I awoke this morning to gunfire, which I thought was odd as Lionel had assured us there were no guns in Cuba. Then I realized it was the 21 gun salute for Fidel Castro as his ashes were interred in a private ceremony just outside of Santiago, his home ci
ty.
After breakfast on the rooftop terrace, I took the back way to Parque Cespedes and caught a few interesting shots in the neighborhood before meeting the group in front of the cathedral for a trip out of town about a half hour to the Punta Gordo Marina.
There we boarded a catamaran for a short trip over to an island called Cayo Granma. Granma was the name of a boat in which Castro and his troops returned to Cuba from exile in Mexico to embark on the revolution against Batista. The boat is on display in Havana and not only this island but an entire province have been named for it.
The Island
, we were told, was badly damaged by hurricane Sandy and the houses were mostly small and 
in bad repair (to put it mildly). People were out and about working in boats, doing laundry, and perhaps visiting neighbors. Children were riding around on bikes and trikes, dogs wandered everywhere, but there were no cars. One fellow jumpe
d up and insisted on posing next to a banana tree. I offered him a tip which, of course, was what he was hoping for.
As I said to one of my colleagues, it was a target rich 
environment.We were told we could walk around the island in 25 minutes. For photographers, maybe more like an hour or two. I went around one way then started back the other way and saw many things I had missed from the other perspective.
At noon, we adjourned for lunch at a state owned restaurant. It was very high class and seemed to be catering to tour groups. We all had a seafood plate with lobster, fish, shrimp, and calamari. And two bottles of water, still no cerveza allowed.
We returned to the Parque and walked back to our casas for a siesta, regrouping after two hours to explore new parts of Santiago including the Plaza de la revolution which had been the site of a speech by Raul Castro the previous evening. My guide book describes the Plaza as “soulless” and I think that is an apt description. I found pho
tographing the passing cars, buses, trucks being used as buses, bicycles, and motorcyles much more interesting. We then adjourned to a waterfront park but the light was mostly gone so we vowed to return closer to sunset another
day. Then on to dinner at private restaurant outside of town where we had a big plate of barbequed chicken, rice and beans, flan and two cervezas for a mere $10 CUCs