Viva Fidel

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So were now in Mexico city after making it thru Cuba with only a few bouts of food poisoning between us!
Cuba has the worst food in the world, i never want to see another bean soup again, its all they ever serve. Apart from the terrible food it also costs a lot as they have separate tourist curancy which they rip you off with. As their is a shortage of hotels in Cuba, the government has let ppl rent out rooms in their houses so we stayed in the ´guest´ rooms of families which was really interesting. We got to experience the ppl being made richer by the tourist trade in this comunist country!

We landed in Havana and met Carinas Dad and got a taxi to the city. Havana arrivals was the worst airport we´ve been in, it was chaos.... but moving on Havana was the most interesting place we went. Met a guide who took us around the old crumbling building and we saw how the local ppl live. They are crammed into the old colonial houses which are now falling down. One family we visisted the roof had fallen down and there is no money to fix anything. There is a severe housing shortage which means the whole family lives in 1 house, and as a result Cuba has a high divorce rate. We rented an old car for a hour and drove around and expericed the lack of suspension and diesel fumes. It was an open top cadillac, red and cream. They maintain the cars by using the Russion jeep parts and toyota engines, and obiously dont have MOTs.

From Havana we went to Vinales, a town in the mountains with caves where escaped slaves used to hide in, now contains a disco and a restaurant! Then on to Cienfuego a town with French influence, very hot, then to Trinidad. Trinidad is an old town with cobbled streets. We were there for their Labour day procesion which seemed to start outside of our house at 7am...nice wake up call. We watched from the roof as they got ready with their ´Viva Fidel´ banners and T-shirts with Che Guevara´s face on and then dance down to the Revolution Square.

In Trindad we spent lots of time in the Casa De Musica where bands played and Carina sampled the local cocktails. Dad had a salsa lesson. From there we went to Santa Clara to see the train Che Guevara detrailed with a buldozer which began Fidels reign. Then onto Valadero which is the Thomas Cook classic beach town, so we walked around the only tourist town in Cuba and went to the beach. Dad snorkled, but the only sealife he saw was a lonely crab.

Then on to Matanzas which was a terrible town, on the beach we saw the local birds eating intestines which had been dumped there. Yuck, no swimming there! Only 1 night there and back to Havana for some civilisation. We went to Ernest Hemmingways house in an old car being used as a taxi. In some towns we struggled to find shops to buy water, the supermarkets have nothing on the shelves. Their is a huge blackmarket trade as once again they are suffering from shortages, so we left shampoo, soap etc as they

It was a relief to leave and arrive in Mexcio where they have all the american brands. Went to see the Pyramids 50kms out of the city the pyramid of the sun is the 3rd highest in the world. Was very hot, but the site was very well maintained concidering it was built in 160AD! The site was huge so Carina got another funky hat. Got some good photos.

Heading to Las Vegas today to meet up with Russ´s family. Looking forwards to get back to the first world luxuaries!

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