Andrea and I were married June 18, 2005 at a hacienda 30 minutes outside of Bogotá, Colombia. It was a colorful, traditional, festive wedding with lots of people and lots of flowers. I am not catholic, but I attended one on one catechism school prior to the wedding with an older very devout Catholic woman for 5 months two times a week. What an experience! Her job was to CONVINCE me that I am now a new member of the Catholic Church. I looked at the whole experience as an opportunity to learn more about the bible and practice my Spanish. Each one hour session was in old language Spanish.

The wedding was a blast. Over 30 of my friends and family from the states came out for the dance-a-thon. Midway through the wedding things started to wind down as they tend to do after several hours of dancing and drinking, until BOOM! Carnaval took over! Dozens of dancers with bright colored costumes came out with confetti, whistles and some silly dance moves. As soon as the confetti dropped, things picked up for another several hours until people were gassed out. It was a ten hour bash full of happy gringos and Colombians.

After the celebration, we took a few days to recuperate and then headed off to Cuba. The plan was to have some rest and relaxation, but also to try and get into the culture as much as possible. We didn't want to spend all of our time sitting on a beach drinking "Cuba Libres". Since we were so exhausted from the wedding and playing host to our friends and family for a week in Bogotá, we decided to spend the first three days getting some R and R. We flew to Havana and then caught another flight to Holguin, about 150 miles as the crow flies from Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. It was a weird sensation knowing that we were in a Communist country at an exclusive resort that felt like Ixtapa, Mexico and at the same time were so close to a US Naval Base that has Iraqi and Afghani militant combatants detained. On the way to our hotel I chatted it up with our driver about Cuban music and popular colloquial phrases (“¿Que bolá? meaning “what’s up?”). When we got there it was about 12am. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there were several restaurants to choose from. I enjoy the process of eating more than the average person and was eager to get down on some local cuisine. Strangely I came to learn that the hotel didn’t have a restaurant that served Cuban food. There was a Spanish, Asian fusion and international restaurant. I got my fix at the international spot. We then retired to our rooms.

The next couple days we spent most of our time at the pool and private beach. It was one of those all inclusive type deals so we did our fair share of eating, drinking and relaxing. By the end of the second day we were both getting eager to find out what Cuba had to offer beyond sun and sexy beaches. On our last day, I spent some time down by the pool hanging out at the swim up bar. Interested in finding out if anyone at our hotel knew of any little gems that we could find on our way to Havana, I began to swingle (that is swim and mingle). The next day we were set with a rental car to drive across the island. Most of the people we met were from England (the teeth and the accent were a dead give away). Other resort dwellers were from Australia, Germany and we met a really nice couple from Argentina. To get more engaged with the group I started a game where we lined up several inflatable rafts from the edge of the pool and people would try and run as far as the could without sinking or loosing their balance. It was a good way to get people loosened up. After I was declared co-champion with the guy from Argentina we migrated to the bar for a cold beer. I offered to buy everyone drinks, which is probably the oldest joke at an all inclusive resort. Everyone accepted. I was surprised to learn that most people at the resort had no plans to travel beyond the secluded “paradise” of Hotel Paradisus. Some people I talked to, had been to Cuba 2 or 3 times, but hadn’t done anything but stay on resorts. I remember thinking what a crime it was to not see the rest of Cuba. The resort bubble was such a façade and I knew there was more. Before we took off from the resort life there was something that I need to do. I saw this lady several times. As soon as I saw her the first time I turned to Andrea, “doesn’t that lady look exactly like the crazy old lady with the cooked skin and light pink lipstick from the movie Something About Mary” (look to your right). Finally I got the courage to ask her if I could take a picture with her. I made up this ridiculous story that she looked exactly like an aunty of mine.

Our next stop was the rent a car place. I am not going to get into detail about this adventure because I will just get frustrated as I write. In a nutshell, we spent 6 hours with this guy who was so pathetically lost in the process. I remained relatively cool in the process while getting the runaround in the 90 degree office. Finally we had our trusty vehicle. I had no idea what to expect as our rental car. I was hoping for a classic American car from the fifties, but I was content with the little compact Toyota tercel. And like that…we were off. The open road. Andrea and I are both lovers of Cuban music, especially Salsa. We eagerly turned the radio on rushing to find some music to accompany us on our voyage. After switching station to station, we were aghast to find nothing but talking and more talking. NO MUSIC! I felt like the radio waves had a lot of propaganda, but it was interesting to hear. We had about a 14 hour strike ahead of us with no music, but if we couldn’t entertain ourselves with some good conversation in a beautiful foreign land, we were not the right people for our each other. Needless to say, we didn’t stop driving or talking for several hours.

We reached pretty much the half way point our first day of driving. Our plan was to get to a small town called Trinidad. It is in the middle of the island southwest of Cienfuegos. When we got there, we drove through the main town and saw everyone partying and dancing in the streets. They were just finishing up a local celebration where they drive floats through the city, estilo Carnaval. There was a really strong vibe of happiness and joy as people danced flimsily smiling and waving as we drove by. We arrived to our hotel about 10 minutes from town. We took a walk on the beach. It was a long day, but we were happy to be in Cuba.

The next day we got up early, ready to hit the road once again. Right before we got on the highway to leave Trinidad, we got a flat. Fortunately, we were close to the gas station and got it fixed quickly. As we drove along the picturesque countryside we noticed how many schools there were. Cuba is known for many things, but their education is among the most important. I really enjoyed driving through small towns. Driving through one town, we saw a young couple about our age hitch hiking near a bus stop. I pulled up next to them and asked them if they wanted a ride. The looked at each other hesitantly and the man accepted in a soft voice mostly avoiding eye contact. They looked uncomfortable or nervous. I am a talker. I like to talk and I like to ask questions. I began with some small talk to try and learn more about whom we traveling with. I was curious. Small talk was like pulling teeth. They just didn’t want to talk to us. I speak pretty good Spanish, but I thought maybe they didn’t get my American accent. Andrea, a native of Colombia tried to chat it up with them. The woman did not say one word the entire 2 hour car ride to the next town and the guy would just respond, never going into detail. So we all just decided to sit in silence, no music, no talking, just Andrea and I with our new not so talkative friends.

Five hours after dropping off our compañeros, we arrived to Havana. We parked on the malecon and checked into our hotel, Ambos Mundos located in the old part of town near the Plaza de Armas. Ambos Mundos is famed as Ernest Hemingway’s favorite hotel. Apparently he used to do some of his writing on the rooftop terrace overlooking the city. After checking in, we were shown to our room. We were told that we were going to have a special honeymoon suite. The hotel was very charming and we were excited to checkout our room and ditch our bags. When we got there, we couldn’t help to notice that the king size bed we were hoping for was instead two single beds pushed together. This was not very conducive to the implied love making that is supposed to happen all the time on a honeymoon, but we made do. However, I did find myself waking up several times in the middle of the night with my arm falling into the giant crevasse created by the separated beds that felt like they were on wheels.

The next couple days we walked a lot. On our second day we stumbled on a bar called, Bodeguita del Medio tucked away in an alley. The place turned out to be a classic bar. We chopped it up with the bar tender for a couple hours and had several mojitos.

I had mixed feeling about Havana. I really liked the overall vibe, people, music and scene, but I felt bombarded by people that wanted to be your tour guide. I heard that like 70% of people in Havana work in tourism to some extent. People are really on their hustle. Andrea and I were approached a lot and we really just wanted to be alone. We finally accepted an offer to take us to a “casa de familia” to have dinner. This is where you are brought to a family’s house and they make dinner for you. The food was good, but our guide who was with his pregnant wife didn’t really get the hint that we wanted to shake’em. When the bill came it was really expensive so I had to go back to the hotel to get more money. Our guide came with me and Andrea stayed with his wife. It was kind of awkward because I eventually just told him bluntly that we wanted to be on our own. He then asked me if he could have my t-shirt. It was a strange request at a strange moment, but when I went back to my room for the money I gave him one of my t-shirts. We went back to the restaurant, said our goodbyes and hugged.

One of our last days we walked to the local market located close to “La Plaza de Revolución”.

I am going to finish my story tomorrow.