I really am trying to keep up with this insane twice a day schedule, even if it is killing me. In truth it's been fairly difficult at times but is easy tonight because I am hopped up on yoga balls having attended an hour and a half long yoga class this evening followed by 5 oysters at buck-a-shuck Wednesdays AND a cappuccino past my cut-off hour. I may never sleep again.
So the picture... The sign basically translates to "With Recreation and Tenacity, Defending the Revolution." I kind of jumped the gun in approaching this particular location but what the hell. This was a place we came across by chance on our way to the lagoon. We did not stop on the way but since we left the lagoon earlier than planned we asked the driver to stop on the way back. This place, called El Mundo de la Fantasia is an abandoned kids park that just sits there closed down at some indeterminant time not too long ago but open for exploring. It was filled with the kind of metal kids' park rides that have long since been retired in North America (wouldn't I love to find that retirement village) in favour of safer (read: boring) plastic park installations. It also contained loads of crumbling plaster replicas of well-known Disney characters and mysterious local cartoon characters. I think our driver thought we were just going to get out and take a few quick snaps of the entrance but before he knew it we were through the gates, disappearing inside for quite some time. He grew accustomed to our strange photo-taking requests soon into the trip and even offered to stop and indulge us without our asking on several occasions. On most occasions we explained it away by exclaiming about the beauty of the scenery or in the case of botanical gardens explaining that plants and gardens are my job. But I'm not certain he ever really got our excited interest in the broken down fantasy land. What about an old abandoned park could possibly amuse two adults of a certain age? He looked awfully bewildered when we emerged from the park. Our infant-level Spanish was not sophisticated enough to explain. I think the gist of what I said as we drove away was "vacio" (empty). It was the only word I could draw forth from my limited vocabulary.
But man, that place was so awesome I could not stop until I captured everything. Turns out I missed a thing or two anyways. In the end that is how I would encapsulate my entire picture-taking experiences in Cuba. No matter how fast I shot and how many pictures I took there was just no way I could have captured everything I saw. I missed a thing or two anyways.
Song: Everyday People Sly and the Family Stone.