April 6 Happy birthday to me! Carmen our host gave me a Cuba key ring and there was a card from the Beatons, after breakfast it was off to Baracoa, our last day in the bus with Ivan. We stopped at Guantanamo for coffee then it was a scenic drive to Baracoa over a big mountain range, 5 hours drive all up. After checking into our casa with Miriam and family about 2, we set off on an orientation tour by local van, which turned out to be a surprise birthday BBQ for me!! Wow! The van arrived at a lovely river, where there was a roast suckling pig on a spit and a small group of musicians singing happy birthday! Lunch was amazing, pork, black bean dish, rice, salad, plantain chips and bread, served in ... read more

March 30 Left about 9 for Trinidad via Santa Clara, where we visited the Che Guevera museum, memorial and burial place, very interesting and most important to Cuban people. Che and the Castro brothers are national icons and everywhere you go there are photos, posters and signs about them and "Vive la Revolucion"! There are statues and monuments all over Cuba to other heroes of the revolution, such as Jose Marti, Camilo Cienfuegos and Frank Pais, and streets across Cuba are named for them. It was a beautiful but very steep and windy drive through to Trinidad across the mountains and down through the national park. Got to Trinidad in the early afternoon and our group went off to different home stays (casas) for the next 3 nights. We stayed with Eugenia and Nancy, who were ... read more

March 18 Headed to Merida on the bus, 2 hours - buses a great way to travel here, cheap and efficient. Nomadas Hostel in Merida is great but our room was hot, we soon found out why there were 4 fans in the room! Met lots of interesting travellers during our stay there including the amazing Connie, an 81 year old grandmother from Michigan travelling on her own! The hostel pool was a great place to relax, with several hammocks strung across the water. Had a huge thunderstorm in the late afternoon which cooled the place down for a while as being inland it was generally hot and humid. Went down to the plaza, a very large leafy square in the middle of town, and visited the cathedral of St Ildefonso, the oldest church in Latin ... read more

Ola! Mexico Part 1 Somehow felt like this was the day our trip really began, California being a good entree for what lay ahead. Travelling cheap also means some personal sacrifice, up at 4.15 to go to Mexico via the local (trolley)train to the border town of San Ysidro, from there just walked across the border to Tijuana ( border control more interested in Mexicans going in to the US, not us going out)then taxi to airport. A long way to our first destination, about 5 hours flying time and 4 hours at Mexico City airport, Aeromexico were just fine. Finally arrived in Chiapas de Corzo, which is a small town near to Tuxtla Gutierrez, and the first (Chiapas state) city founded by the Spanish in 1528. Collapsed into our concrete base bed for a long ... read more

On 14 March we went up to the Hokianga, a beautiful region about 4 hours north of Auckland, to attend Katy and Brett's wedding. We had a wonderful weekend - it was a beautiful wedding set right in the heart of this beautiful and unspoilt region of NZ. The wedding venue was on the waterfront of the Hokianga Harbour and the sun came out just in time for the big event. And best of all, most of our extended family were able to be there to celebrate with the happy couple! We would like to share our photos with other wedding guests, so if you would like copies of any of the photos FOR PRIVATE USE ONLY, please feel free to download direct from this site. Or we can send you electronic copies by email. NOTE ... read more