Back to Maria the Fat...

Drove back to Maria La Gorda (named after a fat prostitute incidentally!) in car with Markus and Joel (the hilarious owner of our casa) in tow.

Driving in Cuba, especially Pinar del Rio, is like playing dodge-ems with suicidal animals and huge potholes. Some roads are perfect, but others look like they haven't been maintained in 50 years.

Due to the terrible road conditions, we arrived too late to dive at 11am so we decided to wait till the next dive at 3pm.

In the meantime we enjoyed some great snorkelling close to shore. Playa Maria has undoubtedly the best snorkelling of all the beaches I went to since the water is so pristine and clear plus there are plenty of coral and fish to see without having to take a boat out.

All the while, I was unaware that my back was getting burnt to pieces. Always wear a tshirt while snorkelling folks!!

3pm eventually rolled around, but then we found out that by the time the boat had gotten prepared, and come back, it would have been around 5.30pm!! We had already decided we were going to leave at 4.30, so again we had to forgo that dive trip too... now I was thankful I had dived the day before!

DRIVING HOME CUBAN STYLEE

We had a hilarious time driving back to Vinales though. Cuba has an advanced system of hitch-hiking which is integral to a country with few cars and buses. So much so that many places have an official that forms a line of people queueing for a ride, and then allocates them a space in your car.

Tourists don't have to do this, but we decided to try it out for a bit of a laugh. Markus and I made a pact to only pick up chicas, no guys

I thought to myself, Cuba is so cool: it's the only country in the world that legally requires you to pick up chicks along the roadside!

Markus became quite adapt at whooping/whistling/beeping girls as we drove by... and he assured me "they love it!" ... hehe ya well he could be right, since at one point we had the car crammed with 3 people in the back!

After picking up a few stragglers...and one old lady who somehow managed to get in the car (but she knew where all the pot holes were, so that was handy!), we eventually arrived back in Vinales.


I managed to get a ticket to one of the final play-offs of the baseball season for the next day... Excellent!!
Baseball is a religion in this country, like football in Brazil, and this week is the final where the best of 5 games is played .. I was going to be going to the 3rd game where the local team Pinar del Rio were playing against the reigning champions Santiago de Cuba!