adventure to Hersey

The train rolls into Casablanca late and to cheers of dusty and sweaty travellers. The man with a wrench cuts rusty wire and climbs onto the top. The trolley is broken- again. We wait. He hammers the trolley and attaches more wire. I take photos while we wait. A young man in a white shirt, old Frank Sinatra hat tipped to the front, watches me from behind his newspaper. He later gets off in a small ramshakle town and shuffles he black dress shoes in the dust.

Aboard to dusty and worn green velvet seats and broken windows, the same from 1917, I'm sure. We roll off into unknown places, slowly at first then picking up speed. This train is a death trap on rails and I wonder what I have goten myself into. It bounces and swerves. Resigned to my 3 peso fate, my head whips from side to side, my shoulder slams into the window at the train's velocity. It courses down on it's predetermined destiny of Mantanzas.

As I watch out the window at the Cuban countryside of wind wipped palms, dried grasses and tinshack farm houses, I notice something dark, large and unusual. It's a cow. It's falling down the ditch. Fallen when I focus my eyes against the distance. It's legs straight up, head twisted- one eye looking. We pass, but only to stop a short distance and then back up. Passengers crane their necks out the windows and doors swish open. The train hit the cow and we backed up to make sure of something. Not sure what as no one got out and helped the cow up.

When we arrived in Hershey- the site, I presume of a chocolate factory, I figured that maybe this train adventure was a bit too much. It would be another 2 hrs to Mantanzas and I had no water or food. I got off and sat down and pondered my fate in Hershey. As the train rumbled away, I wondered still what sort of adventure I had gotten myself into. The return train to Havana wouldn't be for 2 hrs.

He sat down with his translation book and spoke a little english. I waved to the other with the tattoo and motioned to mine. The 3 of us became an unoffical pack for the day. One who spoke a little, one who spoke none and a book. I wondered what the day had in store. We walked across the street and bought fresca limonada served in cut off beer bottles. We walked through Hershey and they pointed out the broken factory, the old hotel from 1920 that was near demolished, the police station. We went to a market and bought a pineapple and with a pocket knife cut peices for one another and washed our hands with bottled water. I said Ola! to everyone who passed and they laughed. We laughed.

I took photos of the beautiful and decrepet stately houses, left over from the chocolate boom. Photos of the horse cart taxi's and chickens in the street. I tried to bribe 3 girls with a peso for a photo but they went running away laughing. We bought breadsticks from a vendor and sweets from another. Laughing, I said the nonesense phrases in the Language book, "Does Hershey have a bullring?" "Does Hershey have a recycling program?" and I helped them learn the months of the year in English.

These 2 waited until the train arrived. It had to wait as another train on the track was broken. I made origami birds from ripped out pages from Lonely Planet Cuba and gave them to the little girls on the train. I folded origami boxes and made everyone laugh when I blew them up. They waited and entertained me for a long time and then both gave me a kiss when the train was leaving and we exchanged adios.

Now dark, the Hershey Electric Train rumbled, bounced, careened and crackled into the night. Large electric flashes from the working trolley flashed bright green and illumanated the scenery for a moment almost as brightly as my 2 compadras during the day.