Saturday, 22 February 2020: Havana

“Today is go?”  As we were leaving breakfast this morning, our waitress asked if today was our last day.  Yes, time to go back to Havana and start the trip home.

The last few days found us hanging out by the pool, reading, and just hanging out.  We were able to watch the debate on Wednesday.   Bloomberg faced his first “gloves off” jump into the deep end of the pool.  Do we really want to change one ego-maniacal billionaire for another?  Justin thinks we are ready for a woman president; we’re both liking Amy Klobuchar more and more and we’ve liked Pete Buttigieg from the beginning.  Elizabeth Warren seems to have dropped down a bit and Biden, well Biden?  

Sanders continues to climb.  We will see.  

The shoreline along this part of the northern coast was either volcanic or coral but rough and uneven.  This strange terrain extends perhaps 50 yards back from the water.  And that means you don’t really have access to the water... and if you could get there, one good wave and you’d be all beaten up on this craggy shore.  Thankfully the pool was perfect.  I’d booked this hotel with continental breakfast included.  That was a great stroke of luck since the Cuban continental breakfast included a full cold buffet, full hot buffet, pastries, omelets made to order and a barista ready to make our coffee.  That was a nice unexpected treat.  The lunch and dinner buffets were comparable and grand.  Our favorite dish however was a carbonara that we could get at the outside bar.  I could have had that each evening.  

And now, the story of Justin’s shoe.  One evening before dinner we walked out to take pictures of sunset.  Justin ventured a bit farther into the questionable terrain; he wanted to get the perfect shot.  What he found instead was an exposed ten-twelve inch sewage drain.  Ground cover had grown over the opening, but when he stepped on the opening, he found himself in the hole up past his knee.  Thankfully he took a few minutes to think as he planned how to extract himself from the hole.  Had he pitched forward ever so slightly, we might have been dealing with broken bones.  Once out, he was down one shoe.  Ever the prepared  Boy Scout, he got out his flashlight, reached down inside the hole for his shoe, and toppled it farther down out of his reach.  Limited to only 10kg on our flight, Justin only had one pair of shoes with him.  Oh my my!!!    After he got himself a bit cleaned up (multiple scrapes and lacerations as well as huge gouge in the shin) he limped into dinner with one shoe.  

The next morning, we tracked down one of the groundskeeper to try to get a hoe, a spike, an anything to try to reclaim the shoe.  Yes, in this entire resort there was only one individual who could help us.  We started about 8am.  The nice lady at the desk told us to enjoy our breakfast first, (with one shoe) then maybe... Remember when we said that Cubans don’t have baggies for the plane, they weren’t too ready to let go of their garden tools to drop down a hole.  In one of the bodegas Justin found a wire coat hanger.  The groundskeeper wasn’t pleased at all when he saw Justin bending the coat hanger into a nice straight line.  (We did replace it later with a nice plastic hanger from our room. ). Twenty minutes later, Justin rejoined me, this time with two shoes and a story... my goodness what a story!

Meet Nutmeg, our favorite dog at the resort.  

We brought him treats regularly.  

No, we will not be taking him home.  

So, yes, “today is go.”  Justin had the pool to himself for his last swim.  Not surprisingly, it was a bit too cold for me.  We jumped in our taxi at 11:30 and within thirty minutes, Elana greeted us back at our hotel in Havana.  


We took advantage of one last change to roam in Havana.  We stumbled across an old car museum...

We roamed through a vegetable market for locals...

 We found a few more mojitos and great music ...

By late afternoon it was pouring down rain so we took a pedi-cab to dinner where we shared our table with two guys from Germany.  I ordered my favorite -- Ropa Viega.  Literally translated as "old clothes", the pork is stringy, like old clothes.  Shredded and yummy!  perfect for our last evening.