My favorite drive was definitely the one from Guardalavaca to Banes crossing the rolling hills and seeing all the small villages along the way. This part of Cuba is much more wet and looks more fertile than the part we crossed on the west of Puerto Vita towards Gibara were the roads are very dusty. I guess that will change shortly when the rainy season begins which is soon. It looks like I imagine Cuba: mountainous, green, full of banana, papaya and mango trees, lots of gardening in the small villages and many fruit stands along the side of the road. It is not easy, nor fast, to drive, as there are a lot more carts pulled by horses or oxen in this region. Barnes is a small city, pretty busy, we went around and met a man who began to talk to us about Baseball (especially when we told him we were Americans), he is a fan of this sport as many Cubans are. We went and had a drink and he told us more about life in Cuba, the good and the not as good. He took us to a store which had lots of merchandise coming mainly from China but the price was as expensive, if not more, than the equivalent in the states, so most of the population cannot afford it. I saw quite a few people coming out again with this pressure cooker which seems to be the hot item of the month in every city we went to! We crossed paths with a friend of his that came back with some wonderful fishes for a local restaurant. He spoke to us about his family and told us he has a newborn and a 4 years old, his wife is a stay at home mom and as he was about our age, so David asked him if he had another wife before, the language barrier came into play and he understood that David asked him if he had another woman at the same time. So he answered no but that many men in Cuba have a wife at home and another woman in town. So I asked him if I could have two men if I lived in Cuba and he laughed and say “no, it is not possible!”, we had a good laugh, even the waitress was laughing so hard as she was half listening to our conversation! So I guess he was a fine representative of the “macho spirit”!