Baracoa 2

Saturday was May Day, so there would be celebrations. Baracoa is cozy enough to allow one to savour that without enduring much pomp. From the casa I heard street bands parading on the coastal road from Moa towards the centre. After breakfast I walked down to the main plaza, but nothing was happening there. Nothing was happening on the Malecón either, except some food stalls setting up. No sign of my fellow travellers. So I went back to the main plaza. There a local, noticing my puzzlement, told me: la puta. Huh? The whore? Ah, he must have said la punta (the point). Cuban Spanish is lazy and drops consonants. I thanked him and headed for the point.

There was a stiff onshore wind blowing, sending up fountains of seaspray and wetting the Malecón. There were bands and floats ready to parade towards the point.

This is what a Russian Lada looks like. It resembles the Fiat 124 for the unsurprising reason that it is a copy.

At the point there was a grandstand. I found the Dutch couple there. There were interminable speeches and presentations of prizes for best cooperative, best worker, best student, ad nauseum. After taking pictures, I found that I had lost the girls. So I stuck with the Dutch.

The moment the blah blah was over, and not a single local thought it too soon, festivities broke out and the beer flowed. We decided to relax on a quiet beach somewhere. Playa Duaba, to the west, visible from El Castillo, was 6 km away and too far to walk. So we headed southeast again, towards Rio Miel. The Dutch girl tired easily so we stopped to rest. A peddler kept bothering us to buy some medicinal coconut oil until I blew my top and gave him a piece of my mind. We eventually found a good spot on the beach and I had a swim in the Atlantic.

On our way back we bumped into the girls, heading out. I bought a ham sandwich on the Malecón, followed by a pork roll, which was less tasty due to fat and gristle. We had soft drinks and ice cream at the La Rusa. The Dutch went to listen to some street music and I went back to the casa to wash my clothes and have a siesta.


In the evening I went for a stroll and met the girls. There was no sign of the Dutch, maybe the girl was too tired. We hung around the plaza for a while, mingling with the locals and drinking beer. The girls decided to go to a disco with some Cuban dudes, and since disco music was not to my taste, I retired for the night.