Blogs from Cuba, Central America Caribbean - page 67

World Heritage Site Trinidad - a fine, half-preserved town on the south Cribbean coast. Not sure what I was expecting, but this was a surprise; small, immensely peaceful and virtually no tourists...there are beautiful, ornate Portuguese-style houses, surrounded by wrought-iron grilles, sitting quietly on sunny empty streets. Walk past an open window and you'll see a still-life: an old rocker, wood smoothed over decades and decades of use, waiting for someone to warm it...a tiny market full of lace and cobbled streets full of people who smile rather than talk - none of the hustle and stridency of markets the world over... It was founded in 1514 by Valazquez and the architecture is a strange - but wonderful - mix of Moorish and Baroque (if that doesn't sound too bizarre!) a town of teracotta roofs and ... read more

We have had our 2 days getting 500km by different routes. James did it hard with 4 flats on the 1st day )150km) , 200km ) 9hrs23min biking time) on the autopas the next day and a cruisey 150km today in the heat. I got into town 3 hrs before and got a casa. He got to the town square at 4pm on the dot, well done. The two towns Chris stopped at had beatiful town squares with nice spanish buildings and Trinadad is the best at that. Quite beautiful. My bike suffered a bit of damage on the bus trip, broken spoke and not tolls for changing, removen hub. But it ran well today so it might be fine and I will look out for a mechinico. We are heading to the coast for a ... read more

We got our bus back to Hanvan and hoped to get a second overnight bus down to the East end city of Santtiago de Cuba. 10 hrs in havana , told no bus so off to train ticket office 10km away to find it closing. Thought we were told to come bak at 3pm but it was closed until Monday 3rd. We then tried to get a ticket fornight tain at public station for 2 hrs , queued 3times to be told NO way. In between we had anotrher good look around Havana and we enjoyed the people at the cafes etc. 5pm we gave trhe bus station another go and they now had a 10pm bus. cool. 15 hr trip so we rocked in at 1 pm Sunday and added on 70km out of town ... read more

We have had to hold here for another night but get on a long bus trip tomorow to the other end of Cuba. ) we hope as we need a connection in Havana but can´t prebook. James made use of the day and biked out over some hills to the beach Cargo Jutius ) a island connected to the mainland. He was going to stay but the only option was sleeping on the beach. Without a mossisto net or repellant that was looking a nightmare. He turnsup just as I was sipping rum drinks and getting dinner served after 6 hrs biking and 124k over the same hills twice in the heat. I´ve just been doing small trips around here into other valleys and did a cool 2 hr MTB offtrack that I guessed would lead ... read more

Lots of people have asked us to tell them about our recent trip to Cuba, so we've decided to put our thoughts into blog form; I've added headlines for each section so you can skip over the bits you're not interested in ;) (The bits in italics are mine -Jan) Why Cuba? This year, as well as being our Silver Wedding anniversary, is the 50th anniversary of the revolution in Cuba. I've always been something of an admirer of Castro, if only because he's managed to stand up to being bullied by the Americans for so long; and when you look at what he has achieved for the Cuban people, its really quite impressive. So what has he achieved? Well, in 1959 only 50% of Cubans had been to school, an estimated 400 000 people died ... read more