With its sexy dance moves, beaches with lots of European tourists in speedos, and old Cuban men cat calling every 10 minutes, endless rum, and brightly colored clothes Cuba is truly all up in yo’ business (also referred to as up in yo’ grill). we were mostly amused by the yellow pants that many women and men would rock and the matching outfits. it seemed as if couples would wake up in the morning and plan on both wearing brightly colored red shirts and bedazzled pants with some gold bling. we were unsure of if this matching outfits were planned or was it just coincidental that everyone seems to have baby blue pants with the same sahde of blue shirt. The first 30 minutes my sister and I walked around the streets of Havana we where instantanely ripped off by a jinetero or the men that the lonely planet say to watch out for (clearly we did not read that section until the day after). He was really nice, like all Cubans are, and led us to this restaurant that was way too expensive. We did not know any better and so paid way too much at this privately owed restaurant (called paladas). We eventually discovered the joys of the really cheap restaurants that are run by the government and serve huge plants of ham chicken or fish, moros y christianos (delicious rice and beans), yucca (emily’s favorite dish), and bread and butter (I rediscoverd the joys of eating butter!) We were so excited about this one restaurant we discovered, called Nardos, that we had to go there twice. The line to wait for the restaurant was always an hour long, but the cheap prices and mounds of lamb brisket and paella were so worth the wait. We always took the extra food we had to go home with us and so had left overs the following day. This meant that we ate Nardos food 4 days in a row! Side note: our waiter kinda looked like obama. Besides Nardos, the food was kinda boring and i can really see that after a couple more weeks i would get sick of the greasy fried rice and pizza that looked like it had been microwaves from the street. could thing i brought peanut butter, nutella, and hot sauce from mexico with us.
the dance scene in cuba is absolutely amazing. you can walk down the street and just listen in to free salsa, flamengo, tango, rumba, orishas, or typical cubano music. they also have this amazing dvds withs ridiculous music videos on them everywhere! on this small artsy street called callejon de hamel we saw a free rumba preformance where seven year old kids were dancing super sexy with an older women in all baby blue pants and shirt. the seven year old did a typical rumba dance move in which he tried to slap her crouch and she responded with another typical dance move and just giggled and continued flirting. i felt a little akward, but i guess thats ok. em and i also had a favorite dance partners at the one and only bar in vinales (this smaller town in the middle of the farm land and mountains). em got insulted the first night when some guy asked if she had ever danced before...but she redeemed herself the next night when we went back and we reclaimed ourselves on the dance floor. oh, and major highlight: we got into the cuban ballet for GRATIS!!! (free). the charge for tourists in CUC is much more expensive than than the price for cubans to get into the ballet. cubans can get into the ballet there for pretty much 5 cents. so, i chatted it up with a nice looking middle age women and her hubby and they bought us tickets at the cuban price. they didnt let us pay them back and made up a lie for us in case our tickets would not be accepted. so that night em and i pretended we were students at the escuela de cine latinamericano. i love beating the system.
new years eve dinner was spent eating at our casa particular with the two other women from finland who also were staying with us. one of the women was 65 with the worst brochitis (said in finish accent) ever. we are pretty sure that a 65 year old women from finland who already has the most black lung sounding voice ever should not chain smoke if she has brochitis. was we were full on lots of yucca and kinda dry pork we headed out on the town. we started our night at this super buzz kill place that lonely planet and every tourists goes to because hemingway drank a mojito there. it had super bad mojitos, no music, and way too much cigerette smoke. so we left quickly to casa de la musica where we waited in line with our canadian solo traveler friend we had met in vinales. once we got in, the actual new years was super anti-climatic. instead of all counting down from 10 the guy on the microphone just mumbled 3,2,1 and yeah! no one really knew what was going on, but at least there was a kinda poppy salsa performance we got to see there.
the caribean beaches are also something note worthy in cuba. the just all look like the most perfect paradise blue water beaches ever. in vinales we spent a day trip going to this beach, called cayo judiata. it was probably the worst day ever to go to the beach cuase it was super cold, but it was one of the best beaches i have ever been to. after taking a 3 hour napped curled up in a ball on the beach we took a stroll down the coast line and walked on the softest sand i have ever touched, saw the best drift wood we have ever seen drift onto shore, and found the biggest and most intacked shells we have every discovered. we also spent the last days in havana on the beach near havana, called santa maria del mar. with every plastic beach chair taken with italian men and some drunk cubans we felt like we were in the original jersey shore. there was the most unique array of speedos we have ever seen. at one point we were talking to two italian men at the same time both wearing white speedos. we also got to see a look a like Fabio with a gold shiny speedo. amazing. we love beaches in cuba!
So, with at least 2 mojitos in our bellies and music everywhich way, we had some great sisterly bonding time and truely enjoyed each others company. the only downer was that em got burned (even after many applications of sunscreen and wearing her surong and shirt for half the time at the beach). so, behind the bright yellow pants and the bedazzled shirts the the cuban people are some of the nicest and most educated people i have met. although they might have issues with the US goverment, they love americans (or at least they love our tourist money). the complicated history between the US and Cuba is still going on and many Cubans long for the chance to vacation to the US or have the chance to afford simple everyday items that are too expensive for them to buy in their national currency. Cars from the 50's not up to pollution standards would be considered antiques in the US or the abondoned crumbling buildings could seem creepy to an outsider, but to the Cubans it is just their way of life. and so although it is hard for them to build up their economy, they fill their lives with lots of music and bright colored clothing!
Hasta the next entry! chaos
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