The Varadero peninsula apparently offers 26 kilometres of beach. I walked along a good part of it this morning. Some stretches were deserted, some filled with sunbathing holiday-goers, and other parts with a few locals. Being an angler of some repute myself, I stopped to talk to the fishermen casting from the shore along the way.
- Has cogido mucho?
They showed me their buckets of fish.
- Que tipo pez es este?
They told me.
- Para comer?
They were apparently delicious to eat.
They all asked me where I was from. I think the fishermen were pleased that I stopped to speak to them, and even more so that I did it in Spanish. A couple of them told me that my Spanish was very good. I smiled and told them I needed practice. I didn´t tell them that I didn´t have a clue what type of fish they had caught.
I noticed that the fishermen with sizable stomachs hanging over their trouser belts all had nets and caught the most. The fishermen of medium build all fished with rods, and the thinnest men all fished with just a line cast off from a hand-held reel.
It was one of the thinnest fishermen that asked me if I wanted a fish to take home and cook. When I told him I had no money, he seemed surprised that I would think he offered it for anything other than free. Los Cubanos are apparently all generous, as on my walk back along the playa to Hotel Dos Mares, a man asked me to take his wife back to Scotland with me. I told him Cuba was better (and no thanks).
