12Cuba. Excessive leg humping.
After lunch at a wonderful open-air restaurant in Santa Fe with the best creamy lemonades ever and tiny birds in cages on the walls, we decided to walk all the way back to the marina. It was such a lovely day, if a little more sweaty then one would hope. We came upon a shop with huge ice cream cones along the whole top of the building. They didn’t sell ice cream. There was a bar on the side of the shop and when we were entering it I saw a little black and white goat running around out back. Of course I tried to exit the bar from the back to go spend time with it but it was gone when I got back there. The very excited, well dressed proprietor of the place tried to help and led me to the bathroom. “No, I said, I wanted to pet the goat”. At his blank stare I called back to Bill “YO, what’s goat in Spanish?” he looked at me for a few seconds and, cocking his head to the side, said “ca..ball…..ita?” little horse. I rolled my eyes and began making goat noises to the gentleman and petting his arm. He naturally leaned away from me, His eyes growing wide. I thought I’d better to drop it and went to sit with the boys.
We had extremely strong mojitos and watched a couple men play pool in a bar made of old wood boards that could have been a saloon in any old western.
We walked on.
We came upon a street just like any other and decided to see what was down it. It was a back neighborhood. Huge banana leaves hung over the narrow street. There were dogs everywhere. One stumpy legged one wanted us to follow him and took us into a kind of sketchy looking cul-da-sac. There were kids everywhere zooming past us and playing with balls and each other, while glancing curiously at us out of the corners of their eyes. There was a horde of teenagers, as there is in every city across the globe, smoking, laughing, sitting on each others laps, testing boundaries and feeling too much.
The yards were fenced, decorated, colorful and filled with the smells of cooking and the movement and noises of people. There were no air-conditioners anywhere so they were all outside, visiting with their neighbors, talking and laughing with their children and their children’s friends and praising or scolding the myriad dogs running around underfoot. It was a chaotic, lovely, heartwarming scene and the friendliest neighborhood we would take part in in Cuba, with the majority of the people, teenagers aside of course, smiling or waving at us as we passed. Adam and I have traveled extensively in our lives and one thing that struck us both about Cuba was that when we would smile or say hello to people as we always do, at least half the time they would ignore us or actually scowl and look away. We would find out the very tangible reason why this is, a few days later. But there in that neighborhood ,as the sun set into the sea, we were just three more people out for a stroll.
We walked all the way back to the marina. Laughing and joking with each other.
That night the yacht club was having all you can drink and dinner for $25 for a regatta that had come from Key West. They invited us to join, and we accepted. The place slowly filled up with people.
We met Phil, the commodore, and a fellow American, who had been living in Cuba for three years. He was maybe 65, with a big round head, big disarming ears and a tuft of gray hair above his forehead. His skin was brown and hard from so many years outside. He was quick to smile and he was attractive in spirit as well as aesthetics. He took a shine to us right away. He wanted to talk politics, but we begged him not to let it slip. His face said pretty much everything we needed to know but we weren’t yet 100% sure yet and we wanted to keep it that way. He gave me a copy of his book. A very official looking novel called 97 Miles South. Later, and drunker, he would give me a copy of his other book A Smugglers Blues, Marijuana Mania. “I make most people pay for these things.” He slurred, nudging me and winking.
The crew of the other boat that came into Cuba the same day we did, the one with the terrified wife, sat with us, for dinner, filling two tables. I spent the entire time chatting with the youngster of the group, a beautiful broad shouldered, big eyed girl in her mid-twenties we lovingly nicknamed Plaidy McPlaiderson for her pension for wearing plaid. We talked of nothing but our love of travel, the places we have seen, the way they made us feel alive and fresh. I also told her how it is we are traveling without working and she was excited by and grateful for the idea. Dinner came, and upon each extremely large plate were a fish filet, a chicken breast, a chicken thigh, a pork fillet, pulled pork from the pig roasted whole on site and half a cup of mashed potatoes cooked in fish broth. The former vegan in me recoiled and kept adding shit to Adams plate across the table. There was so much meat, and so much going on, he didn’t even notice and happily filled his hollow leg with enough protein for a month. Dessert was a disgusting plate of some sort of fruit sauce and a slice of Swiss cheese. Adam licked his plate clean while the rest of us abstained.
A band started playing. It was made up of five extremely attractive and talented girls. They made quite a picture. Each had a different instrument and an excellent voice. They each had their own songs, which they lead, while the rest provided harmony. I don’t mean that they each had a good voice, I mean each and every one of them could win American Idol on their own. The lead singer was a gorgeous, small brunet who’s voice was like smooth cream. She played maracas with all the sex of a pussycat doll. There was a taller blond with a thin face playing guitar, a dark, skinny girl playing an electric guitar, an even darker girl with a killer afro playing bass and another gorgeous, chocolate haired, white girl playing drums. They sang in extremely complicated and beautiful five part harmonies and salsa danced in rhythm with each other as they sang and played. It was one of the best live shows I have ever seen.
A remarkable number of people started dancing right away. Poorly but energetically. There were twenty women there that had made history sailing without men on three incredible (and massive) yachts from Key West a few days after we had. While we were dancing Bill reached his hand out for the most attractive one and she happily spent the rest of the night dancing with him until her friends dragged her awkwardly away around midnight.
Adam, tipsy from the free beer, would absolute not let me lead while dancing so I was forced to try and learn his way of salsa dancing. I couldn’t look away from his feet. We stumbled and stepped on each other and laughed until well into the night.
There was an exceedingly happy dog at the party. He had long black hair and his tail,wagged a mile a minute as he watched and skipped and jumped through the people dancing. When he came by me I reached out to him. He came right over, put his head in my lap, and wagging his tail in rhythm to the beat, stared into my eyes, blinking his deep soulful black ones. I felt my heart crack open just as it had when Boatcat first head butted my face and I had decided maybe having a cat in the house for a night or two wouldn’t hurt. ‘They would even match’ I thought as I stroked his head.
I knew I needed to extract myself from the charm of this beautiful, happy puppy immediately. I asked if anyone wanted a drink and got up and went to the bar. I peeked behind me to see the puppy happily trotting along with me. He sat patiently at the door until I came back. I went back to the table and for the rest of the night I was forced to dance on a chair or sit cross legged, so severe was his insistence on humping my leg.
After the girls quit performing, a pretty, young, blond girl began to sing to the people left at the party. She swayed her hips as an older gentlemen played guitar. She sang beautifully, jumping back and forth between Spanish and English. She was clearly a talented performer. It was this wise, articulate, talented girl, bewitching my men so they couldn’t run away, who would elucidate for us sorrowfully that Donald Trump was the next leader of our country.
She sang me out. I was drunk and tired from walking all day and once most of the party had left, it looked like everything was dwindling so I decided to head home. I thought the boys would be right behind me. As I left the party one of the guys who worked there, a mischievous man with a dirty sense of humor named Chino grabbed my arm and said “you’re leaving?? do they have to go?” indicating my men. I laughed and shook my head, “nope! They can cross the road all by themselves.”
