mosquitos and mojitos

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Hotel Vedado is so well'located for going out! We went for dinner in a restaurant praised by the Time Out Havana guide book(which is incidentally out of date, it says you can use USD in cuba BUT YOU CAN´T) Anyway Trattoria Marakas was a 50s american style simple Italian restaurant where crazy music videos played, muted, on a tv screen. We had pizzas which were quite good but the cheese did taste a bit weird (silly Cuban dairy products...). Then we went to our hotel bar for drinks. I´m becoming addicted to the light (and cheap!) cuban beers cristal and bucanero, decorated with palm tree and pirate respectively.

We walked down to the seafront where loads of Cubans were hanging out. Then the guidebook led us to Club Tikoa just round the corner from our hotel. We went in to check it out. It was a smallish, dark place with a video screen andalthough it seemed empty we decided to stay because they were playing Backstreet Boys. We ordered mojitos and sat down to watch the next part of the music-video-mix which was Britney Spears, 'Born to make you happy' - yay! This was folowed by other childhood classics like Craig David and NSync. The club began to fill up and eventually, the music became Cuban hiphop - amazing! The videos look just like American rappers´videos but the Cuban flag was flying and the lyrics were in spanish. Alex and I danced away and for once we really felt like we fitted in because we just blended in with the young Cuban crowd, danced with a couple of Cuban guys and enjoyed ourselves in the little authentically Cuban club that was void of tourists except for us!

We were quite tipsy by the time we decided to leave. we got back to the hotel room where the bathroom windiw was jammed open. When we turned the light on a mosquito plew in. I screamed as it chased me round and knocked my washbag in the sink as I ran out of the room and slammed the door. I then sneaked back in to rescue my possessions which resulted in more hysteria as it flew at me. Alex zipped up her hoodie and went in to bash the invader but it could not be defeated. We decided we should turn the bathroom light off and although convinced i had been bitten, I bravely offered to re'enter. Alex went to sleep in her hoodie with the sheets over her face. We woke up (i was freezing actually, very effective air con) to find we had escaped the attack unscathed. An amusing case of mosquito/mojito fuelled hysteria...

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Comments

[lesley]

mozzies
I would love to have been a fly (NOT a mosquito) on the wall that night! It must have been hilarious to witness you two doing battle with the evil-intentioned mozzie. It reminded me of a similar experience Mandy and I had in Malta with a cockroach the size of a sparrow. Don't forget to plug the mozzieguard into the socket. As with al lthings electrical, try to remember to put them out of sight during the day when the maid has access to your room or you might be charged exhorbitantly for electricity by whichever hotel you happen to be in at the time. xxxx

[Georgia]

Hello my darling Katie, I bumped into your mum today at work and she told me about your journal. So eagerly got home and logged on to read what mischief you ladies were getting up to!!! You've made me laugh tonight sounds like great fun. Loved the mosquito/mojito's blog had me rolling. Well sugar have fun and I can't wait for the latest update!!!