the helen update: cuba #day7

day 7:

after our usual breakfast at the suite - fruit plate and pineapple juice, followed by one slice of ham and cheese on a plate, scrambled eggs and toast and of course perfectly fresh preserves - fresa is our favorite (fresh strawberry preserves) served with tea/coffee. it is the same every day, which would probably start to get old, but I am not complaining!! this would turn out to be the best day of the trip :) we started out with the usual exit into the sauna (aka streets of cuba) – let the sweating commence. first stop would be the gallery of ernesto villanueva – the artist we visited in his home earlier in the week. we knew we would purchase a piece of art, especially after spending time with such a gracious man and his wife. we took awhile to select what we felt was right, and we look forward to welcoming our new painting to the beach house, coincidentally titled “sunset”! we did our last stroll down the main shopping street called obispo.

following the shopping, we asked ernestoche (driver) if he might take us for an hour or 2 to drive around the central havana area so we could take some pictures of architecture and visit some sights we had not done with the guide. we figured this would be amusing enough without yaniet to translate, but we found out that morning that our spanish translation app actually works without the internet! (better late than never on that discovery – oops!!) but of course, without the internet available, it only worked in one direction - from english to spanish. so we could tell him what we wanted, but when he replied…… ??? you get the picture...

this was the day of surprises because we found out that he was like the mayor of havana and seemed to know everyone whenever we stopped to take some pictures! suddenly, he was our secret tour guide, showing us his special city sights, for example a local park with the most beautiful cieba trees, and of course he was so excited to take pictures for us. he took us into one of his favorite little churches off the beaten path that was just lovely. he even tried to get us into a city cigar factory where they roll the cigars, which is the final step after the farm we visited earlier in the week! unfortunately, he could not work his magic to as it was closed, but we appreciated his effort. he spoke in rapid spanish to various security guards here and there as he navigated us through the city and he managed to get us a private tour of an art community we were hoping to see but was closed on monday. the place was quite incredible - the “museo organico de romerillo” - aside from being a museum itself, it is an art community where the art is integrated into the neighborhood for example, in a local grocery market, library, etc. they are working in conjunction with google and the mantra was ‘con internet yo puedo’ – which means “with internet, I can” (the opposite has been the mantra of our week!!) – and believe it or not, this place had free wifi available if you had the password. woo hoo!! apparently, they give out the password to anyone in the community, so of course there were people along the street standing around using the wifi. since the museum itself was further from the center of the city, there were not as many people milling around as usual, but I’m sure as word spreads, that will change.

while we got the royal treatment, ernestoche went to pick up his wife from work at a nearby university. he certainly saved the best for last when we were lucky enough to spend time with this little gem of a woman named sary! the happy couple (who also happened to be newlyweds), took us to a special coffee shop that is tough to describe after the fact, but the oh the charm – the seating was so unusual! there was a bed frame which had been converted into a table with the mattress suspended from the ceiling above it, a bathroom with cushions in the bathtub and on the toilet, as well as a stage coach you could sit in and the back portion of a classic car! it was hard to know where to look and impossible to really see every detail of this amazing place. ernestoche and sary were so thrilled to share this place with us, they were like little kids pointing everything out! it was adorable :) as well, it was located right on the water, so when sitting outside, there was a view of the caribbean.

following our special coffee break, we returned to havana to change and regroup before our farewell dinner with yaniet, ernestoche and sary. we picked a cute restaurant called "mama ines and enjoyed the company of our cuban friends, having so many laughs and jokes about the week, showering them with gifts and, they managed to surprise tom with a birthday cake at last to make up for the failed breakfast cake the previous morning. all in all a fantastic night which ended in a borderline tearful goodbye to "our cuban daughter" yaniet!

stay tuned for one last cuba post tomorrow.