Today we decided to give Camaguey a second chance. It did not deserve one. We were besieged by a squad of Bici-taxi blokes who wanted to charge 10 CUC just to go to Plaza del Carmen, eventually after a walk off (great technique that) we were back within the realms of reality at 4 CUC.
After arriving at Plaza del Carmen, a guy calling himself Morgan Freeman dressed in new camouflage fatigues, Dolce and Gabana sun glasses and some very gay (Loca) red Fila shoes latched onto us offering us a city tour all for 8 CUC for 1 hour. Took a great photo of an old man and the statue modelled on him in Plaza del Carmen, poor old bugger was 88, and missing a foot, but still up and around – Cubans are certainly troopers. Anyway we hooked up with Morgan and visited a dilapidated cemetery, a dilapidated church full of pigeon guano and cats, the magnificent and highly accurate guidebook describes it “with it’s ornate stained glass, iron work and triple spire facade, this church will be a dazzler on it emerges from its scaffold cocoon” lets just say things move slowly in Cuba and the church is still a POS, the Plaza de Revolucion (every town has one) and what was to be the standout highlight that made the day worthwhile, The Ballet of Camaguey.From our limited Spanish and Ronaldo (the ballets PR dude) limited English, I think that the Camaguey Ballet is the premier ballet in Cuba and everyone there is a professional dancer. We got to sit in on rehearsals for around 30 – 40 minutes, which was actually damn interesting. The strength, grace and flexibility of the dancers is a sight to behold, there were also numerous very tidy looking women as well as blokes packing a bit of heat. If I were in Camaguey I would run a sock business. After rehearsal had finished we then went to see how the ballet shoes are made, different shoes for practice, made from cloth right up to some very spiffy satin numbers for performances. We also got a tour of the wardrobe department. All of this for 5 CUC, value for money I thought. If we were super keen, we could have even tried on the ballet outfits, but me in tights is not a site I’d want to visit on anyone.
We then rode back into town with Morgan where things turned a bit ugly, you see we had agreed on a price of 8 CUC…….apparently this was Morgans hourly rate and we had been out for four hours. I was feeling particularly convivial as Morgan, whilst a total dick, had been a bit of fun and was going to give him 10 and take him out for a beer, but all hell broke loose once we had excited the Bici Taxi, he was shouting at me I was shouting at him calling him a Ladrone – Thief and threatening to get the coppers. He could not name a price so I through 15 in his direction and buggered off ASAP. We then went home and dropped off the camera and cash, just in case trouble was brewing and went out for a Peso Pizza to calm the nerves, as Camaguey was pretty much devoid of good drinking establishments.
Hygene in Cuba is probably not one of it’s strong points. I have been to dirtier places, but here it is more of a “I just dont care as it is not my business and I have a job thanks to communism” type of attitude. The bread business of the Peso Pizza bakery was closing up for the night, we saw the woman cover up the glass case containing the bread and also about 10 flies, the flies would have been pretty happy as they had a whole night buzzing around inside the glass case, eating bread and whatever other things flies do of an evening. We got our pizza’s which were OK, better than the previous days effort, but not in the league of the Trinidad Peso joint.
Happily after getting a bit lost on the way home,, we found a bar where we saw a Master Jinetero in action, literally withdrawing scads of cash off of a dopey AMERICAN (our first one)…….methinks later that evening he would be making a deposit as well. Comments such as “I will never eat food such as this in Cuba” and “We have so little in Cuba“, with replies like “My house is always open for you” and “My table will contain any of the foods you want” and not to mention “I know how hard you work”. To put it all in perspective this guy was wearing some designer jeans, a nice new shirt and some spiffy trainers. He would not have looked out of place hanging around with similar looking mates in your shopping mall / train station / McDonalds car park back home. So far this chic had bought all the drinks, a seafood dinner and desert…….”I see stupid people, they are everywhere, some don’t even know that they are stupid”……..although maybe I am being too cynical, maybe it was true love.
After some dutch courage we then went back to our casa and told them that we were leaving. I even managed to phone up a Casa in Santiago de Cuba all by myself and make the booking in SPANISH……it has improved quite a lot since the days of “Dos Cervecas por favour” and “Ola”. We even figured out how to make inter province calls within Cuba…no mean feat.
