Cuba - Day 15- January 17th Rancho Luna

Today we are set to go to Rancho Luna - a tourist place on the beach about 45 minutes from Cienfuegos by taxi. Fabio had kindly arranged for one of his "taxi" friends to drive us there. And, for 15 CUC's (about 15 Canadian dollars) he would not only drive us there, but wait for us for however long we wanted to stay and drive us back home! Can't beat that.

Our understanding was that we would leave around noon, so we had some time to do a couple of things. Bob went to the internet cafe early, then to Cubanacan to get our partial refund from the abbreviated trip around the bay a couple of days ago.

After another failed trip to the hat store, we set out for our Casa and as we neared home a cab driver approached us with "Taxi?" as they incessantly do, but we rejected him saying that we already had a taxi arranged. It turned out that he was our driver arranged by Fabio and, because of a misunderstanding about departure time, we were late!

We were instructed by Aglaes to go to the corner and wait for the orange taxi. So, we got our stuff together and hurried to the corner where the fellow we had just brushed off met us and told us to wait. He went up the street to get his vehicle and a couple of minutes later, the orange "taxi" (another ancient Lada we think and no outward sign that it was a taxi) pulled up in front of us on the fairly busy street corner.  We piled in and with Bob in the front, me in the back and the doors secured by our driver's skillful manipulation of the door handles, we were off. Of course, this being a regular Cuban vehicle, leather seats and upholstery were not included and we were treated to the usual gas and oil odours as well as the unsettling grinding sounds from somewhere in the drive train. But while this vehicle lacked some interior comforts and a quietly functioning engine and drive train, it had a couple of unique features which I noticed after a few minutes. Where there was once a radio was now a figure of a heart with an arrow through it on which were the words "I love you". And the whole icon was dotted with tiny red lights which went on whenever the brakes were applied! Neat. And, below the heart was a tiny "TV" screen which was showing a music video, and the sound system was doing its best to convey the music while competing with the engine and drive train noises and the wind whipping in the open windows. This fellow had installed in his vehicle the creature comforts that were important to him! As it should be! Unfortunately, no photos of the car.

We arrived at Rancho Luna without incident and found our way to the beach which was surprisingly underpopulated on a beautiful hot and sunny day. We had no trouble finding our own thatched beach umbrella where, after clearing away a bit of broken glass, we established camp. Note the Canadian flag in front of Rancho Luna above. I think a lot of Canadians come here.

Bob was keen to swim so he checked for a place to put on his bathing suit. Finding none, he resorted to the out in the open but behind the towel method the contortions of which were interesting to observe and he did manage it without any embarrassing exposure.

He swam, I relaxed and took a few photos.

After Bob's swim, we had a nice outdoor restaurant lunch, except for the tasteless watery beer. Then a walk along the beach.

At the eastern end of the beach - the mountains that we visited a couple of days ago, visible in the distance.

 I know - you have seen this photo before, but I include it again to show the extent of the beach and the row of thatched umbrellas along most of it, still with many vacancies. See the red bit near the centre of the photo? I think it's a bunch of red Canadian flag chairs.

After another swim for Bob it was nearing 4 pm - our agreed departure time - so we made our way to the parking lot, where we found our limo and driver waiting for us. Home please "James".