Blogs from La Habana, Oeste, Cuba, Central America Caribbean - page 5

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Central America Caribbean » Cuba » Oeste » La Habana May 27th 2017

Travel day to Havana, Cuba, was an uneventful day. Kirsten’s niece and her best friend flew down from Omaha in the morning. Kirsten specifically told Tracey and the girls to NOT check their bags. But what did they do? They checked their bags. Chester and Kirsten flew in late Friday night. The girls met us at our hotel and slept for a few hours before our 1 pm flight to Havana as they had a 5:30 AM flight. Of course our shuttle to the airport is packed and we are the first ones on and the last ones off. We get to the airport and check in and get our visas for Cuba! We were pretty much the only group that did not have a woman in a one-piece romper. Kirsten and Chester were very happy ... read more
Airport Taxi
Riding in Style
Dinner and drinks

Central America Caribbean » Cuba » Oeste » La Habana April 4th 2017

I finally have the time and opportunity to enter some of my photos from Cuba. I didn't realize it would take so long to sort through the approximately 2000 photos that we all took. Our group leader, Mike, made flash drives for us to upload to our computers. They were all mixed up, not to count the fact that Windows 10 is not great for reviewing photos to put in the blog. But I do now have 'some' photos from our first day and half of our trip. I still have to search for some more important ones from those days. I'm sure I'll get that worked out. We were a group of four persons from Northeastern State University that went to Cuba under the category of "Education, person to person". Mike Wilds who led the ... read more
First morning at breakfast at the Riviera
Jazz band at breakfast
First full day - To Viñales

Central America Caribbean » Cuba » Oeste » La Habana March 20th 2017

In my previous blog post about Mexico, I had mentioned that we took 5 days out of our trip to pop over to Havana- sure why not, we were in that location and it was only an hour away, and we didn't want to get Mexico-d out. So off we went and paid out exit fee of 60 dollars to leave Mexico (something we ended up doing twice- hurrah!) and took off to Cuba. So to backtrack a little- we had a massive toss up as to whether we would visit Mexico or Cuba, and which was going to be our principal home for the time we were away, and Mexico won, which meant a short time in Havana. We really had wanted to visit Cuba as well and figured this would be a taster we ... read more
Havana
Havana
Havana

Central America Caribbean » Cuba » Oeste » La Habana January 5th 2017

Various aspects on city life Here comes our last blog entry from our trip in Cuba. It is one of those where we don't have much to write because the photos are sort of telling a story themselves. We have here collected photos we wish to publish but haven't been able to fit in any of the previous blogs. Most of the pictures we have taken while walking around in Havana and in other cities. If we are to specify a least common denominator to the photos is that they describe city life in Cuba. When we walked around and took some of the photos you see here we also made a short film to give you an idea of what a street can look like in Havana. As you can see the some of the ... read more
Rum is the National Drink of Cuba
Man on sofa
Three pesos

Central America Caribbean » Cuba » Oeste » La Habana January 3rd 2017

Cadillac, Ford, Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, Dodge and DeSoto Yank Tank is a nickname for large American cars made in the 1950-ies and 60-ies. For anyone who likes those cars visiting Cuba must be like coming to heaven because there are many such cars in use there. One of the things we knew about Cuba before we set off on this trip was that many of the cars they drive are American cars from the 1950-ies. Before the Cuban Revolution in the 1950-ies almost all cars in Cuba were Made in America. After the revolution United States put a trades embargo on Cuba. The embargo stopped American car makers from selling new cars to Cuba. Another result of the embargo was that the Cuban economy plummeted. So they could not afford to buy new cars from other ... read more
Buick
Plymouth
Chevrolet 1957

Central America Caribbean » Cuba » Oeste » La Habana January 1st 2017

Che, Fidel, John, Paul, George and Ringo When we came home after our two week long trip in Cuba we sat down and asked ourselves how we with our blogs could describe how we perceived the country. In our photos we noticed that many of them could be said to be pictures of icons. Icons in the meaning of people with icon status. We would here at the beginning make one thing clear. When we say that the people in the pictures are "icons" it does not reflect our personal view. Our private opinion of the people we write about in this blog is not relevant. What we mean when we call them "icons" is that it is how we believe they are seen as by the people of Cuba. The first and foremost of these ... read more
Che Guevara
Che statue in Havana
Che statue in Santa Clara

Central America Caribbean » Cuba » Oeste » La Habana December 23rd 2016

Havana We have for a couple of years been thinking that Cuba might be an interesting place to visit. During Christmas and New Year we had some time off and we decided to go there and figure out if Cuba is interesting or not. We started and ended our visit in Cuba in the capital Havana. Havana is a city with large contrasts - The old town and the historical city centre - In this area there are plenty of high end hotels, restaurants cafés and other facilities with the main purpose to as efficiently and painlessly as possible ensure that tourists are separated from their money. It is a typical tourist ghetto and that is where tourist tend to hang most of the time. The old historical buildings are in beautiful condition or are awaiting ... read more
Sculpture
Building in Old Havana
Old Havana

Central America Caribbean » Cuba » Oeste » La Habana December 6th 2016

We went to the museum of the revolution and museum of Cuban art today. Fabulous guide! Some people came back to the hotel to cool off in the pool. Then we had a secret rehearsal in Martha Cohen's room. Still in the mourning period so we had to be very quiet. 43 people in a hotel room, imagine! But it went well. We'll be in Matanzas on sunday and need to get ready to sing! Afterwards we had a Charla from Dr. Mario Arrastia Avila, a professor here in Havana who spoke to us about environmental issues and sustainability from a Cuban perspective. Several of us continued the conversation over dinner. ... read more
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Central America Caribbean » Cuba » Oeste » La Habana December 1st 2016

This morning at the hotel, we had a very interesting lecture from Dr. Jorge Mario Sánchez, a professor of political science and economics at the university of Havana. He used political cartoons as a vehicle to explain his perspective on the history of US / Cuban relations. He explained rhat much of the new opening with Cuba, fostered by Obama, took place under executive authority and creative interpretation of various statutes. Of course much of this could be reversed by the new administration, although American companies have begun to invest in Cuba and there may be pressure from business not to turn back. He talked about how important it is, from the Cuban vantage point, to take these changes slowly and protect their society from commercialization. He notes that even with the new opening of travel, ... read more

Central America Caribbean » Cuba » Oeste » La Habana September 3rd 2016

Happy 101 travel blogs!!! Yes unbelievable but true this is travel blog 101. Is there anybody out there who read them all???? Ping me if you did. You deserve a medal or a drink.. Intelligence The question if it's intelligent to go to Cuba and central America in the middle of the hot, wet, hurricane season was on my mind for a while. So far it has proven to be a good decision. The heat and the occasional downpour are the worst we experienced so far. Hope it stays that way. Fidel's country Cuba is quite a contrast after Germany. One day you drive 180km per hour over an autobahn, can buy whatever you wish and the next you are in a socialist country where time stood still since 1959 and the supermarkets still have the ... read more
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