This morning we walked down to the ivy covered trees by the river. Mitch had warned us that it was sketchy, garbage everywhere. I didn’t mind. Before we got to the ‘park’, beside the road was lying a goat head, a chicken’s body missing the head, a gutted turtle, and a blood and feather covered gourd. Seemed like a sacrificial Santa Ria thing to me. I’d heard about this, but I couldn’t believe this was downtown Havana.
We kept walked down to the river and started coming across animal bits, and bones, and feathers etc., and continued to see more animal bits. Vultures were circling around, and there was a weird smell in the air. We took lots of photos, being careful to step around the holes in the ground, which are tarantula tunnels. We saw some knobby knuckled tarantula legs showing in one of the holes. Mitch got a good shot with the flash. Mitch kept asking if we were sure it wasn’t a chicken foot or something. Kind of looked like that.
At one point we saw the rest of the goat hanging from a tree branch.
Super sketchy. Glad I wasn’t there alone.
We also saw some leaf cutter ants doing their thing.
Then we went back to the hotel, changed, and took a taxi to the beach. It was cloudy and a little chilly there, but we rented some umbrellas and chairs and sat there. I got burned even though I was very careful to stay out of the sun. I guess I misjudged. I went into the water a couple of times. It was nice. I ordered a pina colada. The rum was all on the bottom.
Then we came back, I had a disco nap, and we got ready to go out on the town for our night shoot and flamenco show & dinner. The night shoot was really fun. I was bored of shooting along the Malecon, but Mitch made it fun… he showed us how to do pan shots. So I sat in front of a cool delapitaded building and waited for nice old cars to drive by. Got some good ones I think. Got some good sunset shots too, with some silhouettes.
A drunk old musician made friends with me and kept telling me he loved me. I took some good shots of him too. He kept trying to kiss me and I told him “no moleste” and “no mas”. He didn’t listen very well. I gave him one peso but he noticed I had another, and he said “more”. lol. So I gave him two.
He sang me an “Isabella” song.
Then we walked for quite a few blocks in a poor area with the roads all chewed up for water mains construction. There were no tourists around there. We found Plaza Vieja finally and went for dinner. I asked for vegetable paella, and got a meaty version instead. I actually ate some chicken which tasted weird to me. Then I noticed a big chunk of beef on top of my meal. I sent it back. Not impressed. But had a nice strong mojito… must have been a double at least. I got very drunk then very tired. We didn’t go see the jazz as it was $30 to get in and Mitch wanted to see the flamenco dancers instead. I would have much preferred the jazz but there you go.
Tomorrow is sleeping in until 9:00, then downtown to get some cigars. And buying Phil something.