Cuba adventures

On April 24 Morgan dropped us at Toronto airport nice and early as he was going to a football game in Detroit (if not Detroit it was a long way for him to travel so he needed to set off early). So we're nicely relaxed and ready for a new destination only to be told at check-in that our tickets were for yesterday's flight. Fortunately the tickets were open-ended so the tickets were still valid and there were seats available on the flight. Phew!

We got to Havana where we were collected by George aka Jorge. We stayed in his home for three nights. Casas particulares or home stay are very common in Cuba and there aren't alot of hotels. Also allows the ordinary person to make a few dollars.

With two full days in Havana we checked out the old part of the city, took a tour in a convertible and also used the hop on hop off tourist bus.

Havana was full of old Spanish style buildings and plazas. Many have been renovated but there are still many that need doing. The process is underway but a lot of money is needed and there's not much money in Cuba.

Most cars are bombs. Either they are American cars from the 50s or Russian cars from the 70s with few exceptions. Many of the American cars are used for tourism.

After three nights in Havana we caught the bus to Vinales, a town in the country west of Havana. The bus trip was 4 hours: quite good roads and air conditioning so it was quite a pleasant trip.

We stayed in another casas particulares. Friends of George!

We did a walking tour through the valley and up into the hills. A 3.5 hour tour took about 5 hours and the bank closed in the meantime. This was a problem as we didn't have enough cash to pay our bill and buy bus tickets to our next destination. Eventually they agreed to take Canadian dollars and all was well.

We paid $25 local money, say $AUD30 per night for accommodation in the casas and they will cook breakfast and dinner for an extra price. The evening meals were sensational at about $15 each. Great value!

The next journey was to Trinidad. The involved a 10 hour bus trip back through Havana to the south coast. We stayed in another casas about 4km out of Trinidad at Playa la Boca, a beachside town that was very small. This was the best casas by far and again, magnificant meals. This time friends of Mary in Vinales.....I smell commission in the wind.

The great thing about the home stay is meeting the locals, many of whom speak virtually no English. About the equal to our knowledge of Spanish.

We ended up staying at Playa la Boca for four nights spending time at the beach there and at Playa Ancon as well as walking around Trinidad.

Then it was back to Havana for a night with George and family before departing for Cayman Islands. A 6 hour bus trip, we went via Playa Giron and Playa Larga, both on the Bay of Pigs aka Bahia de Cochinos. Both these beaches were invasion sites when the JFK regime backed an invasion force of 1400 CIA trained Cuban nationals to try and overthrow Castro in 1961.

They say that a picture paints a thousand words so i hope the photos are more enjoyable than my words and give you a feel of what Cuba is like. Stand by!