Never say never. 

We went to see the waterfalls at Leaping Caburní. Mode of transportation? Horse. Now listen, I’ve never been on a horse and never thought in a million years that I would be. But I did it. And it was cool, although my whole body was aching terribly afterwards. I’m not gonna lie though, I felt like the horse was tired of carrying my little ass along with my backpack and hefty ass camera. I just wanted to give little Negrito a break (that was his name, it means ‘bold’ in Spanish). I felt so bad after we were already hours into our journey. All I could think about was how did they train these horses to be so obedient and calm at the luxuries of tourists who come to the town to ride them? How come they have numbers branded on their bodies? Eh, something about it just didn’t sit right with me. No shade to Trinidad though. 

So after that long, hot, exhausting journey, we returned back to the airbnb. It began raining, thundering and lightning. We had made plans to go to a place called Casa De La Musica until boom! The lights go out. Not just the lights in our airbnb but the whole damn village! I’m talking pitch black. All the neighbors’ dogs went to barking in distress. All commotion lasted for about 5 minutes. Know why? Because they all quickly adapted. Just that easily. And leave it to us spoiled Americans, we thought the generators were going to kick in. But they never did, because they are nonexistent here. Here’s to humbling experience #3.  

Not that there was much internet access before; we definitely didn’t have access to it now. We were forced to be detached from our phones (aside from recording the experience) and were left with the option to communicate with… (wait for the kicker)… EACH OTHER. That’s unheard of in this day and age with the ever-so-booming advances of technology back in the first world. But guess what - we made do! Break out those uno cards (thank God we brought them with us) and come see me, bro! After two or three rounds of uno, I made the suggestion that each of us write 5 questions on a piece of paper, rip them up, and put them in a hat. We each had to answer those questions truthfully, no matter how bizarre, deep, or personal they got. And trust me when I say, it did! Lol 

Uno

it was a different version of uno so we had to read the directions lol

throwing questions in a hat

For the next hour or so, we got really wrapped up into “the question game” until voilà! the power came back on. What did we do? We continued to play that damn game! The power ended up going out again for what was probably another half hour. We played the game until all the questions were asked and answered, then to bed we went.

This experience alone was the most humbling and I’m sincerely grateful that it happened. It needed to. It forced us to come together and bond. Though it lasted for approximately 2 hours, it forced us to be stripped of our normal first world luxuries where things happen for us at the click of a button! For the few hours we were without lights, in a town where we did not speak the native language, or know our right from left, we had to make do. That’s the theme of Cuban culture, period. They just make do! And I think as visitors, we did a damn good job of doing the do too.