The bus, with the Canadian tourists and a Cuban loaf of bread, left Havana and took us on an hour ride through some of the most luscious countryside I have ever seen.
So green, so rolling, so perfect.
Miles and miles of tropical trees, flowers, vines, and grasses, farmland, and horses.
We were headed to a beach, an isolated area with a resort on white sand and a tiny village nestled behind it.
The resort had a three-story building, an old building with old wooden architecture, where quaint tiny rooms were centered around a courtyard. It reminded me of an old Clark Gable movie in black-and-white I saw years ago, and wish I could see again.
I was not fortunate enough to have a room in this building.
Across an expanse of sand and a stone path, beyond many trees, another newer building stood on four floors. As if to make up for being shunted here, I was given an entire apartment on the third floor, the entire third floor.
There was a living-room, a kitchen, and many bedrooms. But just one bathroom. Now that wouldn't have mattered, except for the fact that some men had the other bedrooms, men who spoke an unrecognizable language. Men who used the bathroom.
For some reason, they remained mysterious to me, because they came and went only during the night. I rarely saw or heard them for the entire week I was there.
Facing the beach, a large balcony with a scant railing was bliss in the heat of the day and the late cool evenings.
Meals were in a dining-room on the main floor of the old building. It had a massive patio facing the beach, with walls surrounding it and stone steps leading off it.
The beach was beautiful. The water was warm and clean. The weather was constantly perfect.
There was no entertainment. None was needed. We just lived. We visited, made friends, walked, slept on the afternoon sand, looked for treasures, and read books during drowsy evenings.
It was peaceful and friendly, just the way you'd want a country, that welcomes you as a tourist, to be.
So green, so rolling, so perfect.
Miles and miles of tropical trees, flowers, vines, and grasses, farmland, and horses.
We were headed to a beach, an isolated area with a resort on white sand and a tiny village nestled behind it.
The resort had a three-story building, an old building with old wooden architecture, where quaint tiny rooms were centered around a courtyard. It reminded me of an old Clark Gable movie in black-and-white I saw years ago, and wish I could see again.
I was not fortunate enough to have a room in this building.
Across an expanse of sand and a stone path, beyond many trees, another newer building stood on four floors. As if to make up for being shunted here, I was given an entire apartment on the third floor, the entire third floor.
There was a living-room, a kitchen, and many bedrooms. But just one bathroom. Now that wouldn't have mattered, except for the fact that some men had the other bedrooms, men who spoke an unrecognizable language. Men who used the bathroom.
For some reason, they remained mysterious to me, because they came and went only during the night. I rarely saw or heard them for the entire week I was there.
Facing the beach, a large balcony with a scant railing was bliss in the heat of the day and the late cool evenings.
Meals were in a dining-room on the main floor of the old building. It had a massive patio facing the beach, with walls surrounding it and stone steps leading off it.
The beach was beautiful. The water was warm and clean. The weather was constantly perfect.
There was no entertainment. None was needed. We just lived. We visited, made friends, walked, slept on the afternoon sand, looked for treasures, and read books during drowsy evenings.
It was peaceful and friendly, just the way you'd want a country, that welcomes you as a tourist, to be.
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