LEGADO COMUNISTA DE LOS HERMANOS CASTRO
HAVANA, CUBA; CARRETA JALADO POR UN ASNO
Cuba Travel: Chatting with a Local from the Horse Cart
On February 20, 2009, our adventures in south-eastern Cuba continued with a horse-and-buggy ride from our resort to the nearby village of Baconao. Our chauffeur Cheno, a former farm worker turned government tourist provider, and his horse Picante took us on a relaxing 45-minute ride through the Cuban countryside.
The village of Baconao lies next to a nature reserve and is a typical rural Cuban village with unpaved local roads, simple houses, pigs grazing in people's front lawns and local residents gathering at the street corners. I walked by one of the houses on the main street and saw an older Cuban lady with a cigar in her mouth and a huge pink and grey pig lying beside her, and asked her if I could take a picture of her.
She graciously agreed and brought out her whole family for the picture. Her pig Milagro also seemed to enjoy the attention. Her son Alex knew a bit of English and German and started to talk to us tourists. He took us through his house into the backyard where he was celebrating a friend's birthday. A suckling pig was roasting on the spit and people were getting ready to party. Alex proudly showed me his fancy stereo equipment and his television, which was displaying Mexican soap operas. People in Cuba may be poor, but they do enjoy their entertainment.
We wanted to make a stop at the Laguna de Baconao on our way back, but our horse was a little too tired. So we slowly made our way back to the resort and finished off the day with a bit of table tennis and a fabulous dance show that featured 7 or 8 gorgeous female dancers and 3 male dancers. The quality of the show was surprising, considering we were in a 3-star resort that felt more like a 2-star property. But nevertheless, we were starting to get into the Cuban rhythm and were looking forward to more local explorations.
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