Blogs from Santiago de Cuba, Este, Cuba, Central America Caribbean

Santiago de Cuba Frid-Sat 13-14 July Day 8,9 I was still trying to change our flights from LAX to Brisbane but still with no luck due to the restricted technology. Immediately after breakfast I went into the nearby Plaza to hook up to the wifi. The only advantage was that I spoke to Kerrie and Gemma who were in the middle of Gemma’s performance in Creative Generation. It was so good to talk to her which was the 1st time since Poppie died. She had also sent us photos of Gemma performing. That was also so good. I also received texts from Sheryl and sister-in-law Kerry who was in Vietnam. So not all was lost. We left Camaguey around 9.00 am and we did not get to Santiago de Cuba until 5.00pm stopping a couple of ... read more

So today our host found us a nice driver, Robbie, to take us for a drive out of town. We started off heading towards Valle de la historico. It’s a fun park is about 4 acres of dinosaur statues. T-rex’s, mammoths, brachiosaurus’ etc. And quite a few others I couldn’t name. Very cheesy but fun anyways. The park was originally built by inmates at a nearby prison and in its heyday I could see it being a great family attraction. These days some of the statues are starting to fall apart and are in need of a little TLC. There was a little lake area where they had the heads of some water-living-sauruses coming up out of it and a disused slide. Jo decided it would be a great idea to build a wave pool there ... read more

So we were up early this morning for our bus trip to Santiago de Cuba. The bus was scheduled for 8am, we were to be at the Viazul station at 7.30. But given our previous experience we figured hey, there’s not rush. We left our casa at 7.30 and walked to the station, about five minutes away. Wouldn’t you know, they were on time today. Apart from check in the whole process was very efficient. Ahhhh Cuba So the 8am bus pulled out of the station at 8am. The ride was fairly uneventful only that it was very long. Almost 13 hours. The busses are comfortable but after 13 hours, nothing is comfortable. We were lucky at first because we had the two back rows to ourselves so we could stretch out and try to sleep. ... read more

Out of Trinidad and into Camaguey, the home town of our tour guide Aimara, we bicycle taxi toured with a local guide who told us of pirates, trouble with farming, infamous cheese and the many churches. We also visited a ration shop where locals still use books to track their purchases of government-subsidised produce. Our guide explained the (limited) types of products available and spoke of what life was like in Cuba growing up through the collapse of the Eastern block and the changes he sees coming to Cuba in the future. After a whirlwind tour of Camaguey we were off to Santiago de Cuba. Santiago is Cuba’s second largest city, but it isn’t a pretty city and felt more crowded and unsafe than Havana that had felt like an amazingly safe place to travel around. ... read more

Day 464 Thursday 17th January Camaguey hadn’t exactly rang any bells for us so it isn’t too sad to leave, but to be honest the town was only really a stepping stone for us to get to Santiago de Cuba. The casa we are staying in is lovely and the eating area is one of the best and this morning we had an extra friend to share the experience with. Cuba and in particular this area of Cuba has a lot of cattle and with cattle comes flies and some of the more persistent buggers reside in this town but to help us get rid of them we had a little green lizard. The garden area was full of them and this morning we had a small (70mm head to tail) lizard ... read more