http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/dustyfoot/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from dustyfoot en-us Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:35:55 +0000 Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:35:55 +0000 Update on adventures...Six months in Cuba and Brazil cant be easily summed up in 1 diary entry... Briefly then... I was in La Habana until the beginning of June. In that time my rents and Firas came to visit not at the same time that wouldve been way too crazy which was great got properly spoilt went on a road trip with the folks and Jenny my awesome Canadian friend... with Firas went divin http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Oeste/La-Habana/blog-314230.html BrazilEqually as briefly... 1 month in Fortaleza in the North East of the country where i was a first completely overwhelmed by capitalism communist the big complicated city inequality . To distract my broken heart from Cuba i got my initiation to Capoeira in the country of Capoeira itself. There i was with the group GCAP Fortaleza and Mestre Amandinho.... At first it was hard doing some http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Rio-de-Janeiro/Rio-de-Janeiro/blog-314229.html Its been a week of departures. It seems the press in the outside world were fixated with Castrorsquos retirement and the consequent ldquoelectionsrdquo. ldquoElectionsrdquo in a loose sense of the word in that we are not living in democracy. It is not the people really who chose their new president. They had to vote for the new representatives in parliament but they are all from the sa http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Oeste/La-Habana/blog-251386.html Random coincidence Corinna my flatmate in Centro Habana and I share the same birthday. We chose to spend it together with 2 other German friends Tomas and Katerina on la Isla de la Joventud the isle of youth. Perhaps ironic now we r starting to feel old or perhaps a hope that bathing in its sweet waters would bring us the secret of eternal youth Compared to past experiences with the http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Isla-de-la-Juventud/Nueva-Gerona/blog-244890.html Aventuras en el Oriente Part 2 BaracoaWe arrived to Baracoa by a combination two of my favourite modes of transport in Cuba camintruck and luck. The crazy evangelist Jorge took us to the truck station and busybodied us on to the right one waving us goodbye with a cry of ldquoque Dios les acompaerdquo may God be with u and a gesture of praying hands toward the skyhellip. Another http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Este/Baracoa/blog-238214.html So on the eve of the 25th when u folks in the UK were already asleep with bellies full of turkey and mince pies we Patricia Corinna and I set off on our adventure eastwards. We arrived in Camagey rather disorientated after the 7 hr bus journey and went to the casa particular we had reserved. As soon as we got there we got our introduction to the way some ldquobusinessrdquo people try http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Este/Santiago-de-Cuba/blog-235001.html Happy Christmas Feliz Navidad desde CubaNot that I have the slightest Christmassy feelinghellip today is xmas eve and its basicly like a normal day We r pissed off coz we wanted to go to the beach but the weather which has been glorious for the past few days is shit Also our Cuban mama Lily is doing a special meal tonight and my stomach has not been behaving itself for nearly a week now http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Oeste/La-Habana/blog-230125.html Sohellip after lots of false starts the Viales adventure eventually takes place Other adventurers joining the tenacious little English blonde an equally tenacious German housemate of aforementioned blondie suffering from a sore throat but determined not to let that stop the fun another German who should be nicknamed ldquoque lindordquo for frequency of usage of said phrase and co http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Oeste/Vi-ales/blog-221652.html The European colonizers of South America wiped out entire indigenous populations with what we know in the UK as the ldquocommon coldrdquohellip well now it seems those ghosts of the Americas past are eventually getting their revenge on an innocent group of European students in La Habana. Almost everyone has had some kind of flustomachfever virushellip I wont go into too much detail but s http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Oeste/La-Habana/blog-213411.html Trinidad Road Trip Wow what a weekendhellip its gonna be a mission to try to fit in all the stories but Irsquoll give it a shot.After much indecisiveness and guilt I abandoned 2 sick friends missed another friendrsquos possible afternoon birthday dancing outing hopefully made it up 2 her by going out 4 peso pizza and getting her a cute prez missing my 2nd yoga class in a rowhellip I http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Centro/Trinidad/blog-210263.html La Habana Journals 4It seems the manaa attitude is seeping into my blog writinghellipsorry Will try to fill in a little without writing a boring list of what Irsquove done.Briefly ive been mostlyhellip partying drinking rum going to the beach in maquina 50rsquos old American banger queuing eating ridiculously cheap icecream and getting sick 1 time from it hanging out with too http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Oeste/La-Habana/blog-208598.html First experiences in La Universidad de Habana 05.09.07Everything. Here. Happens. Very. Slowly. If it happens at all. It seems one of the favourite pastimes of the Cuban population is queuinghellip waitinghellip waitinghellip queuing.. and hellip waiting some morehellip and then actuallyhellip maana. Thatrsquos what happened on Monday at uni we went to enrol but we couldnrsquo http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Oeste/La-Habana/blog-200956.html Irsquove moved into a new casa particular owned by a lovely couple Anita and Jorge they live below Yamelis and Federico and but also have this househellip some kind of loophole so they donrsquot really live here but can rent it. Itrsquos a much better deal for a permanent stay than Casa Federico which is really set up for tourists. Here I pay CUC 450 a month which includes breakfast http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Oeste/La-Habana/blog-199144.html The dustyfoot traveller is back literally. After just one day in Habana Irsquom immediately regretting not bringing a scrubbing brush blister plasters and a lot more chocolate especially as I severely doubt the postal service Other than that Irsquom loving it.Arriving alone at the airport last night I waited nervously for my luggage which I was happily surprised to be reunited with. I http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Oeste/La-Habana/blog-197558.html hondurans celebrate national independence on September 15th. actually they kind of celebtrate it for the whole month but parades are on the 15th. our school was no exception. me and one of the other teachers Sean spent the week before making a dragonmayan serpent head which was an ordeal but we were proud of the the finished product and it made sure our school kicked the ass of the rival bilingu http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/San-Pedro-Sula/blog-92285.html ok truth is i'm no longer under blue honduran skies but under the grey ones of brum. my last few weeks in honduras were crazy had no time to waste in the internet cafe. so here's a quick update of what i did.UTILA ... i was lucky enough to get a long weekend off school so i took the advantage to go to Utila one of the Bay Islands off Honduras accessable by a 1hr boat trip from La Ceiba on the http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Bay-Islands/blog-92280.html on friday after school 4 of us teachers decided it would be a nice relaxing weekend escape to go up to Cusuco national park which is in the Merendon mountain range behind Cofradia. to get up there u need a 4x4 so Ben our host very kindly let us use his 1996 russian jeep. eventually Rory Irish and Sean form Philly u.s turned up at the bottom of our road with afore mentioned vehicle. they c http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/blog-86263.html already i know its gonna be so hard to have to leave this place again. everyone is trying to get me to stay and jack in uni for another year... not least because the class i taught before will graduate this year ie do 6th grade. everyone is so happy to see me esp andromeda and jesselthey cried a bit... i went around visiting yesterday and ive seen most of my friends now just a few left to f http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/West/blog-83958.html day 5 in la selva ecuatoriana...today was spent mostly in the canoe again as we were heading back to our 1st camp by the community of Nekempare. on the way we stopped at eh house of another of Mois relatives on the river. we saw the most crazy stuff at this house... loads of cooked bush meat inc peccary which the non veggies amoungst us tasted monkey and mb tapirmore handicrafts nmade of ex http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Ecuador/East/Shiripuno-River/blog-81812.html Really i dont know where to start. so illl try the beginning. this could be long.we eventually arrived at our 1st camp in Huaorani territory 16 sleepless hrs after leaving Quito the night before via a shit scary bus ride in my sleepless delirium i was convinced we were going to fall over the possiblely existent possibley imagined cliff to Ecuadors ugly dirty oil capital of Coca an assbreak http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Ecuador/blog-80899.html