Our trip to Cuba was much anticipated and not even the 6
hour wait at Port au Prince airport could dull our excitement. We were picked
up by our friend Roberquis in Santiago and had a great reunion with our ‘Cuban
family.’ The next 10 days in Santiago were a whirlwind and despite having great
intentions to catch a siesta in the afternoon (to recharge the batteries for
another night’s dancing) we rarely manged it, as there was always something to
do – or more than likely some home cooking round at Jorge’s to eat. (Thanks
Lourdes!).
Along with two lovely Kiwi girls on their medical electives, Sophie and Alex, we had no less than 2 rooftop parties to attend complete
with a blow up pool, dominoes, rum, dancing and roasted pig (that being for Jorge
and Lourde’s 25th wedding anniversary). We made the most of the
Santiago carnivals and parades and spent time back out at Chivirico with
Fernando’s family where we learnt to make tamales the Cuban way (and then
remake them when Fernando senior wasn’t happy that they were perfect).
Whist in Santiago we also commenced our first set of Salsa
classes with Rafa (not to be confused with Rafa of Cuban Fusion in Wellington).
He was a perfectionist and soon had us much improved technique-wise, and tired
out after our 2 hour sessions.
Following a sad goodbye in Santiago Lou and I moved onto
Trinidad, a beautiful colonial town on the central southern coast. Apart from
the throngs of tourists we had a good time practicing our moves on the dance
floor. Also it was my birthday and Lou had organised Roberquis to come up and
spend a couple of nights with us for a ‘joint birthday’ as his birthday is in
August as well. A few rums and cigars later and we found ourselves on the dance
floor having a great time. We also made it out to the beaches during the day
and walked up to a beautiful waterfall that was close to Trinidad. And what did
I get for my birthday? A Cuban Cowbell used in the local son and salsa Bands. 
We continued working our way up to Havana for our next
series of lessons led by Raimond and Marion. They were equally tough but a lot
of fun and we ended up going to a couple of night time dancing sessions with
Raimond. As luck would have it the Havana Carnivals were also in full swing and
we had a couple of nights out watching the parades, one with a great (and
sporting) couple from Italy, Claudia and Adriano, who came along also for one
of our night time dances.
We managed to pack in heaps in our three weeks and one blog
post just can’t quite do it justice. Almost certainly we will be back to Cuba
as we both feel a real affinity with the country and our friends there.
Oh and the wave from Raul?? – See below…
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