Bye mogotes. Hello Caribbean Sea. Cuban chronicles. Day 7.

After waking up as I do regularly since landing on this island -at 5 am with the roosters voice-, I got hungry but managed to sleep again, quite an accomplishing for me.

After breakfast, it was the time for packing the car and leave Viñales to drive 415 kms to Cienfuegos. Bye Mogotes.

We managed to score a good time rate even though we kind of got lost in the suburbs of Havana.

Sugarcane growings are common to see alongside the road.

To get to our house for the next night, we had to drive all across the city until we got to the residential area of Punta Gorda (just like in Montevideo). Cienfuegos faces the Caribbean Sea but has no beaches in town. However, there is a nice place called "La Punta" that is very popular among locals to go fishing or just take a short dip.

The "malecón" in Cienfuegos' Punta Gorda district.

Even though the trip was a bit shorter than expected, we barely got to say hi to María Esther, our host for today before asking her where could we go for a swim. We took off like the roadrunner.

The get to know each other talk with María Esther would have to wait until later.

We left the house just minutes after arriving, but there's always time for a selfie showing my room witha an ocean view.

So, here the thing here is a bit different from the other places we've been in. Most of the people have a "vibe". I see lots of people with USA flag T-shirts and I don't see the same extreme friendliness as in Havana or Viñlaes. I even had to deal with a guy that started following me and looking at me in a disgusting way while I was taking photos (well, actually you can run into as*ho*es like that pretty much everywhere and no matter if you are traveling alone or with company).

The gazeebo in "La Punta", the place for relax in town.

After the incident and my first dip in the Caribbean Sea, it was time for food and I jumped on our bread with sardines as if there was no tomorrow. Yes, my stomach is still in bad shape, but my digestive system seems to be bipolar and swithces between "I could eat a whole human being" and "everything makes me sick", so as anyone could have predicted, after that I was begging for a cup of tea, which I could not get. What I could get, however, was a magic potion of concentrated chamomille in a drugstore and it seems to be the only thing that makes me feel better. Besides, I loved that this medicine came in a small vintage jar.

Between the pointless look for tea and the drugstore marvel, we got to a street where there was a crafts market. There were good stuff but everything was pretty similar to the things we had already seen in other markets. One thing came to my attention while walking there though, there was this cultural centre with Orishas' music coming out of it. That's another different thing, there isn't salsa coming out of everywhere.

The crafts market in the historic downtown of Cienfuegos.

At blue hour we got to a pier while a crowd of tourists were running back to their cruiseship (I still don't get what people see in this kind of trip).

Sunset is magic everywhere.

On our way back to the house I payed more attention to it. The construction is of an American style, originally it belonged to Maria Esther's son in law family, that emigrated after the revolution started. I can see the see from my room. I want to continue with our trip, Cienfuegos didn't make it for me, I didn't feel like in Havana or Viñales. Let's see what Trinidad has to offer. See you tomorrow.

*You can read the original version of this post in Spanish here.

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