it got to me.

First place on my agenda was outside of the town, to get away from the tourists and hustle and bustle. As I mentioned earlier, there's a peak just behind the city, and that's what I hiked up to get a view overlooking the whole city. It was a fairly easy hike, but it led to a great view of the area. While standing around, there were a few other people up top, and one of them asked the radio tower maintenance guy if they could get into the place to get a better view from the top. Well I was able to roll in with them through the gate as the guy led us to a building in the back with a rickety ladder attached to it.

As it turns out, both the parties I joined on this extracurricular jaunt were Germans. One was a nice couple, and the other was a guy named Dirk. Upon hearing that I spoke German, and after listening to me for a bit, he gave me a first. As in that was the first time anyone had ever thought that I had a Bayerisch (Bavarian) accent. Not proud of that, but it is what it is.

Well he's a photo buff, so we exchanged photo-taking skills, and talked about his lens a bit (mines on the downward slide). Eventually we got down to let the guy get back to work (although what he did for us probably was his real job), and took in the view for a while longer from the top. Long story short, Dirk and I headed back down to town to grab lunch together. Topics included:

• The differences in the world and the US now that trump has ruined it
• How rough of a situation Cuba is in, and how once changes do come it'll likely be a difficult transition
• How nice it is to return home after long trips
• The fact that you can determine where you are in Germany based on the construction materials used in old homes (crazy cool)
• His job as a hotel project manager
• And his experience as a wheel gymnastics (Rhönradturnen) coach, a super unique thing to do! Apparently the world championships were in Cincinnati last year

After lunch, Dirk was off to explore a little bit more of Trinidad before continuing his romp around Cuba, and I headed out of town for a little bit of a nature walk. My journey took me out the west side of town down into the valley towards a nature preserve. The walk was pretty calm, with horses and buses passing by every so often. Eventually I got to a spot where my map said the trail was, but thanks to a very kind farmer, he pointed me on the right path through his fields.

Eventually I made it to the trailhead, and was slapped with a $10 entry to the park. Oh well, definitely for a good Neatureal cause! The hike was quite low key, but enjoyable, with lots of nature along the way. At some point I passed a rock outcropping and decided to stop, and good thing I did! Hanging out under the overhang was a marmot! He hung out for a bit, and I pointed him out to a couple of other travelers, but eventually he went back into his den. Can't blame him, nap time is worth it.

The end of the hike led to a waterfall with a really pretty natural pool under it. It was at that point where I really regretted not bringing my swim trunks that day. Poor judgement on my part. But, utilizing the nature's playground aspect of the place, I hiked/scrambled up behind the waterfall and explored what else there was to see. I really love that aspect of nature and parks and the outdoors. There's so much to explore!!!

After a while, I headed back down to the foot of the waterfall, and hung out for a bit. Trinidad is a pretty city, but it's quite overgrown with tourists. Fun to explore, but I have a limit to how much I can take of that stuff. Coming to this forest, this waterfall, this park was definitely something I needed. The peace of the water hitting the pool and flowing down the stream, with green and trees and nature all around, that's the environment I need to relax and recharge.

Reflection and relaxation partially accomplished, I started making my way back down towards the trailhead. I didn't make it too far, as I pulled off to a smaller pool along the way and skipped rocks for a bit. I'm still pretty bad at it, but it's soo cool to finally get a 7, 9, 11 skipper along the water. Such a cool sight!

The trailhead was just a little while after that, and before I started making my way back to town, I stopped in the restaurant to check the Villa Clara baseball score. They were down, which was a bummer. From there though, I followed the road on my long walk back to town.

Emphasis on the long part of the walk, it was quite the hike. I followed the road the whole way, which eventually led out of the park and past a bunch of farms. Then it finally got to the main road, which wasn't too filled with traffic for the early evening and got me back towards the city. After such a long day (11.6 miles under my feet!), I decided I'd earned a nice dinner to finish off the day.

To start, the bad. While I was enjoying my delicious dinner, I noticed a larger dude walking by on the sidewalk quite boisterously. He was talking about something very loudly, and I could immediately pinpoint this gentleman (read: idiot) as an American. No less than a few minutes later do I hear this same asshat walking back towards the restaurant enflamed and whining for anyone to rent him a room. He eventually enters the restaurant demanding someone come forward with an available room to rent him, because someone on the street said someone at the restaurant had one. He said he wants the room right now, but first wants dinner then he'll go to the room. (WTF). He sits for about three minutes, demands to know where the room is, and eventually the kind lady who was going to help him leads him away from the place. Fuck that dude was a giant pile of annoying idiot; good riddance.

Quick Thought - Please, for the love of god, if you are a visitor to a new or foreign place, DO NOT expect it to be like what you expect at home. Not only does your frustration piss you off and prevent you from experiencing what all there is to offer, it can often disrupt other people's enjoyment of said place. It's a lose-lose.

Now, the good. The dinner was amazing. I pulled out my book while I was eating and waiting, and it paired excellently with my plate of shrimp, salad, and other delicious treats. The icing on the cake? The dinner came with a scoop of ice cream as dessert! How dope is that!? Also, the silverware had the Real Madrid logo stamped on it. Not sure if that's the thing in Cuba, but my hosts had the same thing.

After dinner, I moseyed on back home and had a nice little chat with my hosts for a bit. I was intending on going out to walk around at night because they'd told me that there were a couple of fests going on the entire week. So after our little chat, I resolved to take a quick nap and then head back outside. Well, that was a big mistake. I slept through my alarm and there was no chance of getting me back out of bed at that point.

Rested and ready, I woke up and got ready for breakfast. Holy shit they put out a good spread. Mango juice like woah, excellent coffee, a giant omelet, and a crepe to top it off. Definitely a great way to start the day. Satiated, I headed out. First stop was the water store; I had a long day ahead of me. Second stop was the tour office; I went and booked a ticket on the steam train into the Valle de los Ingenios for the next day. Third stop was the taxi dudes just outside of the tour office; I wrangled a taxi with a French couple up to the Topes de Collantes.

Following the example of the previous day, I planned my last two full days of traveling as outdoor-days. Unfortunately I didn't add a few more of those into the start of the trip, but better late than never worked out ok. These two days turned out to be amazing.

On the way up the super windy drive outside of Trinidad and into the mountains, we stopped off at the Mirador (lookout) that was about half-way to the Topes. Damn, what a view...

The rest of the drive was pretty impressive. It was windy and steep as all get out, but we eventually made it to the hub of the Topes de Collantes. Within this giant nature reserve is a big hotel and village. The hotel used to be a medical retreat for lung and breathing-related ailments due to the wonderful mountain air. I'm not sure if it still is a medical oasis, but it's a hotel, and there's a good number of things tucked away in the area, including a cottage area, a visitor's center, and a mini-coffee garden museum. But, our taxi driver got us to one side of the place, dropped us off, and I hit the ground running.

From my research before heading up there, there were two places I wanted to get to in the park. One was a gully/cavern place on one side of the area, and the other was supposedly a waterfall with a steep hike on the other side. I decided to head to the gully/cavern place first, thinking lighting would be better at the second place later in the day.

From the drop-off point, I walked to the other side of the area, paid the trail pass for La Batata (the trail name), and started the trek. I was a little peeved that the trail passes weren't super cheap, and a bit irked that each trail cost a different amount. But upon reflection I figured it was totally worth it. I'd rather pay for a nature pass and have a full day of fun and exploring outdoors than for a museum. Nature is the world's greatest museum anyways! Totally worth it.

It was a fairly quick trek up to the cavern. The way was pretty easy, and nice and green. As soon as I got to La Batata, the cavern itself, there was a big group that was just leaving. Hot damn! I got the place all to myself to explore around!

Well, La Batata starts out with a little pool of really cold water at about mid-calf depth. From there, as the guy at the trailhead explained, there are 5 caverns, one after the other, with pools and waterfalls along the way. There's a cable going from the entrance up to the third, and the fourth and fifth are partially visible, but a little hard to get to.

Having the entire place all to myself :-O I started venturing in and loved it from the start! (My poor pictures don't capture it well) The cable thing turned it into a little adventure going from one cavern to the next, and with cold, wet, bare feet climbing around the rocks and stuff I felt like a little kid on a jungle gym! I followed the cables, of course, but true to my nature, I did a little extracurricular exploration as well.

As I said, the place was really pretty. Cool rock formations going upwards and downwards, tranquil ponds with small waterfalls flowing from one to the next, and a bunch of spots to explore and monkey around on. To be honest, it reminded me of the canyoneering trip Doug and I did in Moalboal, in the middle of the jungle exploring around in some cool landscapes. What a beautiful spot.

Knowing there was more to explore, I eventually pulled myself out of the caverns. It was at that point that I called an audible. Rather than heading back and going straight to the second place (Salto del Caburni, a waterfall), I veered to the right and continued down this trail towards another lookout with a cave nearby!

It was a decent hike on the way there. More green, more uphills and downhills, you know, the usual foresty stuff. At some point it led to a road and past a house of sorts. I veered to stay on the trail, and shortly thereafter I arrived at the lookout. From there, I got another great view of the area, all the way to the radio tower hill behind Trinidad and beyond. Right next to the lookout was a little thru-cave! Adventure-Me pulled out my headlamp and headed right in to explore.

After some fun spelunking, the plan was to re-track and get back to the trailhead. On my phone map, there was a trail that eventually met back up with the original trail, but provided a different route to reduce the repetition of an out-and-back. Opting for a change in scenery, I took this new trail. Little did I know, I'd run into a small series of unfortunate events.

To start, my phone decided to stop transmitting GPS. It shat out right at the perfect point where I couldn't make sure I was staying on track with this alternative route. Second, the actual trail that was this alternate trail did not match the one shown on my map. I knew something was up a little while in, but couldn't check my progress, and therefore was a little on my own.

I finally got to a stretch walking along the ridge then looked to my right. Off in the distance was the hotel, right on the other side of the valley where the trail was supposed to drop me off. Motherfu...

Traditionally being very good with maps and such, I got really pissed at myself for this. Partially because I took the risky and unknown alternate trail and it turning up to lead me astray, and partly for the extra amount I had to walk because of it. Looking back, these are stupid reasons to get mad at myself for, because that's what life is about, taking a few risks. And a little bit further of a walk is a small price to pay for a new adventure.

Eventually I got thrown out onto the road, and from there it was a short but uphill walk back to where I was trying to go. On my way to the other trail, I sat down for a bit of the Casa de Café and had an espresso to refuel. I was feeling a bit of time pressure due to it already being the mid-afternoon, so I hustled a bit to get going. Before I got back over to the other trailhead, I noticed that they had a garden of some of the many different coffee bean plants. I took a quick stroll through but was shortly on my way.

It was a quick stroll past the hotel, then a group of cottages, and then down a super steep road which eventually led to the trail head. On the super steep road there was a guy posted up selling trinkets. I said hi, he greeted me back, and he asked how I was doing. I said I was doing good. His remark? You're doing good now on the downhill, the uphill will make you not do good. Truth.

I thought I was late getting to the trailhead, but the guy said I had about a half an hour before they closed entry. Boom, perfect timing. I paid the fee to get in and was off on my way. The whole first part of the trail I felt a decent rush to get through it. In retrospect, I'm a little upset at myself for this. It paid off in the end, but I don't feel like I was in the right mindset to enjoy this initial section of the trail.

Along the way I passed a few groups of hikers, a big group of Russian dudes were pretty friendly and chatty, but I mostly had a solitary downhill climb. It was filled with switchbacks for almost the entirety of it. Eventually it evened out slightly and curved back around the cliff that we just descended. The first scenic spot was a big natural pool below the trail with a cool waterfall leading into it, I told myself I'd come back to that later, and continued on to the main attraction.

The Salto del Caburni waterfall is drop-dead gorgeous. I was absolutely floored when I entered it's cathedral, so to say. Let me try to explain it. So the trail leads you along the top edge of a cliff. Once the cliff turns into a bit more of a gradual slope, that's when the switchbacks start to lead you down into the valley where the falls are. It's a long way down, so there's tons of switchbacks, but then the trail leads you back into the valley, parallel to the trail at the top of the cliff, and it leads you right up to where the falls are.

As I said, the falls are right at the start of the valley. When looking at them, there's a 300' tall wall to the left of you, a cascading waterfall that spreads itself over about 200' down in front of you, and then the continuation of the hill into the valley off to your right. Again, the pictures I took do not do the place justice.

As the trail opened up to this waterfall, I was absolutely floored with what was in front of me. Such a secluded pocket in the mountains with such a beautiful amphitheater of rock and water, it was absolutely gorgeous. Two things happened, as I started to take it in, it helped me validate my rushed mindset to get there. I wanted to fit this trail in, and it was well worth it. Second, it helped bring me back down to reality, to focus on enjoying what was in front of me, and calming me down in order to do so. (Take note of the gap in foliage along the edge of the cliff in the below picture)

In a much more relaxed state of mind, I commenced soaking up the wonderful landscape. I found a nice spot on the rock and just sat there for a while. The wind coming into the valley, the water rushing down from the great heights commanding the atmosphere, birds flying by, changing cloud cover overhead, it was such a peaceful location. I pulled out my camera and tried to capture it as best I could, but that's just not possible. It was too great a location to fully capture (lacking photo skills goes without saying).

I really didn't want to get up and leave. It was such a pretty, calming, and majestic spot. But, eventually I had to get up and make my way back out. On the way though, I stopped off at this first pool I mentioned earlier. After this spot though, it was time to start the rough trek back.

Me in my infinite wisdom forgot to pack enough food for the day. And although the espresso at the coffee shop helped, they didn't have any food there to help give me some energy for the rest of the day. That said, my hike out of the valley was ROUGH. It was all uphill, mostly switchbacks, and much longer than I would have liked. After all was said and done, I had 13.6 miles and about 1000m elevation under my shoes for the day. I thankfully had some cookies left over in my bag that I pulled out to snack on, but whew, rough stuff. (Remember that gap in foliage from before? Below is how close I got to the edge up there, it was quite a bit hairier than I would have liked, but a crazy view from the top)

Another thing that was hanging out in the back of my mind was how I was going to get back to town. So along with a tired body, I had no plan of getting home. Eventually I got back to the trailhead, but still had that huge hill that the trinket guy laughed at me for. It took me a while, but I reached the top and continued on to the visitor's center, thinking that could be an option to find a ride.

Right as I crested the hill towards the visitor's center, I heard a bunch of motors rev and they came into view just as all the buses started off down the hill. Perfect timing. A little bit bummed, I walked around to contemplate my options. I ran into one guy and asked him where the bus to Trinidad might be. Thankfully, he was the right guy, because he was waiting for the next one with a few other people hanging around. Boom. Crisis averted. Thankfully I was in a relaxed-enough and Cuba-enough mindset, because it turned out to be a long wait in the windy and waning daylight.

While I was waiting, two cool things happened. First, a random guy named Anton from Spain walked by and stopped to chat for a bit. He's hitchhiking his way through Cuba while taking a year off from his sailing gig. He sounded like a really interesting dude, and I would've enjoyed grabbing a beer with him. But he was off to find some food, and I was staying to wait for the bus. The second cool thing, as I was sitting on the curb, I see a guy wheeling a barrel up the hill. Lo and behold, the dude's got an Ohio State shirt on! I told him what a cool shirt he had, and he was on his way with a smile on his face.

Eventually the chariot back to Trinidad arrived. That chariot turned out to be a old box truck converted into a people mover. Holy shit it turned out to be quite the ride. The majority of it felt like a damn roller coaster, with the windy roads and whatnot, and the cabin seemed to be on thin ice, as every screw and bolt felt like they were a good two or three turns unscrewed making everything rattle like a maraca.

Fear not, however, we did end up back in Trinidad with no major problems. Once I got off the rattling death trap, I knew my body would shut down if I didn't get food in me. So I went on the hunt and turned into the first restaurant that looked decent. Well, the El Dorado was wayyy more swanky than I intended. But despite a quick bit of unsureness regarding table space, they tucked me into the furthest corner from the door, I'm assuming because of my backpack, dirty hiking shoes, and unkempt appearance. But I didn't give a care, I was hungry.

Dinner was decent. As I said, it was a pretty classy establishment, but I enjoyed it for sure. Unfortunately, at some point during my time there, there was a French couple that sat down at an adjacent table and they wouldn't stop looking my way. Again, I'm assuming here because of my unkempt appearance, but it was intriguing. I gotta say though, the couple in the taxi from earlier had given me such a good impression of French people, it's a shame these guys knocked it back down a few pegs.

On my walk back home, I strolled past a couple of lively things in town. I intended to just drop my stuff off at home and head back out to explore. Once again, that didn't happen.

The next day was another delicious breakfast and start to an adventure. After I was set, I went and picked up some more water, and then headed to the train station for the Steam Train ride into the Valle de los Ingenios. On my walk to the train station, I saw another gem. I don't have any photographic evidence of it unfortunately, but a guy biking past me had a Pittsburgh Super Bowl XLV Champions shirt on!!! BWAHAHAHAHA! I found it! Suck it Pittsburgh!!!

The walk concluded at the train station, and Holy Guano Batman, there were tourists like woah mulling about waiting for the damn thing. Once again, let the waiting begin. While hanging out I struck up a conversation with a couple of German dudes, one of which was still drunk from the night before. Similar to previous instances, we talked about Cuba stuff, a lacking infrastructure, travel difficulties, the nice people, and so on.

The train ended up being a little bit delayed, nothing too crazy. But at some point one of the tour companies' guides came up and told the crowd that the train was cancelled for the day because they couldn't get it running. Well, talk about a nice wrench getting hurled into your plans. Thankfully, I was able to go back to the tour office and get a refund. But from there, the plan was a bit open.

Rather than let some inefficiency rain on my parade, I decided let's continue the walking show and started walking towards the valley instead. It was only on the other side of the radio tower from two days earlier, and the road didn't seem too far, so it seemed like the right idea, until I thought about how much walking I had up for the rest of the day. At that point, I waved down a horse and buggy and told them to take me on out to the lookout at the entrance to the valley. It was a quick ride, and the guys were chatty and helpful. On the way, we shouted our congratulations at a bride hanging out in the back seat of an old chevy.

They let me off at the drive up the hill to the viewpoint and made their way back to town. I headed up the hill, and after getting to the patio, was stunned by the beautiful valley in front of me. The Valle de los Ingenios is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and used to be a big hub for sugar cane fields and their respective mills/plantations. There are still some today, but its been protected because of its history and is just gorgeous, especially from above being able to take it all in.

With the entire valley just right there in front of you, I took my time soaking it all in. Thankfully I had my binoculars with me, so I was able to really focus in on a bunch of the cool stuff out there. Lots of farmers at work, a few interesting houses out in the distance, and the Topes mountain range right across the way. Definitely a beautiful place.

At some point a bunch of American students, likely HS seniors or college freshmen, showed up and were broing out hardcore and freaking out about the zip line course at the place. They got really annoying, so I went and sat down out of earshot. I made my way back to the overlook to soak it in a while longer, and while I was there I got to talking with a couple little guys that were hanging out. I shared my binoculars with them so they could take a look, and they seemed to enjoy the zoomed in look on things. While talking with them, they told me that the bride that past me on the horse and buggy was actually one of their sisters on her quinceañera! Damn, they aren't kidding they really go all out for those!!!

After the lookout, I started walking. Rather than try and pay for a taxi down into the valley, I walked down the hill and took a good number of breaks to stop and take in the valley from a different view point. Such a beautiful place. Once the hill ended, I looked up the distance, and it was about another 5 miles to the place I wanted to go next. I was ok walking, but just to see how it'd go, I threw out my thumb.

As luck would have it, I got myself a ride! The store delivery guy that picked me up was super nice and we had a nice little chat in our short drive. As I mentioned earlier, Juliesky told me that Cubans are not allowed to have beef and lobster, which this guy told me was a lie. They're unable to kill cows, which is a little bit different, but they are not legally prohibited from eating them.

The drive was short, and soon enough the guy dropped me off at Manaca Iznaga, a former sugar plantation hub. There is still a railroad stop (where I was supposed to get to with the train) and a small village there, but the main attraction is the tower there, which was used by plantation owners to keep an eye on their workers (slaves) in the sugar cane fields.

The tower itself was quite impressive, with seven stories making a very prominent view for itself in the middle of the fairly flat valley. I got to the top after a short climb up the steps, and was again floored by the view. As a reference point, I could see all the way back to the radio tower hill outside of Trinidad, as well as all the way to the other side of the valley to the other end of the mountain range. From there, you really get a gorgeous 360-degree view of the whole area.

I stayed at the top for a good bit, just looking off into the distance for a while in every direction. I'm a huge fan of overlooks and viewpoints like that, if you haven't caught the trend. But eventually I made my way down the tower and headed to the restaurant to take a break, grab some lunch, and plan out where I saw my afternoon going. I'd learned my lesson from the day before and wasn't in the mood to repeat such a slog.

Lunch was pretty standard, a traditional plain cuban sandwich (not like a schnazzy cuban you hear about, but a generic sandwich common like you'd make elsewhere, but they're prevalent all over in Cuba) with really crusty bread. As it was suggested in one of the guide books, I tried the local drink called Guanapo, which is a by product of the sugar production process. Welp, everyone stay cool, because you guessed it, it was really sugary. It wasn't bad though, and was an interesting bit of local flair to experience.

Rested, fed, and ready, I made my way to the country road. The next place in my sights was Guachinango, another stop on the train line that was supposed to have a small sugar production museum to check out. It was a bit of a long walk to get there, but I was able to take it at my own pace and enjoy the valley from a more up-close viewpoint along the way. Highlights of the walk - I walked past a guy herding some cows on the road, and a little kid came running up to me from his house asking for candy (I didn't have any on me unfortunately).

After long last, I made it to the driveway of the place and turned down it. It was a long driveway, and once I got to the end of it, wouldn't you know it, the place was closed. A bit of a bummer. I wasn't sure what to do next, but fear not for this world wanderer, because there was a train track that went right by the place. So I started walking along the track headed for a random trail I sighted on the map.

It was a hair precarious walking over the railway bridge with just railroad ties spread out and not a flat surface, but I made it across without any major ado. From there I successfully found the trail, and was able to navigate this one without a problem. I even got to say hi to a good number of cows and birds along the way. I love meeting some neature friends along the way!

Unfortunately for this trail, there was a random gap between the trail and the road along the way, so I thought it was just a thing were I could do a little bush-whacking and continue on no problem. I eventually saw the problem as I came upon two guys that were washing their horses in pretty deep river.

Not sure where to go and assuming these guys knew the area, I asked them for help. I told them I was just trying to get back to the main highway, and they pulled out all the stops to get me there. I assumed I could've just hugged the bank on the side I was on to eventually make it to the road, but they were super helpful and had a much more direct and involved way to get me back to the road.

Long story short, one guy saddled up his horse and let me jump on as the other guy led me and forded us across two rivers that got us to the correct road. I was pretty floored at their immediate willingness to help such a stranger in such a quick, kind, and efficient way. Carlo (the guy that led me) was super awesome about it, and really thought nothing of it, just helping someone in need. I was super thankful for their help, as it was a quick way back to the road and it would've been one helluva bushwhack to get there!

Back on a road, I kept on walking along. I passed a railroad, waved to a few passersby who looked befuddled as to why a foreigner was there, and eventually got to the main highway. From there, I wanted to go check out a factory-type place I saw from the tower. But as I got there, it definitely did not look like the kind of place you could just walk around for shits and giggles, so I decided against that.

Next up was getting back to Trinidad, but again, I wasn't too sure how. But, being the extremely obvious foreigner on a not-so-touristy highway, a kind lady approached me and asked where I was headed. After learning I was on my way to Trinidad, she pointed me to a spot where I could wait for the bus (apparently they're called guaguas in Cuba), so I did just that.

Not too long after I got to the spot, a guagua showed up heading for Trinidad. Along the lines of the day before, it was dirt cheap. Soon enough, after a few close calls with the super crazy and erratic bus doors, I was back in Trinidad. Badaboom, badabing, another 13.6 miles under my belt for the day!

To save myself some time for the following day, I headed to a few stores to get some gift shopping done. Coffee and Rum in hand, I headed back home for a quick nap.

Looking back, the frustration with the train was annoying, but it turned out to be totally for the best. Adventuring on my own was awesome. It was cheaper, way more flexible, and I got to see a helluva lot more than a quick out and back on the train would have allowed. You gotta love happy little accidents like that!

That night, instead of having to go out to dinner, my hosts offered to cook dinner, and I definitely took them up on it. Of course, it was deeeeeelicious. Fish cordon bleu, oh hot dayum good stuff. It was a ton of food too. It was so much, I had to lie down for a bit to rest afterwards.

Quick Thought - Cristal is the go-to beer of Cuba. As I was drinking it at dinner, it made me realize that it is essentially Cuba's version of Kölsch.

Quick Thought - I find Cuba's standard definition of salad quite unique. Most meals come with a salad, but it's not how you would likely think of a salad. It's essentially a plate of shredded cabbage, sliced tomato, and a little bit of onion. But it's not mixed up, it's just separate piles of each.

As they say, third time's the charm. This time, after two nights of not being able to get back up after a 'quick nap', I somehow made it happen. Hector (host) offered me a coffee as I got up, which was definitely needed. A little caffeine in me, I headed out on the town to go walk around the street fests and see what was up!

From the casa, I headed to one of the bigger squares, where they had a big stage set up. I went over to the pop-up bar, grabbed myself a rum and coke, and found a spot to enjoy the tunes and do a little people watching. This had been apparently going on all week, and it must've been pretty busy the whole time, because the place was pretty bustling. There were kids running around all over the place, tons of people dancing to the tunes, and just a general atmosphere of enjoyment and a good time. Definitely a good vibe.

Quick Thought - Is there a correlation between sizes of bands and the cultures they originate from? Sitting in the park and watching a 12-ish person band on stage, it made me think that there are often so many people on stage because it's a very inclusive culture. Every one can take part in the fun (aka, "oh shit, you know how to play the spoons? Fuck yeah we'll find a spot for you!"), compared to other cultures where it's more likely you need to have a very specified role.

Down a street pretty close by to that square was a huge line of food vendors. Think state-fair type stuff - greasy, delicious, and deadly tempting. It's a damn good thing that smells are free, because the wafts of foody-goodness coming off of that street were unbelievable. Unfortunately/fortunately I'd already had dinner, so I didn't have any room available to cram some more delicious looking stuff in there.

I walked around the block a bit, checking out the lively areas, then walked back through the food street back towards the main square. After another cuba libre and enjoying the band a little, I felt the rush of tiredness pouring over me. I eventually headed home and headed to bed...

...at least that was the plan. When I got back, I ended up having an impromptu two hour chat with my hosts Hector and Mariuska. It ended up being a really good conversation:

• Their kids' names are Sadie Celine and Flavia. Sadie is the older one and was super shy, but Flavia was pretty talkative despite trying to act shy, and seemed to have a ton of energy.
• They had just started their casa particular on December 26th, the day I arrived in Cuba on my trip
• Hector had a few things to say about guests, how each traveler/guest is completely different than the next, and how that can be frustrating
• Hector also mentioned how being a new business is rough because your name and brand is not out there yet. Also, not having reservations booked out for more than the next day can be hard
• It was cool to see how much of an entrepreneurial drive Hector has and how he's searching for more ways to get his business going
• Not having internet really is holding him and everybody else back
• It was interesting to see a number of hard similarities of life in Cuba to that in the US (siblings fighting, families working hard just to get by, commuting so much that you're barely able to see your kids)
• I talked a little bit about my life and what/who I am and such
• Hector and Mariuska both voiced some complaints how some guests acted like they were staying in a hotel rather than as guests in someone's home. There's a clear difference, but some guests expectations are completely misguided
• They had a short anecdote about Germans, and how they can be particular to the point of sheer annoyance (I chuckled in understanding at this one)
• The language barrier really makes things difficult, especially when you're not able to fluidly communicate with your guests
• They were really interesting to chat with. They expressed their thoughts, concerns, frustrations, stories in a very real way. Some of it was hard to hear (lack of opportunity, poor infrastructure, difficult to get by), but helped provide a good insight into their lives. A little more knowledgeable on life in Cuba, it was then time for me to get some sleep.

Quick Thought - The 'reason' I went to Cuba was for "Educational Activities - person-to-person". I gotta say, I feel very accomplished in that regard. I met and conversed with may people along the way, and all had some unique things to say about their lives, and at the same time most if not all presented some very common themes about what life is like in Cuba.

Quick Thought - To that end, it was (and has been in other such instances) hard for me to be a person that was raised with opportunities and has been put in a position where I've been able to work hard to take advantage of the many things that have come my way, now with a decent job, salary, education, etc. Talking to people like those in Cuba that are just struggling to get by, a lot of times I feel elitist just for the opportunities made available to me. There's nothing I can do to change that, and I wouldn't go back and change my life in any way, but being faced with that inequality, I feel self-conscious about myself and out of place.

That next morning, I woke up to my first power outage of the trip. I was expecting something much sooner than that, but it was bound to happen eventually. I had to forego my morning shower, but that wasn't such a big deal. On top of that, it had rained that night, so the town was in a calm, grey, quiet mood, which was really peaceful to wake up to.

For breakfast, Hector and Mariuska set up a table indoors, completely rearranging their living room to do so. Their accommodating efforts and actions were really warming. I had a relaxing and delicious breakfast, finished packing, and said my big thanks and farewell to Hector, Mariuska, and their family. We started on a weird foot, but they were amazingly welcoming hosts, and it was a bit of a melancholy departure.

From their house, I walked on over to the bus station to find a taxi back to Havana. On the way there, and this was the first time during the whole trip, I wasn't shouted at or approached first to get a taxi. To be honest, it got me worried a bit, thinking there weren't going to be any opportunities to catch a ride.

For fun I went and asked about a bus ticket to Havana that day, and of course, they were sold out. But as I exited the station, someone asked me about a taxi and then boom. Within 5 minutes I was in the back seat of a van with 7 others headed back towards the Capitol of Cuba.

True to Cuban taxi driver requirements, our guy was pretty crazy. We had an unannounced stop that took us to the back of someone's farm, which ended up being the local gas station. Then another unannounced stop so the guy could get a quick snack from the roadside store. On top of that, I wasn’t really feeling it with the Italian family and pair of French couples in the car, with that, I was pretty glad when the ride was over with.

Back in La Habana

After the guy dropped everyone else off, I got dropped off at my hostel and was pretty glad to check in. There was a little bit of confusion when I checked in, but I was able to downgrade to a cheaper room and saved a few bucks because of it. Hot damn! Once officially checked in, I took a nap, got cleaned up, and then headed back out to the city to get a few last minute things done.

My first stop was back to the Jose Martí monument. I was really looking forward to going up in the tower to get a good birds-eye view of Havana. Well, you know the drill, the place was closed. I was a little bummed, but ended up walking around the tower and enjoying the monument park. I had to get rid of a few casa and taxi peddlers, I just wasn't in the mood for that stuff anymore. But the park was pretty cool and showcased quite the monument.

From there, rather than take a taxi to Habana Vieja, I decided to walk the distance through some of the side streets to avoid the hustle and bustle of the main avenues. I definitely got a good number of weird looks along the way, but it was a pretty relaxing walk.

I eventually made it to the center of town and was ready for my moment of truth. I headed into La Casa del Habana, ready to pick up some cigars. It took me a while to finally figure out which ones I was going for, but with the help of reddit and the friendly people behind the counter, I came away with a box each of the H. Upmann Magnum 50s, Partagas Serie P. No. 2, and Vegas Robaina Únicos. I splurged a bit and it ended up as quite the haul, but I'm looking forward to busting into them with Nick and Aaron and enjoying the fruits of our lack-of-labor.

Feeling accomplished and seeing my trip slowly winding to a close, I headed over to the park nearby and did a little bit of sitting around. I read a little bit, did some people watching, and enjoyed the beautiful day on hand. A little restless, I decided I wanted some dinner. Luckily enough, El Chanchullero was just a short walk away, so I headed that way and got in line. After not too long of a wait, I was in.

This time wasn't quite as good as the previous time because a) I had no dinner company and b) my eyes were way bigger than my stomach, because I ordered a littttle bit too much. But, all in all, I had another enjoyable dinner there, and then headed back out on the town.

Not sure what I wanted to do, I wandered around a bit. I tried to connect to some wifi with Zack's wifi card he left for me, but I was either too impatient or it didn't work, so I decided to move on. Sensing a need to sit down and take it easy for a bit, I grabbed a bottle of water and went and finished the last stray cigar I'd had on me.

My location ended up being in the Plaza de las Armas, and I found a bench in the plaza that was a little more lowkey than on the main square, and had a peaceful time of it. As I was sitting there, a guy with a guitar sat a little bit away and provided a beautiful soundtrack to the low key mood.

Having an actual interest in checking my flight status, I headed back to the Parque Central and reconnected the world for a brief moment. My flight was still on time, the world was still there, and all seemed well.

Quick Thought - The whole going three weeks with out cell reception was actually pretty nice. My phone was a pretty vital tool for maps and guidebooks and note taking. But not having any sort of contact was quite a refresher. Granted, there were a few times where I felt just like my Thoreau character from high school, thinking I'm a little better than others by not being restrained by technological vices (though I still was to some degree), but it was refreshing to be cut off from the world for a little while.

My last visit to the Parque Central lobby ended, and from there I grabbed a taxi home with Pavel. This taxi trip did a great job of summarizing most of my interactions with the people of Cuba: life is hard, salaries are low, you work your ass off to provide enough for your family, good educations don't get you a good job, etc. Despite it being a retelling of the story, it was still sad and hard to listen to. That didn't take away from the fact that Pavel seemed like a very nice guy and a great taxi driver. Once I got back to the hostel, I hit the sack.

I'm not sure why this trip was so rough for sleep, but it was another inconsistent night in and out of sleep. But eventually I 'woke up' and took my time getting ready. I broke fast on the patio and briefly met some other American tourists that were in town doing a little partying and checking out Havana.

After breakfast, I finished up my packing and made sure I was all ready to go for my journey back to the US. That all said and done, I headed back down to the patio to wait for my taxi to the airport.

While I was waiting, one of the friendly hostel staff ladies struck up a conversation with me. Monica was super friendly, and she being 25 and a lawyer by trade, it was interesting to hear from someone a little closer to my stage in life about life in Cuba.

• Monica is, as I said, a lawyer by trade, but she works part-time at the hostel to supplement her income
• We talked about the rescinded wet-foot dry-foot (that I only learned about at the Parque Central the night before) and how she seemed to not be too keen on its repeal
• We got into all subjects about Cuba already covered: extremely nice people, very safe country, times are tough, hard to survive and provide, damn near impossible to travel
• She told me about how Ecuador used to be a visa-free travel location for Cubans, but that got changed because a lot of Cubans used that to get to Ecuador then from Ecuador to the US
• We discussed some popular phrases in Cuban life, such as 'un poco mas tarde', 'después', and 'mañana' being the three temporal descriptors of life in Cuba, and that how 'no es facil' is the pretty standard reason for everything there
• She was pretty surprised and so am I about how I've been lucky to travel a lot, and how that's helped me see that regardless of where you go, we're all human. Differences are one thing, but the basic need to provide, find happiness, that's consistent everywhere
• We talked about languages, and how it's great and beneficial to learn them regardless of where you go
• She reiterated a few details about how Cuba has it rough economically. They don't produce so they import, and all that money goes to other countries rather than remaining at home
• She also mentioned a possible economic zone in the Caribbean in the discussion phase. This would give companies the potential to set up shop in Cuba to save money, but with the US right next door, it's hard to convince companies to do so

My chat with Monica was really engaging and informative, so much so that I lost track of time and ended up talking straight through the planned departure of my taxi. Well, as it turned out, I wasn't taking a taxi, but rather was hitching a ride with the hostel owner. That was the first bad sign of what ended up being a really sketch and weird-feeling taxi ride. He ended up being over a half hour late and gave off a pretty sleazy vibe the whole time. What he did was technically illegal, as he didn't have his taxi license he is not legally allowed to give me a ride in exchange for money. To this end, I had to pay him before we got to the airport. I did not really appreciate getting shitty service just so he could squeeze an extra 25CUC out of me. And on top of it all, he had a fucking banana in his trunk that I didn't see and so I pulled out my backpack with greasy and slimy banana all over the front of it. What a douche.

I finally got into the airport away from the slimy human being and got in line to check in. Behind me was an outdoorsy couple and we chatted while waiting to get to the counter. Contradictory to all stories I'd heard about Havana's airport, I had a perfectly stress-free check-in experience. There were no problems at the counter, I went and did some last minute shopping in the main area, and then had a breezy go through immigration and security that got me into the terminal with a comfy 2.5 hours to kill. I guess that's what over-preparation gets you sometimes.

It being a fairly common occurrence over the last few years, I spent the time walking around the tiny terminal, exchanging the rest of my CUC, dancing around to my music and feeling the good vibes (the first time I'd listened to my own music since I'd left for the trip, a big break in music-listening for me), and watching planes and passengers take off and land.

Eventually, it was my time to board. I hopped in the plane at HAV and bid my farewell to Cuba. It was a weird feeling, but despite all of the trepidation, anxiety, excitement, awe, frustration, and wonderful adventures, that was a very quick and impressionable three weeks under way. Sayonara Cuba, ¡¡¡muchas gracias para todo lo que me mostraste!!!

The flights back were pretty standard. I watched the most recent Bourne movie, man I love the Bourne series. But the thing I'll leave this tale with was an article by Anthony Zimmern in the Delta magazine titled "The Road Less Traveled", he writes about the difference between tourism and traveling. For me, that really hit home and helped me feel a little validated on my motivations for traveling. Yes I want to get some rest and relaxation by going away from home, but it's about the experiences, the times where I'm learning about where I'm at and the new people and environment around me, and doing something I could never do at home. Truly a great read, and a good source of motivation to get out there and travel, really soak up the world around you.

I Am Thankful For...

As I mentioned throughout the post, life in Cuba is a little different than what I've come to know throughout my life. At some point along the trip, I started a list of all the things, big and small, basic and complex, that I am thankful for and that I was made aware of during my trip. It is a VERY non-comprehensive list, but just a small bit of understanding of just how good my life is, and how I really have no reason to complain about anything whatsoever.

Things I take for granted daily, but should be nothing but grateful and thankful for:

• I can flush toilet paper down the toilet and not throw it in a trash can to let it sit around
• I can drink from a faucet without fear of it causing me health problems, not to mention I don't have to pay for bottled water
• I can work at a job receiving a salary at a level commensurate of my education, skills, and abilities
• I have ready access to information from everywhere in the world and can access it from damn near everywhere, most notably and comically on a toilet
• I am able to travel and legally enter many countries at a non-prohibitive cost all the while learning and experiencing other peoples, cultures, and parts of the world<

As I said, this is a very non-comprehensive and quite limited list. But these factors are something I take for granted on a daily basis, despite them being so monumentally important to what I do daily.

GBD

Followers of my shenanigans can probably remember a pretty common saying that has been around since my days in CBYX. "It's not good, it's not bad, it's just different." Keeping with this theme, I tried to jot down things that fit into these three categories, as I've done for other countries during my journeys. Here's a quick list of things I came up with.

The Good

• Friendly people
• Relatively inexpensive
• Beautiful landscapes, Viñales and Topes specifically

The Bad

• Tourist death traps all over the place
• Two forms of currency
• Two forms of travel capabilities (foreigner vs local)
• Lack of resources (motorcycles, 8 in Viñales)
• Lack of travel infrastructure (randomly closing trains for two weeks, unable to satiate ticket demand)
• No shits given about pollution. Between a pound of carbon emitted for every second on the gas pedal, and a seemingly nonchalant attitude about burning whatever they want in fields

The Different

• Existence of bridges with nothing leading off of them on either end. A lot on the way to Viñales and a few down south too. Prospective infrastructure? A mistake?
• The most prevalent place for internet access is in parks. So if you're walking around and you see lots of people hanging out, it's likely because that's a wifi hotspot
• Face timing seems to be the primary form of (long distance) communication
• When people are talking on the phone, usually the camera flash blinks, not sure why
• Almost all windows and street level balconies are grated and enclosed.
• Despite being a safe country, every place is locked down like a prison
• Doorways are wider than in the us, but rather than one door, they usually have two, therefore making the actual passageway smaller, and annoyingly difficult with a backpack
• Ownership of little birds is a super common thing overall, not sure why, but parakeets seem to be the pet of choice
• No taxi collectivo ride is complete without the driver stopping at some random, likely sketchy place during the trip

Solo-Traveling - Some Pros and Cons

Something that came up a lot during the trip, as well as outside of a lot lately, is how I travel a lot on my own. Some people are surprised by it, some jealous, others couldn't care less. But for me, this trip was kind of a turning point for me. Yes, the last few years I've done a very big amount of traveling and exploring on my own, which has been extremely rewarding, exciting, and eye-opening.

But this trip kinda turned the page for me, solidifying that traveling with other like-minded and travel-compatible individuals really takes the experience to a wholly different level. In the interest of brevity and cutting to the chase, here's a quick list of the pros and cons of each sides of the coin that I came up with. Continuing with the theme, these are non-comprehensive, as there are many things that could be added and discussed here. But here's what I came up with.

Pros of 1

• Flexibility
• Spur of the moment is constant
• Quicker spring into action (sometimes)
• Do only things you want to do
• Always time for reflection
• Sometimes get into random situations that you couldn't get as a group

Cons of 1

• More expensive (lodging, travel)
• No sharing of meals
• Waiting in line alone is boring
• No easy parings or groups
• Can be solitary and such

Thanks for reading everyone! This is quite the long one, but I hope it was enjoyable, insightful, and interesting. In a quick summary, my trip to Cuba was really interesting. It's not one of those trips where I'd say I'd immediately go back and do it all again. But I learned and saw a lot during the trip, and was able to interact with a lot of genuine, interesting, and helpful Cubans that helped show me a very brief insight into life in their country.

Original Publish Date: February 12th, 2017