12/04/2019 – Chill day, Vinales, Cuba

We woke up naturally around 09:30 and watch some TV on the ipad, thank goodness for Netflix downloads! Today is a self-allocated chill day so we take things slow. We gradually get up and go into the village, straight to the bus station to buy our tickets for Mondays trip to Trinidad. We buy our tickets from a little bus shelter office and then pop into a café to grab some much needed coffee and brunch – the eggs, rice and banana dish we had tried the other day, honestly it’s so delicious! Then we bought some internet cards from the telecommunications office, to use later or tomorrow. We popped back home to drop our passports and bus tickets off, did a little bit more hand washing, and then went for another wander, ending in another coffee shop with some free Wi-Fi to our disbelief! We chilled there for a bit then went up to the central plaza. On the way we saw a hummingbird getting nectar from some flowers, which was so cool. I read my book in the sun whilst Josh played with his camera and went for a couple of strolls, he says he is not ready to get stuck into his book yet!

Jen readiing in the main plaza

When Josh was bored and needed some more entertainment we went down the road to share a pizza and get some shade, and drink a cold pop. Then we went back to the square and I read some more of my book in the sunshine. Some loud music started on the stage of the plaza and some of the local children performed a dance show, salsa and tango and some kind of Rihanna vibe dancing that seemed a bit inappropriate for their age, but was pretty amusing all the same! Josh realised that the compare (dressed as a crazy clown with face paint and playing games with the audience) was actually our host from our casa! Later she told us she had studied theatre! It started spitting with rain so we slowly made our way back to the casa, did our exercises (Josh wants to get beach body ready I think) had a shower and then we had dinner at the casa. They served us a noodle broth, rice, black beans, cucumber and tomato salad, chicken and potato, sweet potato, fried banana chips, and some bananas and sweet honey glazed plantain for afters. There was a loot of food, it was so yummy, so we have booked it in again for Sunday, and we are going to try and work up the biggest appetite to make the most of it! Whilst we ate there was a chick wandering around tweeting away. It managed to get inside the house and onto the finest glassware on top of the fridge before he was scooped up. Reinaldo picked it up and took it onto the roof of the house, we were laughing with him and then he told us its because we were eating the chicks mum! I couldn’t eat any more of the chicken after that… We helped clear away and then we spoke to our host to try and organise a trip to her friends tobacco field for Sunday.

We are going to stroll into the village again later as things looked like they might get quite lively, there were music and lights being put up, it is Friday night after all, perhaps time for a mojito!! (They are cheaper than water here!)

We walked through the town, there was a large room with a DJ and lights and a few tables of people buying rum by the bottle, and another venue with Cuban dancers and a singer, there was a little bit of an atmosphere in the town but it was still pretty low key, plus everywhere was charging tourists an entry fee. We didn’t find anywhere suitable to throw some shapes so we slowly went back to the casa and got into bed (so rock and roll!).