Our casa particulare host, Jose, meets us at the bus station even though the bus is over an hour late; typical he says. A 3 CUC taxi ride takes us to his home where we're greeted by his wife who gives us a glass of chilled fresh papaya juice. He, his wife and two teenage boys live there; another son, his wife & kid(s) live across the street. Casa Villa Fuentes is a 10 minute walk from the historic center, and about a km from the base of La Loma de la Cruz. Our large clean room is on the main floor just beyond the shared living room. The bed is well-used, lumpy & soft, as are the pillows. The shower is warm enough. The downside is the street noise and constantly crying baby in the house a few feet from the bedroom window. 25 CUC per room / night. Breakfast is good, standard, at 5 CUC / pp / day; fine for the first morning however we'll go out for breakfast the following one.

Holguin is the "city of parks" with five located more or less in a diagonal line, each several blocks away from the others. The middle one is the central plaza. Holguin is also home of La Loma de la Cruz, a strategic hill and emblem of the city. All of the streets for the village were laid out from this vantage point (127m above the town) and the lookout tower was built by the Spanish during the 10 Years War, yet the 458 stone steps to the top took 30 years to complete. Like Camaguey, one of the plazas has life-like statues of everyday people (see photo gallery).

After La Loma de la Cruz, a heart-pounding, leg-burning climb up steep stone steps, we walk to and around the five most important parks / plazas and associated sites. Definitely got our exercise today! In the evening we go back to the Casa de la Trova to listen to the band playing at 5:30pm. One is playing when we arrive at 5:15 so we pay the cover charge and order a couple of beers. Most of the others in attendance appear to be band member family & friends. They play traditional cuban music rock & roll style and some original songs. They're quite good, and I was thinking we should have come earlier to hear more than their last set. At 5:30pm they stop playing and join tables for a post-gig rum or beer. The lead singer gets a glass of rum then joins our table to chat. His English is very good; we talk about his music, the band, his wife & sister (who both play keyboards in the band), his kids, life in Cuba and so on while other band members complete the break-down process. When that's done it's well past 5:30pm and I'm wondering where the next band is when the Casa Manager tells everyone he's closing for now, everyone must go. I guess the posted program is wrong! In any case, we got to listen to good music for a few minutes and have a long chat with the lead singer, worth the price of admission as they say.