After our busy day, we returned to the ship for dinner and got ready to go partying at the Tropicana. It is interesting to note, once we went through the security into Cuba the first time, there was no one watching us go back off the ship a second time.
Getting into our chariot for the evening! The cars are lined up to go! On the way, we saw a beautiful sunset
In any event, our four antique American cars showed up. They were all convertibles and the drivers were very handsome men. We all found a car and went on our way to the Tropicana. Once we got there, we couldn’t find some of our group. Turned out one of the cars lost its clutch and they had to replace it on the fly. Those engines are basically held together with scotch tape and gum but somehow, everyone arrived at the Tropicana.
The entrance to the TropicanaThere is a building that you walk through but you are directed to the seats and the stage that are all in open air.
The
Tropicana is really awesome. It is a throwback to pre-Castro days. I was
surprised that it was outdoors. You walk into a doorway and then are led to
tables that faced an outdoor stage with lots of walkways along side the stage. Launched in 1939 on the outskirts of Havana, it
provides a mix of flash and feathers, song and statuesque dancers under the
stars. You could almost imagine
what Havana was in its heyday.
The stage area. You will see the Tropicana is 80 years old. The musicians started the show. It became much more animated after their performance. Just the start and pretty dressed for this song.
The show was fast paced and the music highlighted the rhythms of Cuba – rumba, mambo, danzonete, Latin jazz, cha-cha-cha and pulsating drums and featured so many singers, acrobats and lots of dancers, everywhere you looked. The show was electric! It went on for 2 hours.
These dancers are on narrow aisles alongside the main stage oops, a bit more scantily dressed but still big headdressesI call her lettuce womanAfter the show, the girls came up the aisles by our seats. The headdress is really heavy.
Nothing needed here.
Along with our tickets, was a 325 ml bottle of rum and a bottle of coke between two of us. Too much rum, really!
Fortunately, the cars returned for us and took us back to the ship. What a wonderful day! It is too bad more people won’t have the awesome experience. I would love to go back and spend more time in that beautiful city.
Last May, I had the pleasure of going on a “girls” cruise to Key West and a place that has been on my “bucket list” for a long time: Havana, Cuba. The trip was arranged by my friend Fran who is a cruise specialist (www.travelbyfran.com). We went on a Royal Caribbean ship (Majesty of the Seas) from Fort Lauderdale. The trip went to Key West and Havana but since I have blogged about Key West before, I am just going to talk about Havana.
In my college days, I worked at a hotel that employed many Cubans. They told stories about their homeland and spoke about the wealth they enjoyed, the wide, beautiful boulevards and beautiful homes they had to leave when Castro took over. I found the stories to be fascinating. Once Cuba was opened again, I wanted to go there. Well, I finally got there even if it was only for a day. As it turned out, we were on one of the last ships to visit Havana before it was declared off limits.
To tell the truth, I loved it. I loved every minute we were
there and it was too bad it wasn’t longer but at least we had got a little
flavor of the beauty that is Havana.
First of all, we needed a visa that you buy on-board the
ship. Once we got off the ship, we had to go through their security area and we
had to change money into their currency that was the Cuban Convertible Peso called
CUC’s. Interestingly, some places did take dollars.
The Cuban Peso AKA CUC’s. Since they are pegged to the dollar, 1 CUC is $1.00.
We also had to go on a tour guided by an officially
sanctioned tour company. I chose the 5-hour tour that ended up lasting through
lunch so it was a 7-hour tour. The buses were quite new and very clean. They were
Chinese and were clearly made for a shorter population but the good news was it
had a bathroom. The tour guide spoke English very well. She deftly left out anything
about the Castro’s. Their name wasn’t even mentioned.
We traveled through the streets. Everyone was fairly well
dressed, maybe not expensively but definitely clean and well groomed. Everyone
we met was very nice. They know that tourism is important and the people were all
very accommodating. We went by beautiful old homes that were sadly neglected. Unfortunately,
there isn’t enough money to restore them. You could imagine what they looked
like when Havana was wealthy.
On the bus tour in Havana, notice the laundry drying. We saw that all over. Buildings in downtown Havana
Among the places we saw were old Havana with Capital, the Cathedral
de San Cristóbal, the
University and the Hospitals and the Plaza de la Revolución. Around the plaza were government
buildings one of which was the Che Guevara building and the Jose Marti
building. The Plaza de la Revolución really looks more like parking lot.
It was a bit disappointing really except there were a number of old American cars
parked there. We asked the owner if we could take a seat in a turquoise
convertible. He said yes and in we sat! While we were taking pictures of ourselves
in the cars, one of us was working and hired four of the cars to take us to the
Tropicana that evening.
Government Building dedicated to Che Guevara. It is one of the buildings across from the Revolutionary Square Government building dedicated to Jose Marti located across from the Revolutionary SquareEntrance to Revolutionary Square. The square itself looks like a big parking lot.Posing in one of the old cars parked at Revolutionary Square (Two Nancy’s in the car)
We also visited the Colón cemetery and
got off the bus for a tour. The cemetery is famous and quite beautiful place
with lots interesting mausoleums to visit and learn about. The tour guide for
the cemetery took us through special parts of the cemetery including ones
dedicated to firefighters, a tomb of a dog who was so distraught when his owner
died that he sat there until he died and someone sculpted a statue that is part
of the /owner’s mausoleum. Another is a mausoleum of the man who built the stadium
for the Pan American games.
Entrance to the Colon Cemetery Firefighters Memorial dedicated to those who lost their lives fighting for the city of Havana.
One that stood out the legend of “La Milgrosa.” According to the legend, Amelia and her baby did not survive childbirth but the inconsolable widower, José Vicente Adot y Rabell could not accept it and visited every day. One day they opened the tomb and the child was in Amelia’s arms not separated as they were when they were buried in the tomb. Even today, over 100 years later, people visit Amelia’s resting place as a shrine where they could ask for protection for their children, for childbirth without complications or for couples with fertility issues. When we were there, there were lots of fresh flowers were at the tomb.
La Milgrosa . Look at all of the flowers left by people looking for help from her. A view of El MorroA view of the harbor area across from El MorroA view of the Majesty of the Seas docked across from El MorroChe Guevara home that is now a museum
We ended up at the Castillo De Los Tres
Reyes Del Morro which is the fort guarding the entrance to the harbor.
It is named for the three kings. El Morro looks very much like the fortress in
Puerto Rico. I guess if you see one, you see them all. Among other things, we
passed Che Guevara’s home called La Cabana de Che Guevara. It is a museum but
we didn’t have the time to go in.
On the way to the harbor, we passed this old motorcycle and a sidecar.
At
the end of the tour, they took us to an artist building located in the dock area
to go shopping for souvenirs. It was a building full of booths with all kinds
of art and artists. I did pick up a picture to bring home. They did take
dollars after I ran out of CUCs.
I picked up this painting at the Artists shops
When the tour was over, the guide said if we would like to go to eat at a local restaurant, they would take us with the bus as long as there was 10 people who wanted to go. Off we went to a non-government restaurant named Dona Carmel. It was a fun place with lots of cats walking around. You almost felt like it was Key West and not Havana. It was here we had our first mojito for the trip. They had a pretty extensive menu but when we asked for items it turned out all they had was local fish and shrimp. Any meat or chickens were not available because they have to wait on long lines to buy it. The mojitos were excellent! The food was good. We had rice and plantains with the fish.
Restaurant Entrance. This is a non-governmental restaurant. It is so pretty, beautiful greenery everywhere. No restaurant is complete with at least a dozen cats. This one just stood still. One thing that is still easy to get is shrimp and local fish. Any meat or chicken requires long lines and for the most part, not available. The US Consulate looking just sad waiting and waiting for someday.
On the way back, among other buildings we saw was the American Embassy. It was just sad that no one is there anymore. It is on the main street going to the port. We returned to the ship to get ready for our evening at the Tropicana.
For the most part, we stayed on the property but we did take two tours. Both of them were through the hotel. They were both wonderful and the tour guide was excellent as was the driver.
We took a private tour of Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge. It was about 90 minutes north of the resort and close to the Nicaragua border. We were told to bring a copy of our passports in case we were stopped. While that was a bit disconcerting, we went anyway. The drive took us past many different plantations including sugar plantations and refineries, coffee, and pineapple plantations as well as beef and sheep farms. Also, we saw lots of wildlife especially many birds.
Storks, egrets, roseate spoonbills are everywhere Caracara bird looking for road killRufescent tiger heron in the grasses
Caño Negro is a protected area and is considered to be one of the most important wetland areas in the world. Caño Negro is a sweet water lagoon area with a river and wetlands that total about 24000 acres. It is located between the Pacific lowlands monsoonal climate and the Caribbean coastal areas humid climate. Because of it, there is a large variety of plants, birds, and animals including many rare plants and animals.
We arrived at Los Chiles where we boarded a open tour boat. We were the only ones on the boat so we could speak with the tour guide as well as the man running the boat.
We were the only ones on this tour boat
He took us a bit out of the way to see a rare family of howler monkeys who are albino but look “red/orange.” They call him “Trump”.
This is actually an albino howler monkey who appears orange. I borrowed this picture because mine was an orange blob.
and glide up the Río Frío through canyons of green towards the everglade like Lago Caño Negro.
It was the end of the rainy season so the river was a bit high and muddyI believe this is a black crowned heronI believe this is a kite of some sortLoon
Caño Negro is also a key migratory route for birds from the north. We saw caimans, anhingas, roseate spoonbills, egrets, great blue herons, monkeys, lizards, turtles, and lots more. My very favorite was seeing a toucan.
Ctenosaur lizardSo cute, it is a capuchin monkey hanging out. Grey tanagers Willets
We also saw howler monkeys, capuchin monkeys, and spider monkeys. We found out there are 4 species that live in Costa Rica. The other one lives in jungles near the beach.
Roseate SpoonbillMy personal favorite bird is the toucan. It was awesome to see it in the wild.
Caño Negro is definitely a special place and should be on anyone’s list who visits Costa Rica.
Fast forward another 10 years and my foot pronated so I was basically walking on my ankle so it was a very difficult situation. I knew I would have to have foot surgery again and dreaded it. The good news was that I found another great surgeon who performs these type of things regularly. He said I didn’t have to do it immediately but soon. I chose to wait until the summer since it is too hot in Florida to do much outside. I hoped that by fall, I would be able to get around and enjoy life again.
This time it was a two-part surgery. The first one fused the bones behind my foot; the second fused the metatarsals to the joint. In total, my foot is now straight and has an arch (sort of). For the first month, I had a splint that was so padded that I couldn’t fit any clothes over it except for golf skirts.
It was impossible to get clothes over the splint so I had to wear golf skirts.
This time I was prepared. I knew what we had to do. This time, the house is on one floor. I bought a knee scooter so I wouldn’t need crutches.
I was able to scoot around the house. Eventually, I was pretty fast. Good thing there were hand brakes
We had a walk-in shower so we didn’t have to get over the tub (yahoo) and Mike bought a toilet seat with arms so I could get up easily. Finally, I didn’t have to work so I could concentrate on me. While things weren’t easy, it was so much better.
Two trash bags and large elastic bands later, I was ready to take a shower
July 12, 2016 was the first surgery. The worst part about it was the nerve block. That really hurt. I don’t remember the rest of the surgery except I had a rather large splint on my foot. Mike had to pinch my toes because I had no feeling in them for three days. July 26, 2016 was the second surgery. This time I tried to beg off having the nerve block but the surgeons convinced me it would be better for me to have it. This time it wore off in one day.
I went out for the first time on July 31st (5 days’ post second surgery) for lunch at the Longboat Key Club with Mike, my aunt and uncle. It felt good to get out of the house for a couple of hours. The knee scooter worked out well but sitting in the car was a challenge. The next day, we went out to lunch for our 29th anniversary. It was a lovely lunch at Jack Dusty in the Ritz Carlton. It is always fun to eat there. At that point, I wasn’t ready to go out for dinner so lunch was wonderful. I have to add that their floors are marble so it is fun to cruise on the knee scooter.
August 19th (5 weeks’ post-surgery) was a momentous day. My splint was changed out for a cast. It was supposed to be a walking cast but I really couldn’t walk on it even with a funky rubber-like sole that was added to the bottom of the cast with a couple of Velcro pieces. It just didn’t work. I don’t think it can work for anyone so I called the doctor and they changed it to a walking boot. That took some time to figure out how to really walk with it. Actually, it took a couple of weeks so the knee scooter was still part of the action for a while.
Started physical therapy on August 24th (6 weeks’ post-surgery). I have to say I went to a wonderful physical therapy place called Fyzical. Their methods were excellent and I know it really helped. They had a treadmill that used air pressure to modulate a percentage of your weight so you could “walk” at 50 or 60 or some other percentage of your real weight. The only thing that was odd was being zipped into the device. It felt like Captain Pike of Star Trek fame. They also have an underwater treadmill and that is really fun. They adjust the water pressure to make it harder to walk.
This isn’t me but it is really amazing because you can walk at 50, 60, 70% of your body weight
On September 1st, I went out without the scooter. Freedom at last! It was difficult but I was so incredibly happy. Walked to labor day party at Tiki bar in walking boot. No scooter. It was the most walking I did since surgery. Yahoo!
Seven weeks’ post-surgery, I walked with a brace and sneakers. Okay, I had to buy $170 New Balance sneakers because they had very wide ones to accommodate the brace that I had to wear. I clunk, clunked around but could walk without too much limping.
One of the things I found out as I was starting to walk without the knee scooter and any other braces was that my left foot forgot to walk. I had to stand up and wait a couple of seconds to get it to start walking. I was astounded that my foot (who I now was referring to as Frank) was just not really part of me yet. I started thinking I was only off my foot for a relatively short time but what happens to people in worse shape than I? This situation lasted a couple of months but then started to go away. By week nine, I walked unassisted (no brace) from the bed to the bathroom. Another milestone was accomplished. I also was able to walk into the bedroom closet, put on my sneakers and take Mac for a bike ride (he ran). My life was definitely on the way back to normalcy.
These sneakers were too big but had go to over a splint but I could walk again!
I also started to go back to my real life and started water exercise. By week ten, I started riding my recumbent trike. The first ride was 5 miles. The following week was 10 miles and then 15. I was so incredibly happy to take my life back.
Six months’ post-surgery, my life is so much better. I had the right surgeon and he did the right thing for me. I am walking with the dog and best of all, with Mike. My life is better than it has been in years. I don’t have to count the number of steps it would take to go shopping. I can go to a mall and not worry about going to only one store and then back to the car! Life is great!
It has been a while since I have thought about how much or how long sexual harassment has gone on in the workforce. The reason is simple. I haven’t had to work through harassment issues in a long time. It happens to most women during their career, even if they don’t realize it. So the question remains, did I imagine getting harassed? Is there a glass ceiling and is harassment part of the construct that maintains that glass ceiling? You bet there is and it does!
I have to admit, Mike and I are unabashed and unrepentant Pinot Noir fans. We love the big, chewy and/or tasty pinots. Unfortunately, many people have only had the fairly lean ones.
Our bike trip came to an end (and a great road trip it was) at Hawk’s Cay Resort. It is a beautiful place located on Duck’s Key. It was a short week ago that we left the car here. They were very gracious and let us leave the car while we went riding.
It is a beautiful property. Between the spa, docks, pools, and scenery, it was just the right place for us to land after staying in some funky places along the way. It is one of the most service oriented places we have stayed in a long time. We were there on a shoulder season so our room price was quite good. It is a fairly expensive place to stay but so worth it.
We rode up to the front of the place and dropped off our bags. Then we went to the parking lot and packed up the bikes before we checked in. The room was lovely and the bathroom had a wonderfully large shower. We both really enjoyed it after our ride and after all of the not so great showers along the way.
It was a bit late for lunch and too early for dinner so we went to the tiki bar for a celebratory drink (okay, we were ready for a drink) and some munchies. We had some chips and salsa and some popcorn shrimp. They were so delicious. The bartenders are fun as well. The drink (mojitos) were good. They held us over for dinner.
We walked around the property just to see what is there. It is a great place for families with lots of interesting pools including one that is not quite a pool but a lagoon that has a sandy bottom and filled with some fish so younger children can experience the sea in a safe environment.
There is lots of adult recreation as well with fishing, diving, kite boarding, paddle boarding, sea kayaking, and any other water sport anyone can think of. There is also lots of places to just sit at the dock of the bay.
I would imagine it would be a great spot for a business meeting although who wants to be in a meeting room when they can be outside for all the things to do. I didn’t see a golf course but it may be there. They have a big tennis area with pros that provide lessons.
We had dinner in Alma (their elegantly informal restaurant). Their wine list is quite good. The service is excellent. We shared with the garlic shrimp as an appetizer.
It was just yummy. Basically, we wanted to lick the plate. Mike had the paella and it was very good. I ordered a steak because after all of the seafood and fish we ate, I needed a steak.
While it was good, it was delivered a little cool. I would have sent it back but I was just too hungry so I let it slide but I did tell the waiter. They took the steak off of our bill which I thought was exceptional since I didn’t send it back. They also called us later that evening to offer a bottle of wine because of the cool steak. We thought they were incredibly gracious. We would go back there again simply because of their service.
We had breakfast the next morning in Ocean that had a very good buffet or you can order off a menu.
We left that morning for home. What a trip. We loved the Florida Keys, our excellent adventure, and hope to return sometime soon especially to Hawk’s Cay.
I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about performing maintenance and repairs on my trikes. I know it must be done, and I have learned enough so if something breaks down while on tour, I can usually take care of it. But for more extensive repairs and upgrades, I rely upon my local bike shop professional.
The Sandhill Crane is a common site around Lakewood Ranch. Riding our bikes through the parks and neighborhoods near our home nearly always results in more than a few sightings of the big, gangling birds with their bright red heads and grey feathers.
We stopped by Siesta Key yesterday to take a look at the The Siesta Key Crystal Classic International Sand Sculpting Festival. This festival, held every year since 2010, pits master sculptors from around the US and abroad to compete for $15,000 is prizes. The sculptures that create are truly amazing, and its well worth the trip to the beach to check it out.
