CARISTAS

El Mirador de Bacunayagua overlooks Cuba's highest bridge and the Yumuri Valley.    AN ELEGANCE  of concrete, the Bacunayagua Bridge soars over the seemingly bottomless gorge that separates the provinces of Mayabeque and Matanzas. And higher yet is El Mirador de Bacunayagua, the coffee bar/gift shop/piña colada stand that overlooks the bridge and the great, green Yumurí Valley.    El Mirador reminds me of the Castle Rock lookout over Lake Huron near St. Ignace, Michigan. I remember riding down Interstate 75 in the back of the family '66 Buick Le Sabre, hoping we'd stop at Castle Rock, or at the nearby "Mystery Spot" where gravity was said to be more suggestion than law (and which I now know is a "tilt-induced visual illusion," another secret spoiled by  Wikipedia ). But never once do I recall my parents pulling into a tourist trap.    I've turned into El Mirador, more than once. It's cheesy, of course, but that's part of its charm....

Photo: Michael R. Roy     It's almost always a man at the wheel in Cuba (apart from coco taxis, which, come to think of it, have handlebars, not steering wheels), but Michael Roy caught this image of a woman at the helm of a shiny-as-a-new-penny '55 Chevrolet. And the driver appears to be using her turn indicator  — in Cuba, another uncommon sight. See Baby You Can't Drive My Car . See Baby You CAN Drive My Coco Taxi .