Since today is the last day in Cuba, I take pictures of everything. Here's the "Tea Terrace" on the 2nd floor. The round things are stained glass skylights into the bar.
This is the ceiling in the entryway to the hotel.
We go out to buy the last few bits of memorabilia, Cuban rum and wine, and fill a couple plastic shopping bags with a few bottles and some tshirts. A local approaches me asking if I want to buy cigars, I ask if he has Cohiba Siglo V, and he says yes. We follow him across the square and into his house. The house itself is amazing. It was built somewhere between 60 and 100 years ago, out of concrete and marble with very high ceilings on each of its three floors. The higher levels have since been subdivided into 2 floors with about 8 foot high ceilings. The paint is peeling and there are birds inside the courtyard which is being used as a parking garage for motorcycles and a small car.
We follow our man up to the top floor, which seems like quite a hike. Along the way he's picked up a friend, and they invite us into the back past a family gathering including an older man and a woman with a baby, and into a bedroom. There are three sturdy rocking chairs, a bed, a television, a few religious decorations, a swimsuit calender, and some laundry hanging in the window. There's a ladder in the corner going up through the ceiling to the next half-level. They offer us seats, which I accept, but Mary remains standing. They start pulling out boxes of cigars of various types, but I insist on the Siglo Vs I asked for earlier. Apparently that didn't sink in, and in fact they don't have any of that type here. One of them runs off, saying he'll return shortly with some.
We hang out, and Mary accepts a seat. The remaining Cuban entrepreneur in the room offers us a cigarette which we refuse, and smokes one himself. He tells us about how hard Cubans work, and how little they're paid. Apparently his brother is a truck driver in California, and when he visits he's a big spender, giving away $10 like it's nothing. He says what I've heard before, that in Cuba no one does drugs, although they do like to drink rum. When he sees Mary has glass bottles in a single plastic grocery bag, he pulls out a pile of bags to reinforce hers with a second. At some point a woman comes down the ladder from the higher level and goes out.
After 20 minutes, an older woman comes into the room, talking to the fellow who's entertaining us. He gets up, telling us we have to go, we didn't see any cigars here, we didn't come to buy anything, the police, we have to go. We just came in to take pictures. I pull out my digital camera, and aim it at the man and the old woman, but he dodges aside, not wanting his picture taken. I don't take any photos. We go out to the staircase and go down, feigning interest in the architecture when we see a policeman standing out front looking directly in. We meander out, and I'm waving the camera conspicuously. We start walking back towards the hotel, but the policeman and his partner ask us to stop, while they're talking to an older man who's obviously complaining about something. Mary does most of the talking because they don't speak English and I don't speak enough Spanish to even understand their questions. It appears they want to know how we were treated in the house, because it houses "bad men." When Mary insists they were very hospitable, they seem disappointed, and after a few minutes let us go our way.
We've spent all the leisure time we had left this morning, so we go back up to our room and franticly pack our suitcases with all the various things we've purchased, and go downstairs to check out. Oddly, the hotel doesn't want any cash from me for the room. It turns out the Canadian travel agency paid them directly, and charged my credit card. I don't know if that's legal or not, but it's fine with me. We go out and get into a cab for the scenic ride to the airport. These are various quick shots from the car.
At the airport I can't find my ticket for the return to Nassau. I lose my place at the front of the line because I have to dig through my baggage to find it. Of course it was in the first place I looked, but I didn't see it. Once I have all the right paperwork, check in is quick and easy ($20 airport tax, and something like $15 for baggage that's above the weight limit). We buy a few postcards, trinkets, and tshirts in the airport, and eat a pair of ham and cheese sandwiches.
Eventually we board the aircraft and make the quick flight to the Bahamas. Getting through customs in Nassau is a bit more difficult, and they search two of my bags. No real problems though, no customs agent wants to dig around too long in week old dirty underwear. Another $20 cab back to the Towne Hotel, another $20 hotel tax, and we're ready to tour the area some more.
We pick a restaurant that supposed to be nearby and walk out to find it. Turns out not to be there, but the locals direct us to take a bus 4 miles to Cable Beach where a similar sounding restaurant is located. It is the right one, and we have cocktails and good meals that are 3 times as much as we can eat. Since we're at the beach, we walk around some more. Here's the view from one of the hotels there.
Another Cable Beach hotel.
The Breezes Superclub chairs inhabited by black headed seagulls.
Some sunset pictures.
The dots in the water are the local Bahamians taking their evening swim. They'd had a cookout and were scrubbing pots and pans in the sand when we walked by.
We walk all the way to the end of the beach, and decide to catch a cab. It starts to rain as we cross the street to an office building, where the security guard calls a taxi that takes 30 minutes to show up. Now the mosquitos are biting outside! We get back to the hotel, and I realize I'm coming down with a cold. Too many cocktails and temperature changes, I guess. We hang out in the room and get a decent night's sleep.
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