Rum and Horses

After just sitting around for a few hours, we ventured back out to find a place for dinner. We settled on a place a couple blocks from our casa. As this was our last meal and we had spent much time and effort acquiring some extra cash, we decided to go all out and get a couple mojitos. Whether or not this is a legitimate Cuban drink or something put on menus for tourists remains to be discerned, but they were quite good. For food, Greg had a sandwich that almost resembled an American cuban sandwich. It even had mustard on it! I myself thought I had ordered a chicken sandwich, but got chicken with rice and pineapple. Close enough. To follow up our mojitos, Greg wanted to try some Cuban rum so I asked our server in my severely fractured spanish which one he would choose if he was out. He brought out two types — an 11 year Santiago de Cuba for me and Havana Club Especial for Greg. Mine was a little bit smoother. It must have been that 11th year. A different server actually came over to talk just about that. There was a 20-year Santiago de Cuba rum that was available, but the consensus was that the 11 year is actually better and that’s why it was served to us. 

After the first server discovered that we were from the United States, he got very excited and kept coming out to talk with us. Evidently he went to law school . . .and is a waiter. He said his dream was to become a U.S. citizen. Clearly he is someone who aspires to much more and is not quite content with the status quo in Cuba. Practically every server in the cafe came over to talk to us at one point or another, either about the U.S./Cuba relationship or about rum. The first guy claims that we were the first Americans to come in. Tip of the spear! Hopefully we have been good ambassadors for our flawed, but admired nation.

It rained during our dinner, the only time it has done so this trip, and already stopped by the time we left. We grabbed our cameras and set out on a long walk to look for a place to watch the sky change color. Without easy access to internet, we didn’t really know what roads led to what, so it was a bit of a crapshoot. 

Speaking of crap, we had to watch our step, as there are many horses in the town that leave their calling card. Eventually we stopped at a field near some horses that had a view of the mountains and a part of the valley. It was relaxing. And that was our final sunset on Cuba . . . though we are flying Cubana Airlines tomorrow. I shouldn’t be too confident.