Most years, Christmas means the usual turkeys, stuffing, potatoes. For years it was at my mom’s, more recently at my sister’s in Ladner. I had often wondered about going away somewhere warm for the holidays, and one such year I did.
In 2006, Karen and I – back when I was still part of a “we” – decided to go to Cuba for the holidays on our credit card travel points. It wasn’t our first time, as we’d gone to Havana a few years earlier and stayed at a casa particular, kind of a Cuban version of a B&B.
We didn’t typically stay at resorts, but we decided to head to one in the town of Trinidad de Cuba on the south coast. Trinidad is a beautiful little place, a UNESCO World Heritage Site founded in 1514. The beach resort was low key and lacked a lot of the flash of typical resorts. Although the old hotel seemed a bit stark, like something that housed old apparatchiks on party business back in the Soviet days, they had spruced up the exterior with cheery, primary colours.
It certainly provided a nice refuge from the Canadian winter. The food, of course, could have been a little better, which is pretty much the case throughout the country, but you don’t go to Cuba for the food. You go for history and culture, especially the music. (You will hear the classic song “Chan Chan,” made famous by the Buena Vista Social Club, everywhere in the country. Everywhere.)
Much of the week was relaxing, except for the sand flea bites, and Christmas dinner was casual, as we sat with some of the people we’d met during our stay – the nice couple from Dublin and a young teacher from England working in Turks and Caicos. I can’t recall what we ate for dinner, but I think they might have even served turkey, unusual in a country that didn’t have a lot of access to outside foodstuffs.
More eventful was our Christmas Day, especially lunch. We’d boarded a large catamaran with several others for some snorkeling near some islets off the coast. The waters, it turned out, were rather murky, and I could see next to nothing through my scuba mask, maybe a few fishes, some plant life, but little else.
If I was a little disappointed, my spirits perked up at the site of our lunch companions. As our catamaran approached an islet, a large group of iguanas started scurrying towards the shore at top speed. (Apparently, a group of the lizards is called a “mess” or “slaughter.”)
Instantly, everyone started to chuckle at the sight of our greeting party. This mess was happy to see us and was soon joined by two capybaras, a type of large, docile and generally inoffensive rodent. They’re a little bigger than beavers and look a little like prehistoric, monster-sized hamsters.
When we sat down for lunch, we understood why the animals had shown up. It wasn’t for our company. The creatures were only too happy to dart beneath everyone’s feet looking for bits while the group ate lunch. The guide said it was fine to feed the creatures, so we tossed over peels or chunks of fruit to the iguanas and the pair of rodents to keep them sated.
Like most of the group, I was enjoying our guests, or should I say hosts, although I kept my feet raised under the table and out of the way of the lizards. One woman from a large group of Italian tourists seemed particularly paranoid, and at one point Karen, unable to resist a prank, grabbed the woman’s thigh, which brought out an immediate shriek, followed by hearty laughter from the woman’s companions. She was a good sport and laughed, but she insisted on eating the rest of lunch standing upright on top of the picnic bench seat. Her feet were nowhere near the ground.
I know it’s not a good thing for wild animals to become dependent on humans for food, and I’m pretty sure this mess of iguanas made a daily trip to the beach to meet arriving snorkelers, but the ugly things did provide some rather merry entertainment. While I’ve had many enjoyable Christmases, I don’t think I have had one quite as memorable as my “feliz navidad” lunch with those iguanas, although I imagine for them, it was a lunch like any other lunch on any other day.
