Saint Lucia, December 2017, Soufriere, canon, ©Sylvie G Continuer la lecture de summer evening
Archives de catégorie : travel diary
soir d’une nuit d’ete
Sainte-Lucie, décembre 2017, canon, ©Sylvie G Continuer la lecture de soir d’une nuit d’ete →
Ernest Heminghway, La Habana and rum
La Habana, Cuba, January 2018, canon digital, ©Sylvie G
I read only one book by Ernest Heminghway, The Old Man and the Sea, when I was very young, but this book has left a mark on me. Heminghway’s « iceberg » style is part of my quest for simplicity when I write prose or poetry. I did not know much about him when I was in La Habana, but I could not miss the mention of his name in many places, including the Ambos Mundos hotel, where he lived in the thirties ( he lived in Cuba for about twenty years). It inspired me to read more about this tragic author: four marriages, a lot of alcohol, physical and psychological suffering, he is part of a family where suicide was passed from generation to generation and himself committed suicide at the age of sixty-one. But this Nobel Prize winner has left his style as a legacy. I think of all this when passing by the hotel, which is beautiful. The bar on the ground floor is inviting, but the only place I did not like at all to Habana: not only there was no more coffee, tea or local beer (which can be forgiven), but it was also the only place where the two musicians were not at all up to the standards and not at all nice, the opposite of what I experienced elsewhere in La Habana. Then I tried the Floridita, Heminghway’s favorite bar, but the excellent music was too loud and there were really too many people.
But most of all, I was at the end of my journey in the Caribbean and I still had not had any rum, which is everywhere in the region and very cheap. Even in Martinique, where the best rum of the Caribbean is found (according to the « taximan » and an Italian sommelière met on the ferry between Martinique and Saint Lucia), I was content to smell it in a glass without really wanting to drink it. But at La Habana, it seemed appropriate to drink rum, as long as it was the same as the one Hemighway had. In an anonymous bar, the list of daiquiris was long, the bartender told me Hemingway drank rum and ice, confidently.I woke up the next day (well, not really, I spent the day in bed) with a huge headache, with the satisfaction to have tried rum (for the first and the last time), the same as Hemingway (well, maybe).
To look at or to see
Soufriere, Sugar Beach, Saint-Lucia, December 2017, canon digital, polarr, ©Sylvie G Continuer la lecture de To look at or to see →
Beach sellers
Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, November 2017, canon digital, ©Sylvie G
In Sainte-Anne, the beach is beautiful and the weather very hot. So I spend a lot of time under the coconut trees, between swimming sessions, and the hobby of rigor is watching people go by. It takes time for me to realize that the guy who « dries » his pareo in fact shows tourists the different prints he has in « store », that is to say a big basket. The young woman who wears a different bikini every five minutes is actually part of the Beach Vendors Association of St. Anne. In addition, there is a donut seller, the tourment d’amour seller, the jewelery seller, the men’s bathing suit seller, the coffee and mint tea seller. I look at them, thinking that this is a very pleasant job, walking all day on the beach. But after a while, I realize that this is a rather difficult job: the sellers walk all day, barefoot, in the hot sand. The sun hits them on the head, the baskets are heavy and the incomes, no doubt thin. The donut seller is the favorite of children. He stops to chat with them and their parents, or the people he knows. He goes back and forth until sunset. But it’s the swimsuits ladies that impress me the most. They manage to convince women on the beach to buy a bikini, a swimming suit , or a kind of skirt that can turn into a dozen outfits. I observe the one that seems most convincing. She negotiates with a woman wearing a black swimsuit; she puts on one, two or three swimsuits on top of each other, explaining each time with great gestures the miracles that the swimsuit will perform for the figure of the lady. The lady does not like the print of the first (I agree). Then the saleswoman shows her a rectangle of fabric that can turn into all kinds of outfits to hide what the lady does not want to show. She shows her a more flattering print and convinces the lady to try it (over her own swimsuit), but it is too small and the salesgirl runs somewhere to get a bigger size. Then another piece of cloth, which once again serves to flatter her silhouette. After an hour of effort, the lady buys a swimsuit and a small piece of fabric. I thought that this stuff was selling for about twenty euros but I learn that these two pieces must total a hundred euros, which seems very expensive for these little bits of fabric, but it seems to me all the same that the seller has worked hard to achieve this result (the seller (men’s swimsuits sellers have an easier task, the only questions being size and color). A little later, I learn, while chatting with Alexandra (sometimes taxi, sometimes working at the market, former trapeze artist and GO at the club Med) that these vendors have formed an association to fight against attempts by Club Med to ban them from the beach Caravelle (because beach sellers reduce the profits of their own shops). They went to court to defend their case and won. It turns out to a very difficult job (especially for the skin), but they manage to make a living (Alexandra did it herself for two years). And much more difficult than spending the afternoon under a coconut tree.