Cuba! A step back into time. Into the first half of the previous
century. Before internet and wifi. Before everyone had run out of
time. A time when neighbours knew each other and children played
outside. A time when traffic moved at horse cart speed. A time when
'relaxing' meant 'doing nothing'!
Where we went...
Havana. Wednesday Nov 26 - Sun Nov 30 2014
Viñales. Sunday Nov 30 - Tues Dec 2 2014
Cienfuegos. Tuesday Dec 2 2014
(beautiful) Trinidad. Tuesday Dec 2 - Thursday Dec 4 2014
Sancti Spìritus. Thursday Dec 4 2014
Ciego de Àvila. Thursday Dec 4 2014
Camagüey. Thursday Dec 4 - Saturday Dec 6 2014
Gibrara. saturday Dec 6 - Monday Dec 8 2014
(huge and buzlzing) Santiago de Cuba. Monday Dec 8 - Thursday Dec 11 2014
Guantànamo. Thursday Dec 11 2014
(wet, wet, wet) Baracoa. Thursday Dec 11 - Sunday 14 Dec 2014
What Cuba is all about ....
Being woken by the crow of a cock. Rich golden Papayas. Casa Particulares. Lobster. More lobster. (mostly)Truly friendly people. Spacious living rooms. Wooden rocking chairs. The simple life. Palm trees and sugar cane plantations. Tobacco. Cats, dogs, parrots, chicken and goats. Horse carts. Che and Fidel and the ever present revolution. Traffic moving at bicycle speed. Making do without. Music. Salsa. Big men\women on small bicycles. Being able to wait. And wait. And wait a little bit longer. 'Holanda??? I have a friend in Amsterdam!'.
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| Che Guevara on Plaza de la Revolución. Hasta la Victoria siempre. (Always Toward Victory) |
All in all we had a wonderful holiday. But Cuba is also a country, like many others, of a few.... lets call it 'irregularities' which can temporarily dampen your spirit. The Cuban police for instance:
Our trip from Havana to Viñales did not go smoothly all the way.... We got the rented car on our last morning in Havana. We packed and guided by a surprisingly well working GPS mobile system, we set off for the Viñales valley. Abiding by the traffic rules and with all 4 eyes on the roads not to bump into a dog, bicycle taxi or any other form of slow moving vehicle. And then there he was! The cop on his huge motorbike, showing signs which we eventually got as 'pull over'. Maarten got out and listened to a very long spanish story after which he bend over and said to me ' I think we are getting a fine' And so it was. We had been driving too slowly in the presidential area, 55 km\h in stead of 60 and we have to now pay him, right there and then, 100 CUC (80 euro)!! We started to complain en later it went down to 60 CUC, which we, stupidly enough and out of pure desperation, paid just to get away! If only I had carried on with my spanish lessons 12 years ago! I afterwards thought of so many things that I could have said to him!
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| The speeding ticket! Which, in hindsight, only 2 novice travelers during their first hour of renting a car in Cuba, would pay! |
But then,
if this was not enough, less than 5 minutes later the same thing happened
again! Still in the outskirts of Havana! This time 2 cops in a police car
stopped us and told us that we were going to fast! Unbelievable! I
just kept on saying, no, no. no possible!! And in my totally terrible
spanish told him that the same thing has happened less than 5 minutes ago.
He later got really mad, but we kept on refusing. And then we got saved by a next victim! His partner stopped another tourist rental and we were waved away, probably hoping that they now got a easier target. We were on the
verge of returning the car and do what ever we possibly can not to have to continue the trip driving a rental in this country!! Fortunately this never happened again. Three
days later when we drove past Havana again on our way tot Trinidad, we sat on
the tail of another tourist car and watched them being pulled over while we could
safely slip away!
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