BTW

• I thought it was interesting when we went for a walk with Izmarie in Matanzas and Vero jokingly said she needed to find a boyfriend in Cuba and by the time we got back to the house, left the groceries and headed to the beach a couple of blocks away (literally within a 15 mins timeframe), a handful of women had already heard about Vero's comment and wanted to hook her up with a young guy they were with. They might have been serious about their marriage propositions to Vero (we all knew it was for papers or 'kraata' as we say in GH) but Vero was only kidding and was quite embarrased at how seriously they took it. All i can say is, news sure travels fast in Matanzas.
• Funny how a lot of the guys here look alike. We noticed how every 3rd guy in Matanzas looked like Jorge.

• I noticed that a lot of women and men are big in Cuba. There were a lot of them with their bellies hanging out, but they were not bothered in the least about their weight and coming from a health and fitness crazy city like Vancouver, this was a refreshing change. The interesting thing is that a lot of the locals here do actually exercise regularly. I noticed quite a few women working out every evening....going for brisk walks with weights or jogging, including our own Izmarie who seemed to exercise 2x a day. But no-one struck me as being super fit or buff. If only they'd cut down on the deep fried pork, chicken and plantains, but thats probably why they exercise to have a balance. Good for them.

Photo copyright of S. Baran

• I actually felt very comfortable on the beaches here even though i felt i was out of shape. Compared to a lot of the rubenesque Cubans and pudgy tourists, i looked svelte....sad to compare this way, but true.
• The 2 common utterances...if you can call them that....i keep hearing here are: 'Caborone' (swear word of some description) and 'Mi Madre' - my mother. I hear this a lot when someone is trying to lift something heavy or they hear some thing incredulous.
• So far we haven't been hassled as much as we thought we would be. Just one woman begging for milk for her child. We read that this was a common scam here and because it was illegal to beg for money, people would use this method and when you bought milk for them they'd go and trade it in for money.