City life in Cuba

After enjoying the islands we bounced our way into a tight little lagoon at Casilda, anchoring off a resort and then traveling in style to the historic town of Trinidad, the first in the New World and over 500 years old. Very touristy in spots but easy to get a few streets over into the rougher looking areas. It was a day of celebrating children so we enjoyed some of the parade but could see it was going to last many hours so wandered off after an hour or so. People watching is fun here.

                     The shelves are pretty bare in the only book shop we saw anywhere.

 The houses look pretty rough on the street side but most of these open out into a big central courtyard at the rear. Peeping in doors we could see very nice living areas so it isn't as bad as it appears.

We followed Steve and Helen on "Miles" out of that anchorage at high tide as they had a better chart and we didn't touch once. Anchoring once it got deeper, we waited for a visit from the Guarda Fronterra for our papers and set off to our last port, Cienfuegos.

Paperwork!!!! We had to do it all again as though we were just arriving from overseas, then because there was a marina which we anchored off, we had to do some more...12 pages to be signed just to use the marina. Not sure what it said being in Spanish but I felt like I was signing my life away.

 Lining up to buy toilet paper....there was a system. You arrive, ask who is last and then when the next person arrives you tell them you are last. It means you can walk away for a while and not lose your spot. It seems that Cubans spend a lot of time in lines...waiting, waiting, waiting....

 Beautiful people...beautiful country....so glad we had these wonderful 3 weeks here....