Marek Is Told to Take His Clothes Off. Cuba: A Party Every Night

After briefly exploring the city, Marek decides to rent a guitar from the local cultural center for two days. The rental costs 20 CUC, while buying a new guitar would cost 55 CUC. Carrying a guitar around all the time would be inconvenient, but even walking through the streets with it creates quite a stir and attracts plenty of attention.

Later, Marek asks our hosts Luis and Yise if it would be possible to arrange a private salsa lesson. They say yes — a teacher will arrive at 5 p.m.

At five o’clock someone indeed shows up. But it quickly turns out the lesson will not take place at our accommodation. Instead, it will happen somewhere on the edge of town. Marek is placed on the back rack of a bicycle and taken there — a sight that amuses plenty of locals along the way.

Eventually he is delivered to a rather rough-looking neighborhood and asked to enter a somewhat run-down building.

Inside, his dance teacher — an older woman — immediately instructs him to take off his shoes and shirt. Marek hesitates for a moment but complies. She asks him to demonstrate what he already knows, and from there the lesson begins.

Despite the unusual setting, the teacher turns out to be excellent. In less than an hour Marek learns quite a bit.

When he limps back to the house later, his first comment is:“That was the most interesting experience of the trip so far.”

Every evening in Trinidad, the steps near the main square turn into a lively open-air dance venue next to Casa de la Música. Even on a Monday night the place fills with both locals and tourists.

Entrance costs 0.4 CUC for locals and 1 CUC for tourists. There is always live music, dancing, and sometimes special performances.

A few local characters appear there every night, buying bottles of rum and local cola, mixing their drinks at the table and inviting various foreign women to dance. Sometimes they invite tourists — including us — to join their table. Other times they simply join ours.

That evening we also run into the Dutch girls from the bus again. This time we remember their names: Sanne (28) and Eline (28) — former classmates, just like Marek and I.

Marek takes the opportunity to test his newly learned salsa skills and asks Sanne to dance a few times — whenever he manages to get a moment between the local dancers.

The girls mention that the next day they plan to take a taxi to a nearby nature park about 20 kilometers away for a short hike. Since we had a similar idea ourselves — only planned for the following day — we quickly negotiate our way into joining them.