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Arriving
in a Cubana Yak-42 at Havana airport at 4 in the morning, Steve and I grabbed a
taxi to La Habana Vieja to find the house of Fernando
Espinoza, a friend of our dance teacher Jaime. We managed to ring the old
man out of bed and he called Jaime over right away.
We
spent three days in La
Habana, mostly sightseeing, dancing
and generally having a good time. One day, we visited Jaime at his dance school
where he was giving Salsa
classes to hopeless Europeans. Near the end of our stay, we even tried a
Rueda de Casino on the roof of the famous Bodeguita
del Medio.
We
then flew to
Santiago de Cuba in an old Ilyushin 18 and met my good friends Yurdania,
Yulima and a few other people I had met in December. Everybody was delighted to
see me again and a lot of warm welcomes were exchanged.
Our
short trip to Baracoa
was perfectly timed because we arrived precisely at the time of the local
Carnaval. The easternmost town of the island has an interesting history, as it
was only reachable by sea until the 1960s.
Back
in Santiago we met Ulises and Bartolo who drove us around in their beautiful '51
Buick and even let Steve and me drive at one point. We ate twice in Cuba's
best Paladar and danced
the nights away.