Piñar del Rio, Cuba


(I took this picture as we were driving on the road from Viñales to Piñar del Rio. We stopped for a bathroom break at the side of the road when I noticed this abandoned shell of a house. I saw two girls playing in the yard. Stu and I both love photography so we asked the girls if we could take their photo. They were natural models and the photo turned out great. It was sunset so the lighting was perfect. We gave them some gun and candy which they loved.)



Day 10 in Cuba

We decided the night before to meet at 10 AM after breakfast and head to Piñar del Rio. First we drove around Viñales a little and snapped some photos. My casa owner was beautiful and probably would have been a site to see 10-15 years earlier. It was a shame she was married. She was sweet and gave her the name of her friend in Piñar del Rio. We arrived in town and went straight to Zoima. She was this spunky 28 year old with a good attitude. I was flirting with her but she too was married. Her room was booked but she went all over helping us find 3 rooms. She was great. We kept confirming that we could bring guests home and each place said no problem. We were excited. This town seemed like it had a life and it was bigger. Instead of giving Zoima some money we decided to eat dinner at her house that night so she could make some money that way. I flirted some more with her and she was taking things well joking around.

We went off exploring the city and taking some pictures. We spent several hours eating and drinking at a neighborhood outdoor bar. So far I wasn’t seeing any hot girls which was worrisome. I still held out for hope though. In the bar we saw this nerdy looking American with this big black lady. I needed some rest so I decided to just try to relax a few hours before we ate dinner. My casa owner was super cool but the problem is their neighbor had a loud dog that kept barking all afternoon. I wanted to kill that dog. I got zero rest. I knew I couldn’t stay there more than one night. The bed also was horrible which was common in every place we stayed in Cuba. I walked up one flight of stairs to Stu’s pad. His casa owners were super cool. They had a cute daughter that lived in Havana studying in a University. We had a few cocktails then headed to dinner.

At dinner I joked around with Zoima that we wanted to meet some nice girls. I asked her to set us up with her friends. She promised to the next day but said that at this late notice she couldn’t arrange it. We had a decent meal and joked around with her. It’s funny that many of these people have very little money but several places we went had these big ghetto blaster type stereos. It was funny after dinner Zoima's mother who cooked the dinner didn't have any dessert to offer but she kept trying to give us a banana to take with us. I told her in Spanish I could try to put it in my pocket but I didnt' think I needed it. We all had a good laugh at that.

We were feeling good and decided to go to the place everyone said was good. Café Pinar was the name of it. It was predictably dead since it was still rather early. It might have been around 10 PM. Here is where the story gets interesting. I see this girl alone in the street. She was cute and I asked her if she wanted to have a drink with us. She followed us as we went to the corner store to get some beer. I tell the fellas I’m going to leave with her to my apartment. She gives me the scoop on Pinar del Rio. She tells me it’s extremely difficult for the local girls since if they are with a tourist the police automatically assume they are "working girls". She told me all the girls are scared to hang out with tourists. Then I asked why she wasn’t scared and she simply told me she wasn’t a "working girl". Ok..all the better I thought. She went on to say that no girl would go to a casa particular because they write down their ID # and the police regularly check the log books. No wonder all the casa owners were saying it’s OK to have guests. Because they knew no girl would ever come over for fear of the police thinking they were "working".

She tells me that she can't come back to my apartment but I can meet her at her place. She comes back after about 5 minutes saying her place isn't available. She asked me to please wait there. She was going to check on a friend's apartment I guess. I waited around for a while but she never came back. Stu, TAD and I were kind of surprised at the scene here. It was very depressing here. I wonder what happened to her and I hoped she was ok. I worried that something happened to her. The ironic thing was the next day as we were going to leave in our car we saw her. She walked by us without saying anything and she was crying. We speculated the night before the police saw her talking to me and they might have automatically arrested her?? I was starting to get really depressed at the local scene. I also felt guilty for just TALKING to her.

So, after this we hear about another place that has a party scene. We were originally told it was 5 blocks away. We kept walking and walking and walking. We’d ask directions and they kept saying further and further. By this point we’d just killed about 35-45 minutes. It was about a mile away but we finally made it there. I just wanted to go to this disco that the girl from Stu's casa was going to with her friends. She was all dressed up and looked pretty good. Anyway, we’re at this hotel and it looks like a total tourist hang out and we didn’t see any girls so we don’t even pay the cover. I flagged a taxi and we went to the disco club. We get to the disco and there is a very very long line and they are not letting many people in at a time. We waited but ended up leaving to check another club we heard about. It was dead! TAD was getting tired but I told them there is no way in hell I was going home without at least trying that disco again. We took a taxi back to the disco and the line was still there. We waited and waited. We offered bribes to the doormen and believe it or not they didn’t accept it.

There was a Cuban American from Miami there visiting his friends and he was drunk but also annoyed they wouldn’t let him in either. Cubans were climbing the fence to get in but that did little good because there was security at the front door. I couldn’t believe it. Here we were in Cuba and the doormen wouldn’t take a bribe to get in. Ridiculous! Finally we gave up when they said they are definitely not letting anyone else in. At that point I didn’t even care about anything. I just wanted to see the inside of this place. I couldn’t believe it. We agreed to leave the next day. There was some talk between TAD and Stu about hitting some other cities. I politely asked them to drop me off in Havana on the way to wherever they were going. It was about 2 AM when I got home. I came home and finished one of the books I brought called The Pilot’s Wife. It was actually a good book but it was kind of surreal to believe I was in Cuba at 2 AM and reading a book.