Carlos and I cycled to immigration this morning. Cobblestones and a sore ass from horseriding don´t really go well together and I wasn´t a very happy bunny.

At immigration, the officer who deals with extensions was not there, but in Sancti Spiritus, so I have to go back. So we cycled back, uphill. Carlos may be ´gordito´ but he´s in much better shape than me...

Then I went to look for Etecsa, which is like BT or Belgacom. I called Ivón and told her I was coming saturday, not friday as I had said, because otherwise she´ll get worried again. I also called Lanchile and confirmed my flight, so there´s no way back now, I´m really leaving.

I tried to get some sleep, butI have too much going through my mind. Elliot came with a bunch of English guys and I helped things along by saying how good the house was. After, I was talking to Elliot and he said he´s an English teacher in a secondary school, but he didn´t seem too enthusiastic about it, which I suppose is hardly surprising considering the lousy paycheck. He was also saying he was looking for a girlfriend, but not a Cuban one. I asked why not and he said he liked white girls but perhaps there is more to it than that.

He keeps saying that if we have any spare clothes people would very much appreciate them as they are very expensive and they don´t have much, but since I´ve been here I haven´t seen him in the same outfit twice, he´s consistently better dressed than me. I guess it´s one of the perks of his job, selling the casa of his dad to tourists. But generally, it´s very true that people don´t have a lot of clothes. At the Parque Cespuedes, a guy called Mario asked if I could give him some money to get his shoes fixed, and he showed me the soles which were all but gone. So I gave him some pesos.

Yesterday a man who said he was a musician at the Casa de la Trova asked if I would contribute 80 centavos to buy one string for his guitar, he needed three. That was about the saddest thing I´ve heard so far. Carlito said that yesterday they stole the petrol out of the motorbike across the street and Elliot once had all his clothes stolen at university.

There´s a quiet desperation to the people here, which they are not allowed to show as there is loads of police about. They are not as up front and in your face as in Havana, but you can feel ít´s more genuine, they really need it. Elliot´s family is one of the better off ones, but a street up there are kids with no shoes playing in the dirt. That´s how close the difference is. Like Havana, Trinidad is full of painful contrasts, even more so because the tourists blend in less, and the police presence is oppressive.

But Cubans are naturally curious, and they ask about your country, even after you have said you can´t give them anything. It´s amazing how well informed people are about geography. Whereas a European person may only vaguely know that Belgium is north of France and that you have two languages, all of the Cubans know you have vlaams and francés, and they have heard of Bruselas, Anverres or even Leuven. It´s very impressive, even if there may be an ulterior motive. Cubans have friends all over the world, but there is always a double edge to that friendship, because it usually involves the other party sending gifts to them.

Dinner was pork, rice, beans, chips and cucumber. And a hell of a lot of Cuba Libres as Carlito kept pouring them in. He was getting very borracho (drunk) in the process. After, we went to the Casa de la Musica and there were dancers. I joined Angela, a German woman, as Regis and Ingrid were tired and went back home. I met up with Jenny, one of the English girls we met in the cave disco. She´s extremely blond, and has spent a year in Thailand as a diving instructor. The newly arrived English guys were there as well.

Elliot sat at another table for most of the night because there was a lot of police, which really sucks. It´s like bloody South Africa. I went to talk to him for a minute and he burst out ´I need to get out of here, I can´t stay here any more´. He´s had enough, and it´s not hard to understand why. It´s really fucked up when you are considered a second class person in your own country, and the tourists have more rights than you.

Anyway, we set off for Fresa y Chocolate, where there was even more police, so Elliot disappeared from time to time when they were looking at him too much. It´s kind of a dodgy disco, so I don´t recommend going there on your own, but with a group it´s not too bad. The toilets are gross though. We stayed until the place closed at three and on the way back some of the very drunk English got lost. I don´t think Eliot could be too bothered to be worried though...

Everybody´s following the elections in the US. Not that they think either of them are any good for Cuba, but they thought Kerry may have been more moderate. Tough luck...