Before my bus left I went for a small walk through the village again to find a place where I could have lunch. I found a small little restaurant where I could get a burger ... it was a really tiny burger but it was a burger.
After lunch I got back to the Casa to get my things and soon it was already time to go to the bus station.
When I got there, the guy who sold me the ticket yesterday recognized me and remembered that I wanted to go to Santa Clara and told me to sneak through the back entrance of the bus station, so I could wait inside the Air conditioned waiting hall, whereas usually I would have had to wait outside until it was closer to the bus's departure.
It wasn't very long that I had to wait until the bus arrived and it was nice to be on the move again.
The bus ride itself was quite uneventful and relaxing.
The Santa Clara region is famous for its sugarcane - like many other places in Cuba - and there were large fields and smoky old refineries to grow and process their product on both sides of the road. It gave the bus ride the appropriate atmosphere and confirmed we were still in the Caribbean.
There were also these cool Sugar cane harvesting machines driving around on the fields. They are quite scary looking devices (especially when they are old and not well maintained) which look like some sort of Alien Terror Machines.
Also worth mentioning I think is, that town and each region in Cuba has very nice and artistically sculptured entrances. These could be gates with depictions of historic events, or typical produces of the region or pictures of famous people that were born here or had done something important there.
When we arrived in Santa Clara there was another guy who picked me up at the bus station. This time it was not a Rickshaw but at Lada Niva (haven't been in one of those for a while). He was also asked by the Casa to pick me up, but this time the distance to my accommodation was 3 or 4 km and I was happy to get a lift.
The driver was also much nicer than the rickshaw driver and I was happy to give him 4 CUC (3 for fare + 1 for tip).
As nice as the driver was as warm of a welcome I had by Mary, the owner of the Casa. She showed me to my room and explained everything. She was most proud of her little courtyard behind the main house, where there were thousands of little cacti on two floors. She explained to me that her son studies botany and he keeps them here but she takes care of them a lot of the time.
It really was a lovely little garden and enjoyed my coffee on an old steel chair at a little round table.
It was starting to get dark already and I thought I might go and get some food.
Mary had suggested a little place called "El Alba" which was actually not a tourist restaurant but a place where middle class Cubans would go. These places are also called Peso Restaurants as you can pay in CUP as well as in CUC in them. So far I have mostly eaten at tourist restaurants and I thought it was time to give it a go. So I went out. To get there I had to cross the main plaza of Santa Clara. Here, a lot of people were sitting on the benches, enjoying the fresh breze of the evening after the hot sun had finally gone to sleep. People were playing chess, talking to each other, chatting, smoking their cigars and just having a good time. It was nice to see that they are enjoying themselves after a hard day's work.
This is not just the case in Santa Clara but in pretty much all the towns I have been to in Cuba.
I sat down on a bench for a few minutes to enjoy the atmosphere and it didn't take long until a man came over and started to talk to me. He wanted to know where I was from, what I do, he told me he was electrician and he had been to Havana a few times. My thought's confirmed to me once more how lucky I am to have this chance of seeing so many places, meeting so many people and experiencing so many things over the last 7 months (and the 30 years before that) - and after that I can go back home to secure job with health insurance and pension and spend my evenings on the comfy couch in front of the TV.
All this went into the decision to give this man some money when after 10 minutes chat the inevitable question came if I had some spare for him. Yes, it is true, you can't (and shouldn't) give money to every beggar you meet, but sometimes, their effort and stories (even if they are made up) are worth a tiny percentage of your money, that you earn by sitting 8 hours a day at your nice desk in your air conditioned office and typing letters and numbers into a computer. - This was one of those times.
After this I went to this el Alba restaurant, sat down and selected something of the 5 or 6 options on the menu. Soon after the food came. It was very cheap, just 2.50 CUC for a big plate with some meat, rice and vegetables, but it really was not very good quality. It was ok but certainly not as good as the food I have had so far in the touristy restaurants (It was of course also only a third of the price).
To do more good for they day, I gave a hefty tip of 100 % to the waitress as I have read, this would be generous thing to do, considering this is about 10% of their monthly salary.
After a little stroll through the now empty streets I went home and watched one more film on my laptop (Prisoners - 2013) and then fell asleep.
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