San Diego de Las Vegas to to Playa Jibacoa
Weezie and I are sitting on our bed in a honeymoon suite looking over the Caribbean and eating Pringles, apple juice and beer. This place is decked out with painted hearts, silhouettes of people passionately kissing, mood lighting and towels sculpted into swans. My how fortunes change.
We just returned from a walk through the town looking for something to eat for dinner and found nothing but chips.
The food shortage is a very real issue in Cuba there is simply not enough. People live on pizza, fried fish and rice and beans, if they are lucky, and not much else. A constant conversation with the people we meet is how much rice costs, how much cheese costs and how the rations that they receive from the government are just not enough.
On our best of days, we can find these items. They are cooked simply and presented to us with kindness and generosity. However, between you and me, eating rice and beans and flour everyday is doing a number on my guts and that is only after a week!
And then there are days like today, when there is no food in our town, thus the Pringles, but who can complain? Weezie and I are the most fortunate.
Weezie is getting adventurous. She delightedly found what she thought was a protein shake today in a small town, and came bopping down the street slurping it up. I decided that it appeared to be just the thing, but when I got to the cart, I saw that her drink was coming out of a sugar cane juicer. Diabetes in a cup. No matter, starved for variation I got one too. It made my teeth ache.
Tomorrow we continue east, and have been told that food will become harder and harder to come by. We will stock up on peanut butter bars that I have seen here and there on various food carts and bananas. We will have enough. Besides, I still have my muffin tops.