After a few hours sleep we are watching the sun rise. Today we are meandering past the capital and heading into proper old town.
As I type this at the end of the day, street vendors are blowing whistles outside and sending out tannoy messages, none of which I understand. This street is filled with loud competing music and as it is Friday night, will probably last all evening so I am breaking out the Rum and joining in.
We stocked up on essentials - to be honest it is mostly pasta and veggies. There are no chain stores or fast food places and street vendor food is eaten while batting away flies. Flies are everywhere and I swear there are more of them than people. Matt and I spotted a mighty giant cockroach today which made a beeline for a veggie store and no one flinched. That then is a hard no. I am craving beans on toast, or simply chunky buttered bread or heck a bowl of Cheerios.
Today we were smart and had bottled water before setting off. The bottle was empty 30 minutes in. We did though find a working ATM (YEY!!) apparently they are out of action more than in. We went to Hemingway's pub. The people are friendly, and we must have said no to about a dozen or more offers of a taxi.
We went to the Museum of Revolution and I needed a fan as my other has broken, and the seller wanted 10 CUC (I shook my head and said no, too much) and immediately was offered 5 CUC. We also had a lime/mint drink to cool down.
With throbbing feets we headed home and even MapMe was confused in the heat but we eventually made it. We met a family asking for 1 dollar, and a group of young girls from that family skipped after us, so I gave them a giant silver coin and they jubilantly raced back to the family as if they were holding gold, I felt guilty and immediately wanted to give them more as their reaction was so unexpected (there is always tomorrow). That coin = 1 Peso CUC = 24 local Pesos CUP. We still cant get our head around their currency. We think 0.13 of a local peso gets them a loaf of bread so the girls had 24 of them to spend.
Tomorrow is the weekend.