Cuba, their road-system and the tarantulas.

I recently went on a week's vacation to Cuba. The tropical weather, abundant flora and fauna, as well as its friendly people contribute to make this a great place to vacation.

Too bad the United States, and their douchebaggery, are preventing this country from being "all it can be" for the time being.

While I was there I saw a bunch of things I'd never seen before, tarantulas for instance, there are plenty. Here in Quebec we have squirrels, chip-monks, seagulls.

Over there they have iguanas, tarantulas and hummingbirds.

I'm not very fond of the tarantulas, yes, I know, they're harmless and will only bite if attacked, and their bite is not lethal like lots of people think.

They are not to be confused with black widow spiders, some of which can be found as near as Ontario. Black widows are tiny black spiders with a red mark on their backs.

Tarantulas are huge, and vary in color. The ones we saw were all black, and huge.

Fucking huge.

If you've never seen a real tarantula up close, imagine the biggest spider you've ever seen, then make it bigger. No. Even bigger than that. Bigger...

Bigger.

I saw two, one touched me (yuck!) on the leg and ran away, but it was a baby, only about as big as a hockey puck. The one that came close to my daughter was even bigger. At first we all thought it was a crab. Yes, a crab. That's how big it was.

Luckily I had had a nice share of local vitamins (rum) and I could handle it. I'd hate to run into one of those, in close quarters, when sober...

Both encounters happened at night, and outdoors. We heard other visitors of the resort we stayed at telling one another that they had a huge spider in their room and they had to call the front desk for them to come and usher the spider out, and that apparently they showed up with a broom, and did just that; ushered the spider out.

Well what else would you do? I suppose to them, who are used to it, having a tarantula in the house is akin to us having a squirrel.

Still, I was disgusted. Other than that we had a wonderful time, the beach was incredible, the water was of the most incredible blue, the sand white.

Awesome.

Also the road system in Cuba is interesting, it's not very modern, if fact, it reminded me of the road system in Italy when I left back in 1979, only older, and with less asphalt.

There are also plenty of Suzuki trucks, mostly Vitaras, which is their version of the Sidekick, and Jimnys. I'd buy a Jimny if it were available here. Consider it a more friendly version of the Sidekick, more rounded, probably with a bigger engine, the one I saw had a 2.0l Diesel engine.




There were also lots of classic American cars, some of which in such impeccable condition that when inevitably, the US borders are reopened to Cuba, and vice-versa, Americans will flock in to buy them. They looked brand new.

Also they had roundabouts. They are practical and would work great in Quebec if the transport minister was smart enough to develop them. Instead of pulling stops at each corner we'd have limited corners and a couple of roundabouts.

But not like the failed one in Vaudreuil which is way too tight to be of any use. Some decent size ones where trucks can turn, not just bicycles...