Blogs from La Habana, Oeste, Cuba, Central America Caribbean - page 2

There are multiple ways to travel from Varadero to Havana. We could travel by bus which would cost 10 CUC per person, plus the taxi to the bus station. So in total an amount of 40 CUC, plus the transportation from Havana bus station to your accommodation. For a taxi one way you will pay average 100 CUC. Thanks to the guard of the hotel we found another option, using the collective taxi, which is a ‘friend’ of the guard who collects a number of persons and share the costs. With this option we paid 50 CUC door to door by taxi. We agreed to leave the next day around noon. The next morning, after breakfast and preparing a small bag to spend a night in Havana, we waited to the taxi. The other passengers were ... read more

Day 13. Havana return Good meal last night with red wine and gentle music in background with good keyboard player. Maybe best meal yet and maybe best sleep. Breakfast of fruit, followed by bacon,ham, tomato and scrambled egg. Out into a hot day of 30 degrees again and little cloud. Some climbing past some decent sized dairy farms with Jersey type cows, which may be a cooperative of some sort since they had the odd new tractor about of Chinese origin. Of great interest was the multitude of pony and traps on the roads today with heir best harness and bells jingling. We must have been 100 or so throughout the morning with all the family on board, which we believe were going to a regular gathering of such families and horses. The climb was on ... read more

Cuba was the most eagerly awaited port of our December cruise. This tiny island has held such a big role on the world stage for most of our lives. From Batista to Castro to the Bay of Pigs to the Soviet Blockade and Missile Crisis to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has dominated headlines. Once a notorious gambling mecca and mobster hangout ruled by an infamous dictator, only to be replaced by another strongman and it became a hardline Communist country that endured decades of embargos, travel restrictions and isolation. In the 19th century, Havana was one of the wealthiest business centers in the Americas. Now it is a rather impoverished country making its way into the 21stcentury. As Castro once said, "A revolution is not a bed of roses." Since some of sanctions have been lifted, cruise ... read more

The day after Belize we arrived in Cozumel, a small holiday resort on an island off the Mexican Yucatan coast. The plan was to hire a taxi to take us to the nearby Mayan ruins, wait for us then bring us back to the ship. However, there were four cruise ships in Cozumel today. It was also another hot and sticky day. We had vison of the ruins being absolutely heaving with impatient tourists, those part of a ships tour and those independent travellers, probably all queuing to buy tickets!! All this, whilst tackling greedy taxi drivers and greedier little biteything bastards that take the piss when feasting on my ankles!! Having been to Cozumel less than ten months earlier we’d seen all there was to see in the town so we just stretched ... read more

Until fairly recently, Cuba had remained a forbidden destination to most Americans since the Castro-led revolution changed the political landscape in the mid-20th century. The “Cuban Missile Crisis” of 1962 erupted after it came to light that the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, was building ballistic/nuclear missile sites and installing troops in Cuba which is only 90 miles off the coast of Florida; these actions brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of a nuclear war and, among additional more serious consequences, nailed shut the door for normal travel options to Cuba for more than a half a century. In late 2014, with the Cuban thaw taking place under the Obama administration, travel to Cuba became a more tangible possibility although some restrictions remained in place then as they do now. ... read more