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Published: January 18th 2009
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Jo was up early but even after my early night I slept through until breakfast at 0800. Elizabet and her mother continued with the great food with a breakfast of eggs, bread, fruits, gingerbread, coffee and orange juice. We left the house at 0900 and headed towards the market with a wallet full of CUCs - it was shopping day.
There wasn’t a lot open at the ungodly early hour of 0900 but slowly stalls were set up and we did our first pass - getting an idea of what we wanted and some starting prices. The previous day we had found one of the few galleries in town that was owned by the artist (Gino and Isabella had recommended him) so we went back by his gallery but he was only just setting up. We filled in 30 minutes at Casa de la Trova, a music bar, having much needed lemonades - the temperature was already rising despite heavy cloud cover.
Back at Roberto Rameriz’ gallery we were undecided as to which paintings to purchase and Roberto’s prices were very appealing compared to some of the galleries we had visited previously. We ended up walking out with two
large portraits of Buena Vista Social Club members along with a Trinidad landscape and the mandatory old American car in front of Cuban house streetscape - all four for CUC50!
We spent at least another hour walking in and out of other galleries comparing Che portraits before I decided on one - the most expensive at CUC65. I hummed and hahed for 20 minutes at CUC60 before the lady asked us to make an offer. She accepted CUC50 and both parties left happy. We arranged to return later in the day to get the paperwork necessary to export paintings from Cuba - as we had also done with Roberto.
Throughout the morning Jo bought some crochet table runners, handkerchiefs and handbags whilst I splashed out on a humidor for our cigars (CUC28), some Che berets and Fidel hats (CUC4 each), a Havana Club shirt and some other hats for cricket. We also bought some wooden Bucanero and Havana Club signs for The Man Room (CUC10).
We briefly returned to our casa and dropped off the weighty purchases before getting a burger at El Rapido and heading head first back to the markets and galleries. Roberto was not
yet back from lunch so we stopped back at Casa de la Trova for a few Bucaneros and I wrote up the diary while Jo had a dance with one of the band members. Whilst we were the rain started to fall again.
We really had nowhere to go in particular but were keen to get the paperwork from Roberto - alas, his gallery was only open in the dry despite being inside and well sheltered. We managed to find out from some people in the street that “he may be back tomorrow”. We did managed to get paperwork for the Che painting though. We also filled some time in buying another Che portrait from a gallery right across from Casa de la Trova (CUC32). We were assured we didn’t need export papers for that one despite Lonely Planets information to the contrary.
Back at out casa I unwrapped the three tubes of paintings that we had accumulated and repackaged them into one roll that would fit into Jo’s pack in the hope that Cuban customs would not notice that we were exporting artwork - just in case we had paperwork issues. Dinner was chicken soup, rice, sweet
potato chips and a huge plate of shrimps in a tomato sauce. Once again an excellent meal at CUC10 each and once again washed down with a few Cristal beers. Jo went to bed after dinner but I went for a walk around town for a few hours to take photos. I saw a beautiful old motorbike and sidecar parked at the side of the road and the proud owner saw me taking a look at it. I took his address and promised to post him the photos when I returned to New Zealand. I got back to our casa and was asleep before 2130.
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