frente frio

Yes, a cold front has hit Havana. It started out with rain last week, the sort of rain that makes you worried that your pool might overflow... And now, it's cold.

I realize that complaining about the cold in Cuba will probably garner as much sympathy for me as when I complained about finding good household help back when I lived in the DR, but this is MY blog, after all. And if you weren't used to my princess-y ways, you wouldn't be reading this, right?

So, it is cold. Why, yesterday when we woke up it was a chilly 15 degrees celcius. And today, it might only go up to 25. Will this slow down the ripening of my tomatoes? Will it chill my lettuce? Will it affect my zucchini? I'll have to remember to ask the gardener.

The difficult thing (I know, your hearts are already bleeding) was digging out long trousers for Sam to wear to school this week. Who knew we'd need them? He has 5,000 pairs of shorts, and 3 pairs of trousers. And I've taken to wearing socks in the house, as the marble floors are bloody freezing!

Outside of the extreme cold, we have been having fun here. The weekend before last, we finally found the beach that we have been looking for here: Cayo Levisa (I'll post photos soon). It is a short 110km drive from Havana - however, due to livestock and road conditions, it is a drive that takes over 2 hours! (Nothing slows you down quite like a herd of cows on a windy, hilly, holey road.)

Once you survive the drive (which is actually really beautiful when you are brave enough to stop scanning the road for cavernous potholes and look up for seconds at a time), it is a 20 minute boat ride to a tiny island, where you stay in (really, surprisingly lovely) cabanas right on the beach. They even had hot water! Every day!

And when supplemented and augmented by the goodies we brought, the food at the restaurant was downright edible, and we didn't see Sam for more than 2 hours the whole time we were there (he and his buddies were busy torturing hermit crabs - I hope that is a joke...).

So, life here is okay...