Santa Clara
“I have a good feeling about this town!”I call to Weezie as we wend our way down towards Remedios. Maybe it is because of the Avocado trees towering nearly forty feet tall on either side of the road, along with stately palms and fields of sugarcane.
Or maybe it is because of the Brahmin-like cattle staked to the fence posts along the side of the road. Their long, silken chest flaps hanging between their knees calling to be caressed. Their proud horns warning that I better not dare and their tufted shoulder humps giving them a bit of a camel-like appearance. All evolved to help them modulate the heat and all making them fascinating creatures to observe.
Or maybe it is because we have been coasting down hill for the better part of twenty minutes and the feeling of exhaustion is segueing into euphoria.
Or maybe it is because the town we are heading to is named “Remedios”, which means “Solutions”, and that seems like a pretty good sign. But, no matter, I feel good energy undeniably pulling us towards it.
“You and your premonitions!”, calls Weezie, but I think she feels it too.
A mile or two more and we find ourselves sailing into the main square. There we find a beautiful park, surrounded by the traditional pastel colored colonial buildings and the oldest Catholic Church in Cuba. There is even a Moroccan flare here from the Spanish/Moroccan influence. It is a lovely place, but best of all, we hear music, rising up and out of the Casa de Cultura on the square.
Like bees to honey are pulled to the open arched doorway and are immediately invited to haul our bikes up and in, to participate fully in the show without a worry about bike security.
The music is loud and passionate, full of multiple rhythms and sweet melodic singing. It is an eight piece band; drums, guitars, horns, percussion and some instruments that I have never seen before. We are spell bound. We sit in a foyer that has more columns than walls and we let the cool breeze and the music wash over us as our sweat dries.
A gentleman comes by and gives us each a plastic cup of sweet sherry. A beautiful woman in her eighties with hair to her waist, wearing a long pink skirt and a colorful scarf beams at us as she shakes and shimmys, dancing more elegantly than I ever will.
“We are celebrating the music school of this town today,” she shares between songs, “Thank you for coming!”
Weezie looks at me as she sips her drink and taps her toes on the polished brick floor. “You are a little witchy.” she says. The truth is, it isn’t difficult to take a gamble on finding goodness in a place like this, but she can think that I am witchy if she wants t