Blogs from Cuba, Central America Caribbean - page 46

I did the morning tour of Old Havana this morning. Wow. What a difference to the area that the Nacional is in. Centro Havana was nothing too special and a whole lot of hounding of people trying to sell things. But old town is just in a world of its own. So many sights and sounds to take in. Cuba had just been on the Australian Amazing Race so recognised some landmarks from that like Ambos Mundos and other places made famous by Hemingway. It was a nice walk around. After that I returned to the Nacional. I walked to Hotel Victoria to gauge how far it was from the National to see if I needed a taxi. It was only a few minutes. Even with my regrettably over packed backpack it would be easy to ... read more

Had a little bit of a sleep and then tried to see if I could get on an afternoon walking tour of old town but unfortunately the hotel only books the morning tours. I booked a tour tomorrow for a trip to Vinales and then for the walking tour in 2 days from now. I left the hotel, past the old cars lined up out the front, and shouts of 'Miss, Gorgeous, Taxi, Take you anywhere' down the Malecon. I walked that towards old town taking photos along the way but I didn't really know where I was going and gave up about halfway there and went back and hung out by the hotel pool. Tonight I went and saw the Cabaret Parisien. Although it was completely in Spanish I could follow it enough. Your just ... read more

This February my family took a vacation to Cuba. My dad planned this one, so it was a holiday to a resort with the purpose of snoozing on the beach all day and drinking lots of beer. This is not my ideal type of vacation but it was still a nice getaway with perfect weather and nice facilities. Locals comment that Varadero isn't Cuba, it's tourist. I would agree. It is a nice town and the people are friendly, but they all have something to sell you. My favorite part of the town was their little museum. Its an old beach house tucked in at the end of the street with a big wrap around balcony that overlooks the ocean. The lady working there didn't speak english and the displays were all in spanish, which was ... 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

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