Fren, you wan buy a seegar?

Trinidad, Cuba

What's up, kids? So, yes, I have been totally slacking, once again, on my group emails. However, to my defense, email isn't quite as readily available here in Cuba, as it was in Ecuador. Also all the email places are state run and 6 dollars an hour. Luckily, though it's expensive, at least it's excrutiatingly slow. Oh, how wistful I am for the days of gringolandia in Quito with it's pleathera of internet opportunities. Still, the blissful ignorance of the outside world has been nice, these past couple of weeks.

So let's see, last I left you, I was still in Havana waiting for my brother, Wil to arrive. He did, and after a day of misadventures, we found each other. We spent a few more days in Havana, walking the streets, taking day trips out to the beach (my skin finally looks almost healthy again), and listening to music. Our stay was highlighted by going to the Hotel Nacional and watching the Buena Vista Social Club. We had seen numerous bands trying to replicate their music, but nothing was like seeing the real thing. By the time Sunday rolled around, I was pretty sick of old Havana. Yes it's beautiful, but it chaulk full of hustlers, prostitutes, and German sex tourists, and that can get pretty old after awhile.

Also, one other thing about Cuba. Everyone who lives here, either works for, has a family member working for, or is somehow affiliated with the cigar industry. As a result, everyone has the exclusive hook-up with a cigar factory. During the hundred yards from the place I'm staying to the internet place, I was asked six hundred times if I wanted to buy a cigar. Eventually you hardly even notice it.

So finally we headed Cienfuegos, a nice little town, a bit more relaxed, with easy access to the beach. Here, we pretty much just lolled around the plazas, sipping rum and talking drunken European sailers and pretty cuban girls. From Cienfuegos, we headed east to Trinidad. Trinidad is a beautiful historical town, with old buildings with colonial architecture and red tiled roofs, and absolutely treacherous cobble stone streets.

We spent a few days taking hot bike rides to the beach, wandering around through market-places and sipping rum, while talking to pretty Cuban girls (this seems to be a national pastime). I would have to say, though, the highlight was a nightclub we went to one night called La Cueva. The club was in the countryside above the town and when you go in you descend about fifty feet or so, walk through a tunnel, and then come out into this huge cavern that they have converted into a discotech. It had to be the most ascthetically interesting nightclub I have ever been to. The thing is though, they charge ten dollars and then it's all you can drink. This keeps all of the cuban people out, which makes it a functionally boring club. Oh well.

I almost got y'all caught up. It'll have to wait for another time. Be good. Moe