I done alright getting into bed by 11PM, but was awoken by my roommate coming home at 2AM – joys of adulating and having on one room key I suppose.
As mentioned earlier, our Casa La Cueva is directly across the street and while there is some benefit to that in regards to response time if we need them, but not so much when an electrical fault saw a government building catch fire two blocks from our Casa.
I was awoken to a whole lot of banging, crashing, shouting & hollering, so I open the front door the see 4 firies (firemen) push starting one of the two fire trucks and then head off round the corner and then the siren stops. With curiosity getting the better of me, I followed the sound of the noise to see the building ablaze.
I head back to the Casa after bit more of a wander around and sit down to breakfast to hear from our hosts that the water would be off for three hours as the towns water main water tank had to be refilled.
Today activities were split into two groups – one would undertake a 4-hour hike through the scrub to a waterfall and one that would visit some subsistence farmers to deliver essentials like detergents, toothpaste, toilet paper, colouring in pencils etc that we all chipped in for to purchase. I chose the latter and had “pleasure of experiencing one of those “life moments”.
While standing in the middle of a coconut plantation, the farmer – Raphael, who was showing us around, had a neck brace on, came up to me while his worker was demonstrating how to climb a palm tree. Raphael reaches out with is finger and traces the scar on my neck and then points to similar scar on his own neck. With our guide Victor translating we go over our injuries, treatments, high & low’s and both coming away feeling a whole lot better for sharing our experiences. For me it felt like a kindred spirit whose gone through the same shit and just trying to leave each days as it comes.
From there it was on to the Toa river for a paddle around in a leaky wooden boat and lunch on the banks of the river. Most of the afternoon was spent at Moa, one of the very few white sand beaches in Cuba. We got back into Baracoa around 5PM and decided to meet up with everyone at the main Casa around 7:30 with a couple of bottles of Havana Club rum and a carton or two of the local Bucanero beers.
I think the last time I looked at my watch it was after two AM and my roommate and Victor were out on our front stoop polishing off some rum that mysteriously appeared.
