Flip Flops Beat High Heels Every Time!!!

Saturday after work we went to Baracoa.  By we I mean myself, another expat engineer, his translator and the translator's gf.  We don't require a translator for this kind of trip but we are all friends and they often come with us on our little excursions.  They have family in Baracoa and they stay there while we typically stay at a hotel called El Castillo.

Baracoa is only 70km away but it takes a tad over 2 hours to get there as the road is terrible.  Plus you need to stop for the occasional rest (one of the cubans get's car sick and I need to relieve myself from the excess beer).  I normally have to drive but this time I was able to sit back and relax as a passenger as the other expat was driving.

Now then I haven't been to Baracoa since mid-January.  Back then the air was cooler, the hotel was full and the town was busy with tourists.  On this night the town was teaming with locals celebrating some kind of festival, the hotel was empty, and the number of tourists were few and far between.  I enjoyed my first hot shower since Toronto, cleaned myself up and we hit the town.

Baracoa has a lot of little art galleries and artwork that can be bought.  We normally browse through them to see if there is anything that catches our eye.  This night the gallery had a showing of a certain artists work who reminded us of a Simpsons cartoon.  Nothing caught our eye so we stopped in the square to have a drink while we waited for our friends to join us and go for dinner.  We decided to try a paladar (private house that has a restaurant in it) that we hadn't been to in a few years.  

The place is gorgeous.  The owner has spent a lot of time and money on adding additional floors and really making for an amazing restaurant by Cuban standards.  We enjoyed a great meal and after there was a bartenders' competition.  We sat around and enjoyed the show and were provided with some of the drinks being made.  This was probably not a good idea as some of the drinks were terrible but we battle through.

Now I should probably back track.  As soon as we showed up at the restaurant I'm sure that the owner started making calls and a few batches of jinetras showed up.  Normally we just avoid eye contact, mind our own business and there we don't have any problems.  Well one of the batches were pretty aggressive.  They had our waiter come over to us seeing if they could join us, which we obviously declined.  Seeing as how that didn't work they figured that our Cuban friends with us must be to blame.  So they started picking a fight with them.  

Flash back to the drinks.  Buddy was drunk and was displaying his typical Cuban machismo bs.  They were yelling at one another.  All my fellow expat and I wanted was to have a relaxing night which this wasn't turning out to be.  We decided to make a hasty exit from the establishment to see if buddy would calm down once away from the situation.  That wasn't about to happen so we parted ways and they made their way home while we stayed in the square.  Again we drew more attention.  

This time the aggression level was cranked up to a 10 as they were following us around the streets and the square.  It was at this point that we knew we were going to have to make a mad dash to get away from them.  They cornered us and asked for a beer and we told them to wait where they were and we'd come back.  We quickly turned down a dark alley and started running as fast as we could.  I recently purchased some new flip flops and these things are meant to run in.  I no sooner start sprinting then my shoe flies about 30 ft in front of me.  I quickly catch up to the shoe, put it back on, and continue running to the hotel. 

Now then most of you would think this is a one off thing, but as the other expat and I were discussing on the way back to Moa, avoiding jineteras and general hustlers normally involves us making a dash for it.  Not that anything bad would happen to us, but we try and avoid those situations as best we can.   Can't wait to see what happens when my visitors get here!