Right now I can barely believe that less than a month ago I was still in Cuba. All those hot colors, the tropical sun, the friendly people. It was an experience I’ll never forget. Now it’s also hard to believe that I’ve been home for almost a month.
Catching up at home means there has been very little time for putting down my thoughts. It’s a beautiful spring in Connecticut. Friends told me that for a full month before I got home it was cold and dreary. I guess I returned at exactly the right moment.
On one of my first outings with friends they told me was the first warm day of the spring. The outing was a day trip to the Cloisters Museum in New York, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for those of you who are not familiar with it. It houses an impressive array of medieval art and is composed of architectural pieces of various medieval cloisters from all over Europe. Some of my oldest friends, and almost all of my ‘sheep group’ treated me to this amazing day in honor of my 60th birthday back in January. They arranged for a docent to take us through the museum, followed by lunch at New Leaf in the park.
Judy and Julie put some of their photos together to make this video, which can be seen here on facebook. Since I cannot figure out how to post it here, I’ll just put a few photos from the day. The following photos are from Jody, Judy and Julie, my “J” friends!
A stunning spring day at the entrance to the Cloisters.
The main reason for our trip!– A chance for me to see the “Hunt for the Unicorn” series again after moving away four years ago. I used to visit the Cloisters numerous times a year since I lived only about 1/2 hour from the museum–now it’s been 4 years since I’ve had the opportunity to just pop by and see what’s in bloom and visit the tapestries I love so much.
No visit to the Cloisters is complete without enjoying the wonderful cloistered gardens. Because of the protection from the elements of a cold New York winter, these gardens bloom earlier and stay in bloom later than the surrounding area. This garden, the kitchen and dye garden, has been heavily rearranged since I was last here.
After our tour we walked through the gardens of Fort Tryon Park to the New Leaf restaurant. It’s a gem, with a slate terrace for dining outside amongst the azaleas and dogwoods on an early May afternoon. For my special day there were beautiful flower arrangements on the table and a 3-course lunch. I felt like royalty….where was my tiara??
Everyone arriving at the restaurant and taking a seat. Look at those flowers!
A gathering of such dear friends, including two of my new weaving friends from Connecticut who joined me.
And lunch was amazing! Jody photographed my lunch salad. There were two choices for each course, but now I only remember what I chose….which, of course, was amazing! Now you know I’ve totally lost it when I post photos of food, but really, a meal here is such an experience!
Dessert was a mango panna cotta.
I am still on such a high. I’ll never forget it, and I won’t ever get over the thrill of it!
While I was enjoying one of the best events of my life Bob was sailing home through some very challenging weather off the Eastern Seaboard. One of the rewards for enduring those spring gales was a day of complete calm after the storm, with visits from both dolphins and a humpback whale. I know you’ll want to see the video that Dave (one of Bob’s crew members for the trip home) got of the dolphins and the humpback whale they encountered during the trip!
The following weekend was the annual lace retreat for the New England Lace Guild, and I attended for the second year. I managed to spend the whole weekend working on my project from last year’s Idrija lace class, until I finally gave up on it and started a new and simpler project in that lace. I did not take any photos while there….I was too busy working! Everyone helped me, but especially Linda and Mary. Thank you. Here is a look at my simpler project. It looks a bit like a sea creature. I hope to find something useful to do with it…
Just after Bob returned home, we took a trip down to Baltimore to visit our older son and his wife. They surprised us two-fold: first by flying our younger son out from San Francisco to join us, and then announcing the wonderful news that our first grandchild will arrive in December. So much happiness and such a wonderful few days together. They announced the news by giving me this for Mother’s Day:
When being home includes such wonderful time with family and friends, it’s very hard to ever think of going away again.
Returning home does involve a lot of house chores to get things up and running again, and a good bit of gardening too, Bob and I have managed to take some time for sightseeing in our lovely part of the world.
We took a little river cruise on Pandora one evening in the middle of this week, to a spot I just love, where we can watch the Chester Ferry crossing to Hadlyme. From this vantage point the sun sets behind us as we watch the last rays hit Gillette Castle. It is a magical place, hard to tell what century we’re in as long as we don’t look at the cars on the ferry!
This is Memorial Day weekend, and yesterday we took a drive to visit Cato Corner Dairy Farm and Priam Winery on the eastern side of the river from where we live.
Look at the charming shop on the farm property!
And inside we were greeted by an even more charming sight–a farm girl ready to serve us tastings and sell us cheese!
We took our cheese selections with us to Priam Vineyards and tasted a few white wines before choosing the one we had with lunch!
Once at home I baked a batch of sour dough bread…. what a great welcome home!
Now it’s time to stop with all this wonderful nonsense and get to work on a loom! Hopefully I’ll be talking about that in my next post!
Our final day in Cuba – Pandora on the dock at Marina Hemingway. Isn’t it a lovely spot? Most days were a bit too hot, but our last day was picture perfect.
We made plans to meet with a number of our new cruising friends for a goodbye drink—Anne and Christian aboard Tidom (France), Lars aboard Luna (Norwway), and the Trudel family (Silvain, Natali, Romane, Elisa, and Victor) aboard Masqueret (Quebec), and Addison and Pat aboard Three Penny Opera (Ontario). Some of us made plans to walk into Jaimanitas for dinner at a paladar that has a great reputation.
Jaimanitas has a section that is done in Gaudi-style mosaics, and it is a wonderfully colorful place. The mosaicist lives in the neighborhood and continues his homage to Gaudi with ongoing projects.
The paladar was also wonderful. I did not get the name, shame on me! Beautiful ambience, room after room of open air seating and terrific food. Our two best meals of the trip took place here and at the paladar in Old Havana—Paladar los Mercederes.
Early the next morning (April 29), we rose at 5.30 to head to the Guarda Frontera office to check out of Cuba. Bob took this photo of my exit interview with the Guarda Frontera before they warned him that photos are not permitted.
What a sight to see the sunrise over Havana as we headed north for Florida in the early morning. The odd shaped tower that gets a bit wider at the top on the right side of the photo is part of the sprawling Russian Embassy.
It was a rough crossing, and I did not fare well. I had about 30 hours of mal de mer on the journey to Ft. Lauderdale, and that meant that poor Bob had to stay awake and do all the navigating during the trip. He was really tired when we finally arrived.
A couple of hours after leaving we noticed a snowy egret flying very close to us. He was very far from shore and was clearly getting tired. He made quite a few attempts to land, but he was having a lot of trouble landing onboard, both because he feet are not made for perching and the wind was quite strong.
He tried several times to land on the lifelines near the stern of our boat, and he attempted to land on the dinghy up in davits a few times.
Finally he made a successful landing up on the traveler, on the windward side. He stayed with us for the entire day, and luckily we stayed on the same starboard tack for most of the day. Whenever Bob adjusted the traveler or the sails the egret got very nervous, but he did not fly away. I felt terrible for him.
Later, just a short time before sunset, we needed to tack to head up the coast of Florida. We knew it would startle our Cuban stowaway into taking flight, but we hoped he would return once the boat settled into its new course. The egret took flight and appeared to head right back for Cuba. He never even looked back. It was getting dark, and now Cuba was more than 60 miles away. As a wading bird, egrets cannot land on water. We had already watched him try to land and flounder a bit as he struggled to ascend again.
I had imagined that this bird, like all birds, must have some inborn navigation sense, and I thought there’d be a good chance that this bird knew we were sailing northeast. He might not know that there would be land to the northeast, but I was hoping he’d want to stick with us to find out. Certainly it would have been an easy trip for him if he could make peace with confined so close to us. But he headed right back to Cuba once we frightened him by changing tack. I was heartbroken by this. He had almost no chance of making it all the way back.
And speaking of stowaways…. as we left Marina Hemingway and entered the Straits of Florida, we heard the power yacht that had cleared out of Cuba just before we did, call Marina Hemingway to report what they thought were two boats in trouble: a small fishing boat far offshore, and a small sailboat. The sailor immediately answered the call to say that he was not in trouble. No info on the fishing boat–most likely because they didn’t have a radio. We saw a large Guarda Frontera cutter (possibly an ex-US Coast Guard cutter?) come out from the harbor to check things out. Look at the gun on the bow!
Moments later a bright red Donzi-type speed boat joined the cutter and both boats circled the small sailboat for quite some time. The sailboat lowered its sails and drifted as the two Guarda Frontera vessels checked things out. In the end, both Guarda Frontera boats went back to the harbor, which means they never did check out the report of a fishing boat in trouble. Hmmm….
Clearing in with Customs and Immigration in Ft. Lauderdale was quite an experience. With the quickly changing rules about US citizens visiting Cuba, no one really knows what the procedure should be right now. We expected to be visited by the health department and immigration to check for stowaways and rum and cigars, and any forbidden food items in our fridge/freezer. When Bob called to find out where we should go, he was given numerous phone numbers and no one at the other end of the line at any of these numbers knew what to do with us! In fact one phone number gave us nothing but a recorded message saying that this office is now officially closed and no one would be checking messages henceforth! 24 hours after arriving we got a phone call from one of our previously called contacts asking us to present ourselves at the immigration office at the ship terminal. We only needed to present ourselves, not Pandora, so we rented a car to get there, which allowed us the ability to do some shopping and dining afterward. When we arrived they did not look at all the papers we brought with us— such as our Commerce Dept. form that allowed us to sail Pandora to Cuba. They only looked at our passports, and asked us if we had a good time in Cuba.
Yesterday may have been our last day to visit Old Havana, and I’m so glad I didn’t know it then because I would have felt a need to rush about more. Luckily we had a relaxing day and enjoyed some kind of holiday celebration that was happening.
We are trying to figure out the best ‘weather window’ for leaving Cuba. We knew we’d get the window some time this week, and now it looks like tomorrow is the day. So, here is our loose game plan. The winds are opposing the gulf stream a good deal of the time right now, but for the next couple of days those winds are pretty mild from pre-dawn until midday. So we will leave early in the morning, and sail in the gulf stream until the afternoon, when hopefully we will be near Key Largo. At that point we’ll head toward shore, out of the stream, and sail near the Florida coast until early the next morning when the winds die down again. We’ll head back into the Gulf Stream to Ft. Lauderdale, where we hope to clear in. By doing this we get a boost of speed from the northbound currents in the Gulf Stream while the opposing winds are mild, and when those opposing winds are stronger during the afternoon and evenings, we’ll slip out of the stream into the calmer waters outside the stream. I’m sure I’ll be sick, but hopefully less so than during some of our passages this winter.
The US Coast Guard sent us an email the other day (right after Bob had just composed a message to them) to ask if we were still on schedule for returning to the US by May 1. Bob responded, and we are hoping to hear back on whether we can clear in to Ft. Lauderdale. I have my fingers crossed about this because it will be more convenient for us to arrive in Ft. Lauderdale than in Miami. My flight home is Tuesday morning, out of Ft. Lauderdale.
Bob has just heard that the no-anchoring bill in Florida will indeed go into effect on May 1, so our plans for arriving in Ft. Lauderdale have to be adjusted. We will go to Miami instead, not a first choice for either of us. I guess we will rent a car to get to my Ft. Lauderdale flight. That’s boat life for you….you can make all the plans you want, even at the last minute, when you think you’ve got everything in hand, but the powers that be just laugh and laugh.
Yesterday we went back into Old Havana to look for the headquarters of the Women’s Federation for Handwork. Over the weekend we found the retail shop where the garments are sold, but the workshop where women take courses and make things for the shop is closed on the weekends. Yesterday we had a bit of a run around trying to find the workshop. When we did find it, we learned that all the ‘professores’ were gone since classes only take place in the mornings, while we arrived in the early afternoon. Maybe it’s just my imagination, and a leftover feeling from my visit to the workshop in Santiago, but I got the distinct impression that there would be complications trying to get anyone to see me. Yesterday I got to speak to a custodian and a language teacher, but when I asked for a ‘manager’ they both responded that ‘this was not possible.’ After meeting the open and generous women on the Paseo del Prada, and sharing such an excitement for handwork in spite of our communication barriers, I just couldn’t muster enough energy at this point to care if I met the administrators of this federation. I don’t think their goals are quite the same as mine. Admittedly I do not have the ‘whole picture,’ but from my limited perspective I believe their goal is to promote traditional clothing and make a successful business training women to keep these techniques alive and make the garments ‘saleable.’ It is a business venture that needs to succeed, and I hope it does succeed because that just makes handwork more valuable to everyone. But my mission is to meet women who love handwork and want to share what they do. I found that in spades with the group of women who surround Adriana Martinez.
It was some kind of holiday yesterday, but I never understood what! Several people wished us a ‘happy holiday,’ and museums were open in Old Havana that had been closed during our previous visits. While we were in the ceramic museum, I asked our guide what holiday was being celebrated, and she replied that it was the national holiday for ceramics. Bob and I are not at all sure we understood this properly. All kinds of museums were open that have been closed during our previous visits…maybe the holiday was really about Cuban heritage. Anyway, our guide still maintained that it was a ceramics holiday.
The ceramic museum was in the home of an historic ceramic artist who had a workshop and shop on the ground floor and living quarters for his family on the upper floor. The building was from the late 19th century with a central courtyard, and it made a wonderful museum for a history of Cuban ceramic artists. Each room featured a different time period of artists’ works. The courtyard was devoted to vessels and large figures.
Our guide understood enough English for me to tell her that one of my good friends is a ceramics artist who does large figures in terracotta. I took these photos for her.
Somehow in our conversation it came about that our guide loves to knit. She took us to the entrance of the employees lounge and asked us to be very quiet since her boss was in there. She went in and came back moments later with a little bag of her knitting. It was the same ecru cotton floss type thread that the women on Paseo del Prada were using to crochet and make lace. I wonder where they get this material. Our guide told us she’d like to knit all day long, but can only find a few minutes here and there during her breaks at work. She said she never gets any time to knit at home because she has to cook and take care of her family. Sound familiar?
There were so many places open for touring or for business that had not been open all weekend long. It was a festive day, and there women dressed in traditional costumes on many street corners. You could take a photo of there for $5 CUC, which seemed a bit dear to us. Near the end of the day, Bob managed a discreet photo from a distance.
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One of the places that had been closed over the weekend was a perfumerie. We had looked through the windows of this museum/shop and admired the antique brass containers used for distilling fragrances, the wonderful colonial furniture and display cabinets, and the glass apothercary jars that held the fragrances. I was thrilled to get into this shop to see things at close range! Bob took some photos while I smelled the fragrances and bought a ceramic jar of violetta for myself and lavender for my sister.
Every store has a beautiful courtyard since they are housed in historic buildings. This is the courtyard of the perfumeria. Bob and I had been admiring the stained glass every time we walked by this building over the weekend.
In the late afternoon yesterday, Bob and I happened upon a young man making baskets from palm fronds. In his large basket he had a number of exquisite, small items made from the fronds….birds, and a little house with a cricket on top.
He was easy to talk to and knew enough English that we could communicate quite well. As Bob and I were marveling at the fineness of these tiny basket creations, he offered me one of his ‘birds.’ It appeard that he was giving me a gift, but I wasn’t entirely sure. Here again was someone offering a gift and letting fate take his generosity where it would. I put the bird back in his large basket and asked him for the little house with a cricket on top. Buying that took a bit more time and frustration than we’d anticipated! First, Bob could not find his money, and as he searched we had the sickening feeling that maybe we’d lost all our money. After a few heartstopping minutes he did find his stash of money, but then we did not have exact change to buy the little cricket. The basket maker could not make change for us. So Bob went in to the local bar to ask for change, but they did not have it either. Then the basket maker left his spot to go buy a beer which would give him change. (You can walk about the streets in Havana with alcohol). He came back smiling, and yet he still did not have the necessary change! In the end, laughing, he accepted somewhat less than his price, and he still handed me the little bird as a gift.
Bob and I went to dinner with my little house with cricket and my birdie sitting on the table before us as a quirky centerpiece. We kept admiring both these baskets, and I decided I had to have another little house with cricket as a present. I hoped we’d still find our basket maker on the street where we left him by the time we left the restaurant—which was a beautiful courtyard that had once been a print shop.
Restaurant Imprenta:
When we got back to the spot where we’d seen the basket maker, the other street artists had just finished packing up their wares and were headed home. Likely the basket maker would soon be doing the same. But we’d gotten there just in time to ask if we could watch him make a little house with cricket on top, and he seemed happy to oblige even though he still had one already made. It took about 20 minutes for him to make, and we had a wonderful conversation with him as he worked.
He started with two long palm fronds and crossed the fronds (north/south/east/west) over each other in the middle of the frond lengths. Starting with the ends that taper down to points, he began to fold each frond over the other in a consecutive direction. Since the fronds were tapering down to their outer ends the little box he was making got smaller and smaller, tapering like the fronds themselves. This made the roof of the house.
Then he went back to the other half of the fronds that led to the base of where they’d been cut from the tree, and he made the same consecutive folds for making a square. This made the house itself. Very clever. He cut some frond strips to insert into the box for doors and windows.
The exquisite litte cricket!
As he worked we talked…. He loves to make baskets and these little figures are things he ‘invents’ himself. He is always thinking of ways to make some kind of little structure or animal out of the traditional basket making techniques that he uses to make regular baskets. He took out his phone and showed us photos of his baskets. If he’d had any of these with him I would have bought some too! He does careful work that results in beautiful baskets!
I told him that I sometimes make baskets too, but not from palm fronds since there are no palm trees where I live. Bob took my phone and began showing photos of my weaving and bobbin lace since he could not find any photos of my baskets. When Bob showed a photo of my tatting the basketmaker’s face lit up and he said his wife does this! I asked if his wife also does crochet and ‘tejer,’ and of course he said yes! He said she loves these techniques and loves to work with her hands. We had a little discussion of how it feels to let our hands work the repetitive motions of these crafts while our minds are free to ponder. Making things with our hands allows our brains time to contemplate many things. He also told me he plays the piano and the violin. Someday he’d like to have a cello. He loves the cello most of all.
After giving me the little house with cricket he’d just made, he asked if I’d like him to make a snake. Naturally I said yes. I was curious to see what other techniques might be used to make these little figures, and the snake involved a different kind of manipulation of the fronds. When he finished he gave me that too. He really was most generous!
The only downside of our visit with him happened when a woman stopped for a moment to watch while he was making little cricket on top of the house for me. He offered her the one that was already completed. When he told her the price ($3 CUC) she said, “Big city prices….no thank you!” and walked away. We were all stunned. Yes, there are vendors who have high prices for things and who expect you to bargain, but these are mostly vendors who sell things that they have bought to sell. The artists we’ve encountered sell their work for very little, and I cannot imagine haggling with them. Perhaps I’m wrong about this, but how can you expect to pay even less for such an exquisite concoction of creativity? $3 Cuc for 20 minutes of work? Also, as a craftsman myself, I have stood in my own booths over the years and overheard people say that handwoven items are too expensive—that you can buy something just like it in a store for far less.
Well, you cannot buy a little basket woven house with a tiny cricket on top in any store that I know of. I was disappointed in this exchange. It would have been better for her to acknowledge what a little gem he’d just handed her, but that she could not spare the money at this time. It’s such a sad commentary that she felt she had to devalue his work in order to get away.
During all our cab trips to and from Old Havana we drive through modern Havana, including Embassy Row. The US Embassy is newly opened and has never been on the avenue where all the other embassies are. Most of the embassies are in historic colonial buildings and are quite a sight. The Russian Embassy is the exception, although it too is quite a sight! It is an wonderful example of Soviet architecture.
Tonight we’ll have drinks around the pool here in Marina Hemingway with some of the other cruisers we’ve met in the last few weeks, along with Lars whom we met as we arrived in Cuba two months ago. Some of us will walk to a local Spanish restaruant in the nearby town (Jaimentio?–something like that) to have a final dinner together. Then is farewell to Havana and to Cuba. It’s been great, but home is beckoning. Bienvenidos Florida by this time on Friday!
Everyone turns out on Sundays in Havana. The weather is always fine, so why not? I found more women crowded around Adriana late Sunday morning., and we had another session of exciting talk about handwork.
Since Adriana’s table was not covered in other people’s work in need of her advice, she showed us the progress she has made on her lace blouse. She is more than half finished. Very soon I became too involved in conversations to take any photos, so I’m glad Bob took a lot!
Look at the wonderful work these women are doing. A beautiful bobbin lace (bolillo) piece.
Tatted sleeves, anyone? I would never have thought of it! This is tatting with pearl beads, and is a stunning piece. In black and white it would make the most elegant eveningwear, attached to a silk tunic. The tatting was perfectly done. Doesn’t it look fabulous on Adriana? She did not make it, but since she was wearing the perfect green tank top she had to model it!
I happened to wear one of my Turkish scarves, which all the women loved. They asked to take photographs of it because they want to try their hands at crocheting this type of edging with fun, dangly flowers. I bet they’ll have it figured out in no time!
Dazmira has her own booth nearby Adriana, where she displays her crocheted blouses, little girls’ dresses, handbags and hats. She buys large containers of the pull-tabs from beer bottles for $1 CUC (about $1.15 US) with which she embellishes many of her handbags and hats. She also crochets with plastic shopping bags and old video tapes. You can find her on Facebook as Dazmira. I’ll post a link when I get home.
As is typical in Cuba, you cannot give a gift without getting something in return, though this has taken almost two months for me to realize. I think this is what caused some awkwardness when I gave away some spools of tatting thread to the teacher at the Women’s Federation in Santiago. Here, though, it was wonderful to see Adriana’s face light up with the spools of lace thread I brought for her. She showed me a baby’s outfit she made with this type of fine cotton. She took the pattern for a handkerchief edging (perfect square opening in the center for the neckline) and adapted it to make the bodice of a little boy’s one-piece suit. I got weak in the knees when I saw the lace bodice on this outfit, but I could not bring myself to buy it. I don’t have any grandchildren yet, and I don’t want to jinx it!
Instead I bought two beautiful pieces of tape lace and a small Torchon centerpiece.
Adriana gave me a pair of tatted earrings done in navy and pale blue with fire polished crystals! I treasure them!
I don’t remember this woman’s name, but she turns out a lot of elaborate tatted projects. She made the interesting green and white beaded sleeves, and here she is modeling (against her will) a lacy tatted hat that has not been starched yet. It will be such a frivolous and fun accessory when it’s finished.
The materials available in Cuba dictate the projects these women make. Most of the cotton threads are thicker than we are familiar with for doing tatting or bobbin lace. If I’d known so many of these women tat, I would have brought much more of that. Ah, well. The tatting projects and bobbin lace projects are done with cotton that is considerably thicker than what we use in the US. Some of it looks like cotton floss, but even thicker—almost like a 12 strand floss. I can see it is NOT easy to work with in tatting because it splits so easily. Still, these women manage very well.
Adriana believes that they can now receive mail from the US. Boy, I hope so. I will send them more fine threads to work with. They oohed and ahhed over the threads I brought with me, and of course you can fit a lot of thread in a small package. The problem will be with mail service between the US and Cuba, and hopefully Adriana is right that things have already changed.
Internet in Cuba is challenging since it is rationed, so although there is plenty of information online these women cannot access it. I bet it will be at least a month before I settle back into taking internet access for granted when I get home. It’s been highly frustrating here!
There were two handwoven scarves on Adriana’s display. When I questioned her about them she told me they had been woven by a man. I made all kinds of motions to describe a rigid heddle loom, and she was nodding her head through my whole pantomime, so I think that’s what was used to weave these scarves.
Adriana is very interested in having instructions to make a simple floor loom, so I will be on the lookout for that when I get back home. I have not found any handweaving in Cuba, and she confirmed that herself. She did not know the word for handwoven in Spanish, nor the word for ‘loom.’ She was calling it the ‘machina por maya,’ the machine for fabric, until I wrote down the word ‘loom’ for her in her notebook.
Hidalgo joined us again, and Adriana teased him that he already knows so much about handwork he should start crocheting himself! And that’s when I learned that he paints, and sculpts and does woodworking in his free time. The people who have booths on the Paseo del Prada are very interesting, and I know I would enjoy getting to know them better! I hope we can stay connected through email…we have all exchanged email addresses.
In the end we discussed the value of handwork. When I said that not many women do handwork in the US, and that when they see it for sale many women are shocked at the price we ask for handwovens, lace, knitting…etc. These Cuban women agreed. They said young women in Cuba want inexpensive, manufactured garments. We agreed that in both the US and in Cuba women who do handwork are the biggest supporters of textile handwork! We buy from each other! In the photo below, from left to right: me, Adriana, Nancy, and Dazmira.
Later in the day, near the restaurant we enjoyed on Mercederes we found a small gallery of woodcut prints. A group of artists were working together, sharing a printing press that had been donated by Unicef. The gallery itself was part of a beautiful historic building.
We ended the day with an early dinner at an outside café called Dominica, where the music was more intoxicating than the mojitos! First a band of men playing xylophone, bongos, guitar, saxophone and string bass, followed by a ‘girl band’ playing keyboard, saxophone, bongos and string bass, with a wonderful female lead singer. Beyond mariachis there are some other interesting percussive instruments, including a hollowed out gourd that has grooves incised along one side. You play it by rubbing a stick across the grooves, and it adds a wonderful rhythmic nuance to bongos and mariachis. I don’t know what it’s called—maybe it’s just called what it is!—a gourd. I love the rhythms of Cuban music— samba and bossa nova. Fantastic! You cannot sit still to this music, which must by why Cubans, and many tourists, are always dancing!
Normally I would never do this, but I had to put up four posts all at once today. I hope you will page back through them! We have had no internet for 10 days now, but lots of wonderful experiences during that time. So please, please take a look!
