Waking up late I busied myself by packing in readiness to leave Trinidad tomorrow as well as shaving. With the morning slipping away and not knowing when he had returned to the casa, I woke Matt up at half past nine for breakfast then we set about trying to organise transport to Havana; something Matt was reluctant to do given how good a time he was having. We found the bus station thanks to a perky, English speaking tour operator but after much debate, decided on a taxi from our Casa at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon giving plenty of time to bid farewell at the beach. With no accommodation booked for Havana (the domineering lady from Holguin had ceased her phone-calls at Sancti Spiritus) we unsuccessfully tried to convince the tour operator to organise us some, pro-bono of course.
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Waking up after 0730, Matt recounted his short evening with the Germans at the CdlM after which we had a now standard breakfast and headed towards the beach. Slightly later than usual we were "forced" to catch a real taxi (read: one less likely to induce death e.g. coco-taxis) which turned out to be a modern, air-conditioned people carrier crossed with a tank. The ride to the beach was swift meaning we got to the dive hut in time to catch Leo. He impressed upon me that he would examining me during the morning dive and filling in the paperwork for the course I was apparently taking; this was probably also due to an inspection taking place of the dive hut and associated divers which made everyone involved slightly twitchy.
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Rising at roughly the same time as yesterday, I roused Matt and went down to breakfast to find out precisely what had happened the night before. It had been eventful to say the least, and he had taken a girl (I would never find out whether she was from the party or elsewhere) down to the beach and had sex with her while a taxi waited nearby with the meter still running. A not unsurprising development but mutterings later in the day about how he might now be a felon gave me the impression that in this instance, the less I knew the better for all concerned. This would be the second and greatest Mattastrophe.
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My dreams were fractured that night, strange visions of scorpions adorned with space-ships and the character Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I awoke before seven and managed to wash and shave before waking a lethargic Matt up for a seven thirty breakfast and an eight o'clock departure. Being Sunday, the supermarket was still closed which meant our daily ration of water would have to be postponed. The egg-shaped, motorised tricycle of a coco-taxi whipped us towards the beach, the fractured asphalt mere inches away from exposed skin. The sun had barely risen meaning the beach was desolate, the sand cold and the water even colder as we sat and waited for Leo to arrive and open the shuttered dive hut.
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To say Matt had a hangover the next morning would be insulting to how unwell he both felt and looked. With the best intentions, he had set his alarm for 0730 but proceeded to turn it off and sleep through until 0830, at which point he pushed himself to get up despite being next to non-functional and barely managing to dress himself. We ventured next door, our final casa for our stay in Trinidad, for breakfast which was as healthy as always but seemed more like a chore for Matt rather than an enjoyable meal.
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