Havana and Cienfuegos

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So I've finally gotten around to doing my blogs, one and a half years later! Thinking back, we were very lucky to have squeezed in a two week trip to Cuba as a global pandemic was forming. A few weeks later and most of the world shut down!

So after a while of not doing this blog, my memory is a bit hazy. Our first two nights were spent in Havana, a nice city with a mixture of less than glamorous buildings in dire need of a make over (on the outside but nice on the inside), history and colourful 1950's American cars. Most people will splash out for a city tour in one of these cars but we opted to join the one of the Free walking tours of the city which we tend to enjoy.

After a great time in Vinales, we had to come back to Havana for a night to get to Cienfuegos via Playa Larga or Bay of Pigs as there is no direct route via bus, unless you hire a car. We thought we would try to be a bit flexible on this part of the trip but it backfired a little bit by getting off the bus as Playa Larga instead of going to our original bus destination of Cienfuegos. We weren't too impressed with Playa Larga and only stayed there one night and tried to get on the one bus a day to Cienfuegos but it was full and no seats available.

So the only option was to jump in to a vintage car with other people who had also thought being flexible wasn't going to be too much of an issue in Cuba. We tried to haggle a price but we knew that the drivers had the upper hand and it turned out to be a relatively expensive drive but still a nice opportunity to take cruise the Cuban countryside in a vintage car, win a little, lose a little.

Once we go to Cienfuegos, we immediately went to the bus station to book a ticket to Trinidad, after waiting in line for quite a while, we then felt settled and could visit Cienfuegos. The town was nice but I felt there wasn't much to see or do and knowing we had another day to wait, we opted to go on a day trip to Gran Parque natural Topes de Collantes.

The day trip which was arranged through the place we were staying at consisted of a group being picked up and driven to the park and from there you can do a walk around several waterfalls and have the opportunity to swim at the base too. This was a very nice area surrounded by tree covered hills and the swimming was really nice.

Our last few hours in Havana consisted of getting off at the bus stop and going straight to one of the most iconic Che Guevara monuments on the side of a building. There was not much else around that area so we then waited in a nearby park while I had stomach issues until we needed to get to the airport

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