We are up nice and early for the 6 am continental breakfast offered for the early risers and met by a real grumpy bunch of staff! Everything is a hassle for them and we are interrupting their desire to get the real breakfast happening but we persevere as we have paid for this meal.
We grab a taxi to the bus terminal 10 minutes away and our bus leaves on time at 8.15.
We struck lucky as it was a comfy bus and only half full so the three of us dozed for most of the 3 hour trip which didn't stop once which is unusual.
Arrived at my casa particular around midday and was pleasantly surprised. The cost is $25 for the room be it a single or a double and $3 for breakfast. I have what I think is antique furniture or a very good reproduction, a comfy bed and an ensuite bathroom , the water pressure is ordinary BUT I do have aircon and warm water!!! The room is on the second floor and next to it is a lovely outdoor terrace where brekkie is served. The term lovely becomes relative to what you get used to and experience! There is also another flight of steps that takes you to the roof top and there is a nice outlook over the street scape and to the mountains.
As seems to be the case in these Latino countries, the population seem to have a very sweet too and everything is loaded with sugar even the bread. The food available to buy is of a very poor quality, the vegetables look weeks old with a tiny selection and the other morning when Lina and I went to the market and the government subsidized butchers opened, we got to the door and I started to dry reach, the smell was hideous!
The supermarket has about 10 different varieties of mayonnaise, no fruit or veg, lots of sweet biscuits, a few packets of dried biscuits, some unidentifiable meat in the freezer, a lot of bottles of oil and some olives. There was a fridge full of processed cheese and that was it. Even with money food is hard to get. We had an exciting lunch of processed cheese on dry biscuits, nothing else!!
The small family run restaurants called paladares usually seat around 20 people and are very inexpensive. They are also very unpredictable in quality. The first night I had a really great dish of a prawns and rice which was like a paella, followed by a very small but just right size of Cuban flan. Marcos ate with me and it cost a whole $7 for us both ! The last 2 nights have been pretty awful with grey chicken last night. The troublesome thing was in the middle of the meal on the second night a cloud of moisture swept through and everyone looked perplexed. Nobody knew what it was and got on with eating. Lina told me later it was the fumigation for the dengue Mosquitos and happens 2 or 3 times a day. Those who know are not allowed to talk about it and those who don't know don't ask!!! The smell and taste of the spray was appalling and it probably accounts for all the sneezing and sniffing that is going on around the place. I know that I am clearing my throat all the time. It is extraordinary that this news is not known all over the world, never mind in this town!
The other funny thing I found out this morning was that the power cut we had the other night in Varadero was actually Cuba wide! It was reported on the BBC but nothing about the dengue. I also discovered that there has been cholera in another part of the country. This place is like playing with fire!
Tonight I am very excited about dinner as I am eating at the Casa. There is a young British couple in the other room and they ate here last night and said the meal was really good. So tonight I am having a Spanish free night as I need a break from it and hopefully a decent meal and I am so hungry!
The Spanish lessons have been very difficult and I am finding them a bit stressful. They are for 3 hours and no break. The teacher knows her stuff but I don't think that she usually teaches to extranjeros. ( foreigners). Her speed and speech is very hard to follow, she uses a lot of vocabulary and grammar that I don't know and am surprised that she expects me to be able to follow all this exceptionally difficult grammar. The lessons in Colombia were far easier and I think easier to follow and I know that I learnt a lot there. Marcos tells me I am speaking more and better Spanish but my head is spinning at night!
I have just returned from a lovely evening at the local council chambers, for want of a better name! A lovely traditional style buiding , probably a couple of humdred years old, I am sure Nada and Ken will know where I am talking about in Parque Central, opposite the bibliotheque. There was a choral group entertaining for free! The evening started with a trio of young men with guitars singing some of the traditional Cuban music and it was better than any I have ever heard, fantastic. Didn't even have any CDs to sell as I would have certainly bought one. Next a group of around 30 people got up ( sadly only around 50 in the room ) and they sang with no musical accompaniment and were amazing! Some traditional and some contemporary music and they couldn't help but gyrate and get with the rhythm.
The evening finished with a drink in the local bar, I experienced some local 3 year old Havana rum which was pretty good!
The report on tonights dinner was excellent! Thank goodness, I feel like I have had a decent meal! A BIG plate of salad which had amazing tomatoes on it, when I asked why the casa had tomatoes but nobody else can get them, Orlando told me it was a secret and just laughed! This was followed by Deanne's secret shrimp recipe! Shrimps cooked in a criollo style salsa with white rice followed by coconut ICECREAM with caramel sauce. Very naughty I know. I will certainly eat in the house again!
Estoy volando! Adios para ahora!
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