recapitulating cuba: remedios

originally founded in 1514, san juan de los remedios is 40 or 50 miles north of santa clara, a wonderful little town of under 50,000 --- once again, i had an excellent, front-row view of the city, including la iglesia mayor de san juan, built in the late eighteenth century and heavily restored in the mid-twentieth century

our home for the evening in remedios was the hotel barcelona, newly and extensively renovated, if not mostly rebuilt on the interior, in 2012 --- no complaints

they might not have had much to work with when they started, but they could have left off the faux ruined masonry wall in the lobby 

a full moon, restless sleep, and so watched the lunar eclipse --- and watched the city wake up, including the one-armed man that showed up before sun-up with a bucket of water and a rag and proceeded to wash down the late-model car parked in front of the hotel, and a couple of hours later, gaggles of uniformed school children

the lunar eclipse began a little after 4:30 am in remedios and i watched until sun-up --- there was an eclipse in april, but it was cloudy in atlanta, so i'm glad i caught this one --- it was the second of four total lunar eclipses, a "tetrad [or] series of four consecutive total lunar eclipses, with six full moons in between, and no intervening partial lunar eclipses," according to wikipedia --- some crazy christianists see it as a sign of the end times

drove to caibarien, about five miles north of remedios, and had a great tour of an old sugar factory, self-evidently interpreted even for non-spanish speakers --- we rode one of the old steam-powered sugar trains back to remedios, with mary, kent, and me in the cab with the engineers

mary's new boyfriend: "daddy yankee"