Blogs from Santa Clara, Centro, Cuba, Central America Caribbean - page 2

Day 461 Monday 14th January We woke up to glorious sunshine and the prospect of a huge day of sightseeing in Santa Clara. After reading the Lonely Planet again we discovered the Che Memorial is not open today so we have to do that tomorrow and then over breakfast Maria told us the Cigar factory was closed for the Christmas holidays till the 19th so no tours were running. After this we had a shortened plan for the day which included lots of walking. During breakfast Maria rang and reserved bus tickets for tomorrow to the next town and rang the next Casa to make a booking for us; it is so easy travelling this way. The first destination was Monumento a la Toma del Tren Blindado where the 18 rebels from ... read more

5.5.2012 Had an early start today to go to Camaguey through the countryside it took a total of 7-8 hrs, 5 ½ driving, had a couple of stops on the way. Very agricultural, tobacco fields, sugar cane fields, bit cattle runs and also a lot of goats, the countryside is quite green but the animals look they are in poor condition. Like everything else in this country. 95percent of everything is state run, hotels, restaurants, travel agencies etc etc. The lines of people outside banks, bakeries, fruit shop (if you can call them that), butchers (yuk!!!) is incredible, the people here get rations on the 1st of every month and that usually can last them for 2 ½ weeks then they have to buy from their own money food for the last week or two. Stopped ... read more

Next morning we ate brekky, Dario went to the bank while I packed and at 9am a bicitaxi with built in stereo system picked us up to take us to the bus station to catch one to Santiago de Cuba. The bus was 30 mins late, but we got on and arrived in Santiago at 12.30pm. A driver was waiting for us with a sign as Lidia´s sister runs a Casa in Santiago and we had organised to stay there. The driver drove us in a tiny little fiat with our bags tied to the roof to our grande casa. It was much bigger than any we had stayed in before, and really nice! We organised everything then headed out in search of lunch. After trying a few places we ate at a small place called ... read more

Hurricane Paloma hit central and western Cuba overnight although not with the force that was expected. We woke to almost clear skies and a hot morning. Anneris prepared another top notch breakfast and we packed our bags before walking back to Parque Vidal to try and find internet access. Both of us were feeling a little under the weather as a result of our big night so a quiet morning was in order. We spent an hour answering emails - one from mum enquiring as to our mortality on the assumption that the hurricane had caught us. We also caught up on the result of the New Zealand election and were pleased to see that sanity had been restored after so long under a Labour government. One of the things I was really struggling with in ... read more

I think Merryn and I have quite easily adapted the Cuban approach to time. I had thought of getting up really early and taking a walk through the old town of Havana, but instead, kept sleeping. Getting going was a slow process and we just took all the time in the world to get ready, have a leasurly breakfast, and then meet the rest of the group for the ´real´start of the trip. 2 people were still missing - they had visa problems and would be meeting us in Trinidad. We had a massive bus all to ourselves. It is specifically for tourists to Cuba. It was only 2 years ago when laws were relaxed enough to allow Cuban and tourists to visit the same restaurants or hotels, however, there is still quite a separation between ... read more