Beautiful Food, Travel & Design
One of the senior ICU physicians said something the other day that really resonated with me. “You may think you are a great multi-tasker, but brain imaging has proven that it is impossible for us to multi-task. Instead, we only have the ability to rapidly flip between two tasks. It’s literally impossible for us to focus on two things at once.”
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A six hour bus ride on Wednesday brought us back to Havana for the last three days of our trip. We decided to “live large” and get a casa right on the sea. We found the perfect place – Casa de Maria del Carmen – a third story flat with huge windows and wide open spaces with an almost hotel-like feel. It was great to have a thick, comfortable mattress and real pillows, plush towels and good shower pressure – a nice way to transition back into the United States. We also talked Maria down to $25 instead of $35 which made the place a steal!
With the rest of our time, we checked out Heladeria Coppelia, the best spot for ice cream in town. People literally stand in line for hours to get scoops:
I took Pat back to the beach where I got my awful sunburn my first day in Havana and were delighted to see that there were decent sized waves. Even though we didn’t have surfboards, we managed to do some body surfing and play in the waves. It was great exercise and a ton of fun, even though it took a long shower to get all the sand off later!
We also rented to hottest car in town for an hour for a city tour, a shiny purple 1951 Chevy Deluxe convertible. It was $20 well spent and a great way to see parts of the city we otherwise would have missed.
Our last dinner was at Sociedad Asturiana Castropol on the balcony, right on the water, a perfect way to catch our last sunset in Cuba. Made by one of the best chefs in Havana, the food was incredible and we ate and ate until our stomachs hurt. Seafood paella, smoked salmon, octopus soup, cheesecake, mojitos, the works! Four appetizers, drinks, two entrees and one dessert later the bill still came to under $60. Then it was off to bed before our 4:30am taxi ride to the airport to catch our flight to Cancun.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Cuba but it was definitely one of my favorite places I’ve ever visited. The colors, the culture, the people, the sights, the sea, the beach – it has something for everyone. It was amazing that a place only 90 miles from Miami can be so different from anywhere else in the world that I’ve been.
There are a lot of galleries and stores with handmade items in Trinidad. It’s easy to see why many Cuban artists decide to reside in Trinidad – its beauty is definitely inspiring. At one gallery, Pat and I both immediately noticed a brightly colored abstract painting propped against a wall. The artist was sitting next to it, having just completed it. I just knew I had to have it and was amazed that the price was so affordable. The artists, Ramses, told us we would have to wait a few days for it to dry and that we could pick it up right before we left town. I’m on the plane home as I write this and the painting is rolled up next to me. It’s so exciting to have purchased my first piece of art and I can’t wait to get it home to hang it up. It’s a great memory of our time in Trinidad, plus it’s so cool to be able to say I met the artist who painted it!
One night we enjoyed mojitos and music at the Casa de Musica, an outdoor bar with life music that was packed with tourists. It was fun to people watch, especially the local guys who tried to pick up the female tourists by showing off their dance moves!
Most of our dinners were traditional Cuban food home-cooked in the casa – heaping piles of rice covered with a bean “soup”, sides of fried plantains, tropical fruits, fresh vegetables and fresh juice. Our last night, we splurged on dinner out on the town at Sol y Son, recommended by both the Rough Guide and some Brits we met on the bus ride to Trinidad. The fresh-caught fish was delicious but a bloody mary made Cuban-style by using rum and our cold chewy baked apple desserts were definitely misses.
One afternoon, we stumbled upon a local band playing covers of Buena Vista Social Club in a courtyard:
As you can see, they were amazing!
The beach outside of Trinidad was beautiful – white sand, clear and calm water and not terribly busy.
One day we paid $10 to go out on a sailboat to a nearby reef and do some snorkeling. It was fun to take Adventure Cam with and get some pictures underwater:
On the way home from the beach, or taxi got a flat tire. A few other drivers helped out and the flat was fixed speedily. It was almost like watching a NASCAR pit stop change!
I stepped off the bus in Trinidad (the city, not the country) and wondered if we had gotten lost and I had ended back up in Antigua, Guatemala somehow. From the colonial architecture to the cobblestone streets to the vibrant colors of the houses, I definitely had a déjà vu moment.
This time we were safely ushered to the appropriate Casa Particular, the Casa de Senor Cesar Orbea. It was a beautiful place with a rooftop terrace and a nice patio for breakfast but from the start I didn’t like the owner of the house. He refused to make eye contact with me and when I asked him questions (in Spanish) he would either not let me finish my sentences or not listen to me at all. Pat humored my request to find a different place for the rest of our stay and we ended up at Casa Tayaba the next few nights. The noise and business of the house made us feel right at home and the women who ran the place made us feel like we were part of the huge family that lived there. In addition it had a great location next to the main plaza and stunning third floor views of the city, sea and the sunset. It was probably the best Casa we stayed in the whole trip.
We also fell in love with the city of Trinidad. It was close to both the sea and the mountains, a short bus ride away from the beach and had a homey small-town feeling. We spent three full days there, two at the beach and one relaxing in the city itself.
A four hour bus ride took us east of Havaanna to Viñales, a tiny city in the countryside surrounded by mogotes, mountains made of leftover limestone after the rest has been worn away, leaving flat topped mountains rising up over the valleys. From the start, it felt like Pat and I were stirring up trouble in this sleepy little town. Due to a schedule mix up, our bus arrived two hours early, meaning our casa particular owner wasn’t waiting for us at the bus station. In an attempt to find her place on our own, we mixed up the address and ended up checking in at her unsuspecting neighbor’s place. It wasn’t until we were exploring the city a few hours later that we were chased down by a woman with a sign with our names on it! We explained the mistake and she marched us back to her neighbor’s place. After some heated words that turned into laughs, we collected our suitcases, signed on the government ledger and moved into Teresa’s Holiday Inn. When I saw the shiny pink bedspread, fake flowers and pink pictures of kittens, I knew our experience at this Casa wasn’t going to be quite as lovely as it was with Miriam in Havaanna.
From the start of our visit to Viñales, it felt like we were expected to conform to a preset “tourist program”. Each house in the town was perfectly restored and looked identical to its neighbor. Having seen two different casas, we also got the same sales pitch at each: “here is the menu for dinner, it is a ton of food and much better than you can find in the restaurants, I have a guide you can book who can take you on a horseback ride to see the countryside and a secret cave, here is the price of drinks I can make you” and so on. It all came off as a bit mechanical and…rehearsed. Pat and I had the uneasy feeling that the whole setup might be a bit too orchestrated. At least in Havana you knew a lot of things were under government control/strict regulations but it wasn’t SO blaring.
Aside from this, our visit to Viñales was absolutely lovely and the area is a must-see if you visit Cuba.
Our host was wonderful and our meals were just as bountiful and tasty as she had promised.
The guide she arranged for us was very friendly and our ride through the hills was nothing short of spectacular. The cave was a bit underwhelming, especially for Pat, who has claustrophobia. There was a pool at the end of it but the idea of swimming in murky, dark cave water and then getting back on our horses soaking wet didn’t sit well with either of us.
On the way home, we stopped at a tobacco farm to see the drying tobacco leaves, watch a farmer hand roll and cigar and of course, receive a sales pitch about how we should buy some of the cigars made from the 10% of his crop that his family gets to keep. I ended up being translator or our group of tourists, earning myself some free fresh-squeezed coconut-grapefruit cocktail and a cigar. Pat bought a couple of packages of cigars as gifts and I entrusted him with my cigar as well, since I’m not terribly fond of tobacco myself.
Back at the casa, we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and then went for a run. There were tons of small black flies along the horse path we ran on, leaving our sweat-soaked bodies covered with them. In addition, my horribly sunburn was starting to blister and peel. Nothing says vacation like picking small black bugs and flaps of skin off of your travel partner. You’re the best Pat!
We caught the early morning Viazul bus to Trinidad. One full day and two nights was definitely enough time in Viñales.
