Camagüey 1

It seems that in Cuba black cats are lucky when they are in the house, but not on the street. Anyway, in the morning the one at the casa consented to be stroked. I got to the bus station with plenty of time to spare. There was another tourist there, a Dutchman. I saw that he was doing exercises on his Spanish textbook. He was a psychologist, from Den Haag, partly retired and going in the same direction as I was. We chatted in the bus station and on the bus, mostly about the future of Cuba. The time flew.

At Camagüey the bus station was again somewhat away from the city centre so we shared a taxi to the city. Camagüey is an access point to Playa Santa Lucia near the Cayo Sabinal area on the coast said to be unspoilt. I asked at the Gran Hotel about package deals to visit the coast, but they weren't running any because of the lack of transport. The only way to get there would be by a private taxi, costing $40 each way for a total of $80. This was for a distance of only about 40km one way. In another country there would be public transport, or with more money I would rent a car. But this was Cuba. Sigh.

My first choice of casa was full. There was only room for one at the second, which was the Dutchman's choice. However I got directed to Vitrales, run by an architect, his wife and his mother. As usual professionals were finding it more lucrative to earn hard currency from tourists than at their regular jobs. He thought he had reservations from a German couple and a couple of English girls but they didn't show up. He thought they might have been hijacked at the station by touts for other casas. So again, I took a double room, with no reduction for single occupancy.

After dinner I walked to the cobblestoned Plaza del Carmen, which held some sculptures and was said to be pleasant. It was poorly lit but I was planning to come back the next day anyway. A hustler tried to talk me up. I ignored him. There were some kids playing there and they were quite curious about me, a tourist. I took some photos and gave them some sweets.