Santa Lucia

Monday 8th February, 2010

Santa Lucia is on the north coast but is supposed to be one to the most beautiful beaches in Cuba so we decided to have a few days at the beach.

Getting here was always going to be a problem: There is a tourist bus at 20 cuc per person but will only go if there are a minimum of 12 persons. By taxi; the guide book told us would be $30–$35 cuc, the first driver we asked told us $40 cuc; Louis, our ‘cling on’ from the other day, found someone who would do it for $50 cuc and when we mentioned it at the casa Elena made some calls and came up with a figure of $70 cuc.

However by the time we were ready to leave Elena had made some more calls; she had found us accommodation in a 3 star hotel for $35 cuc a night (there are no Casa Particulars here) and a ride on the local bus (something our guide book recommended we do at least once while here in Cuba) for $5 cuc each.

We hired a Bicitaxi to take us to the bus station. The tourist bus and the local bus leave from different stations and the rider could not understand that we wanted to go to the ‘locals’ bus station and so took us to the railway station instead. Elena had arranged for us to talk to Teresa who would get us on the correct bus and get the drive to drop us right outside the hotel; so when we walked into the wrong station it was no wonder that we could not find anyone who knew anyone called Teresa or anything about two crazy English tourists. Luckily, a scary looking woman took us in hand and rang Elena for us. While she was on the phone we realised that the taxi had brought us to the wrong place, the train station but this scary woman took us across the road and parked us in front of Teresa. The fare had gone up to 10 cuc each and the local bus was broken but she had arranged for us to go on the truck.

The ‘truck’ looked as if it should be carrying live-stock. The doorway was barely wide enough for me to drag my rucksack through and the door only opened from the outside; but we were the first on and were able to park our stuff and get a place before any locals arrived. Everyone involved in this little adventure, it turns out, was in danger of trouble if they were caught, but they all made a bit of money and the chances of being stopped were minimal. And so began the three hour journey to Santa Lucia in a truck with, at one point, over sixty people crammed inside. When someone wanted to stop they simply whistled very loudly. I had taken a picture of the truck when it was just the two of us and when Paul jokingly asked me ‘not taking any pictures then’ that I really wanted to get a shot of all these people. Gingerly I extracted the camera and held it high and only a couple of people actually saw me take the picture. One who did then, somehow, managed to change places and parked himself next to Paul. He had a nice camera himself but with no charger or camera leads it would lead one to suspect that some poor tourist went home minus his camera! The young guy could speak some English and so we attempted to communicate. He took a real liking to my camera, which I tried to convey, was not as good as his. I eventually found myself offering to attempt to charge his battery with my charger, something I knew wouldn’t work, but I felt I had to offer; he in turn was going to show us a place to eat that evening.

His battery didn’t even fit into my charger, as I had suspected, the positive/negative plates did not line up even if it had fitted in, so at seven o’clock, the prearranged time, I delivered back his camera – uncharged. We bought a beer for ourselves and one for him and his wife and chatted as best we could. It would appear that his ‘masters’ was in military but he is now a vet and his wife works in the infirmary. As we chatted a police car drove along the road, suddenly the wife and her friend moved away calling words of warning. Immediately, he placed his camera in front of me and moved away. When the danger had passed he collected his possession and explained that the locals were not allowed to talk to the tourists in this town. It seems very strange, especially as we have been staying with Cubans all the time we have been in Cuba. However, the placing of the camera in front of me reinforced the ‘stolen’ theory but I am not sure what to make of the not being allowed to talk to tourists’ story; Paul suggested that ‘he might be ‘known’ to the police!'

It was becoming apparent that his wife was getting cold and restless and wanted to go to the disco next door so we decided to go and find this paladar which really wasn’t far at all. The woman running the place didn’t say a word to us, she didn’t even try to communicate, but matey was there to interpret. I still can’t believe that we are so stupid, even after all our dealings with the Cubans, and didn’t ask how much the meal was going to cost before giving our order. We simply waited till we had finished and then asked for the bill. Although the 15 cuc is not that much money to thee and me, the meal was unremarkable and the paladar is there so that the ordinary Cuban can afford to go out to eat occasionally, therefore Paul feels that he was ‘had’ and even further disillusioned. Finally, during the night I woke to the sounds of Paul being violently sick.

The hotel is masquerading as a 3 star. The room was very, very tired indeed but the patio doors did give us a sea view. The bed was comfortable but they forgot to put any stuffing in the pillows! The hotel itself was very ‘dead’, no life anywhere. When we arrived the guy we had been told to ask for, Ariel, said that we were supposed to phone and check that there was a room available after noon, a comment that made us think the hotel was full; but as far as we could tell it was less than a quarter full. The worst thing that we had to endure was the intermittent water supply. This was not something we noticed when we first arrived because the water was on then, but after Paul threw-up during the night the cistern was empty and we were unable to flush the chain. There was a bucket in the shower and as luck would have it we had decided to do some washing and had some clothes soaking, so this was the water Paul used to flush the pan with. Then the water came back on about 7am and went off again early afternoon!

Paul felt far too ill to contemplate moving on Tuesday and so although we had only paid for 1 night on arrival we really had no choice but to stay another 2 nights. Paul did recover very slowly over the day although not enough to do anything. He spent most of the morning in bed and got up to go and sit in the sun (to warm up?) in the afternoon but then started to feel rough again and decided to go back to bed at about 5pm. Having spent most of the day bringing the diary up to date I decided to go for a walk along the beach so that Paul could have some peace and quiet. He had only just dropped off to sleep when the phone rang but by the time he had got himself together and moved round to the other side of the bed, the phone had stopped. Very soon after that he heard some bloke knock on the door of our neighbour to inform them that there would be water between 6 and 9. So having just got settled again, the phone rang and he was disturbed for a third time with the good news; this time he managed to get to it.

After returning from the walk (after being propositioned twice and hustled twice) I had a cold shower and then took myself off to dinner; the very first time I have ever eaten alone in a restaurant. Sadly I was more than ready to eat at 6.45, the restaurant didn’t open until 7.30 so instead of going back and bothering Paul decided I would have a beer in the bar and charge it to the room. Not in this hotel, cash up front or go without! On finding this out I checked if it was the same with the restaurant, which it was, and so had to go back and disturb him anyway. At the end of the meal I finally asked if I could take some soup and bread back to the room for ‘mi hombre who es enpoco infirmo’, this was OK provided I could produce a flask for the soup, thankfully, I could.