Blogs from Centro, Cuba, Central America Caribbean - page 5

Breakfast at Dady's was pretty good. The usual Cuban breakfast included an egg omlette and some meat or fruit. At Dady's we had omelette with plates of bread, cheese, ham, coffee and fresh juice. As majority of us wanted to go to Playa Ancon Tony arranged for Ricardo to drive us there on the bus and come back for us later that afternoon. We just paid a few $CUC each to cover it. My first time in the Caribbean Ocean – just a little bit excited. The beach was really pretty, the water a nice colour and my favourite part – warm enough for someone wimpy like me to swim in. We set ourselves up on the beach and spent the day swimming, reading, tanning, burning etc. There was a bar on the beach making cocktails ... read more

Day 457 Thursday 10th January Today Mario and Mercedes from our Casa put on another great spread for breakfast before we started into our packing. Our bus wasn’t till 11am so we had plenty of time to get ourselves sorted and pay our bill. At 10.30 Mario told us his son couldn’t drive us down to where the bus was leaving because he was at the dentist but he would get his neighbour to drive us. His neighbour rolled up driving a battered 1952 Chev that he had to hot wire start it with two wires hanging out from the dash. Mario came down town with us and he laughed all the way about the state his neighbour’s car was in and all the things he had to do to keep it ... read more

Exploring Trinidad, a stop over in Cammaguay and on to Santiago de Cuba Leaving behind a vibrant city like Havana was sad and inevitable, but nonetheless we picked up our little Kia rental car and made our way south and east. Driving in this island nation isn’t challenging from automobile traffic standpoint, but rather from keeping an eye on everything else, like horse carts, hitchhikers, pot holes and trying to find any kind of directional signs. We were off to see some more of this beautiful nation and chose to drive east in search of more sights and adventure. The road out of Havana had three lanes in each direction for a good portion of the voyage. One thing was missing however…..traffic. Seems that the Russians built this highway for the Cubans, but of course ... read more

In March 2011, a friend and I went to Cuba for a week. I can’t remember how we got the booking but it was around $380 return per person. We flew to Santa Clara on Westjet and flew back from Santa Clara on Air Canada. I found it interesting that they do not stamp your passport when you enter or exit the country. When going through customs (entering), I observed that a lot of people had brought food and all fresh food were confiscated. I had dried fruit and nuts which I don’t think were a problem but I also had a whole bag of fresh kumquats but they didn’t find them. After we exchanged some money at the airport, we found that Santa Clara is 12 km away and that the only way to get ... 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