Casa Particular Rene Cardoso Garcia Havana

... sandwiches called Bocaditos for breakfast.

Santiago, 12th - 14th September

Arrived in Santiago at night and were crowded by touts trying to get us to stay at their casas and recommending their cabs. Luckily we had a casa owner come and meet us at the station for a casa recommended by our last hosts at El Chino.

The next day we decided to take a taxi as had several recommended sites to visit and not a lot of time. In one day we went to El Cobre a famous Cuban ...

... and ended up at Plaza de Revolucion. It was the old presedential palace but was now a museum for the revolution. It kind of reminded me of the propoganda museum in Hue Vietnam, with things like comrade so and so ate from this spoon !!! Never does it for me. Out in the grounds were vehicles and planes that had been used, and there was even the boat that brought Fidel over as he invaded Cuba. It was behind bullet proof glass, which we didn't ...

... take them all home and nourish them with a can of Alpo, which does not exist in communist Cuba. Chester took us to one of our favorite location, Las Ramplas, an Afro-Cuban area in central Havana. Located nearby to one of the most lavish and historical hotels, Hotel National. As we enter this area, I needed to stop and put my sunglasses on, the bright vivid colors were breathtaking. The African influences were everywhere, from the murals that filled all the walls ...

... a bugdet, rent a bike. I tried them all. Food is quite cheap and people are friendly. No worries if you do not speak the language, there are people there to take you around. They will show their ID and then starts the walking tour, just don't forget to tip them or treat them for a mojito or whatever you would be eating along the way. At night, do not forget to hangout at Mallecon Drive where you could jam with the ...

... yes, I ordered lobster) and look outside and see all the beggars, there really is a huge class gap here. I'm glad to be leaving tomorrow and I can't wait to get back to Mexico Milli says: So to back track we did attempt to get to a salsa club but it started too late and the area it was in was so dark and scary, and not just in a 'I'm scared, oh woe is me, sook sook etc, that we left and tried a few other bars closer to home. Things are nice and happy in some places but ...

... I'm with them, the conductors, we're just hanging out, doing our job". Much of my visit to Cuba has exposed me to many sights that my consciousness didn't want to acknowledge, and the excursion through the countryside was one of the most perplexing. The landscape was as pristine as I've ever witnessed, with rolling hills, palm trees, and handsome homesteads sporting tidy fields of pineapple, tobacco, or sugar cane, with mountains for a backdrop. But ...

... own Cuba Libres and took it all in. This was my first exposure to music, dancing and pageantry and Iīm so sorry that I didnīt get to have another night of it. A love affair between the Spanish guitar and the African drums is a great description, but it doesnīt completely explain the magic. The reason that we didnīt get to go back was that we had a run in with the law the next day....A plain-clothes police man approached Adolpho when we were at the beach ...

... went for a quick beer, then my tea was ready, some goooooood chicken, so the next morning i got the bus to trinidad, via havana (compulsary, not my favourite place) trinidad was real nice though, very colonial, near the beach, met some dutch lad on the bus so after my tea went to a bar and watch some salsa dancing and had a good chat, the next day walked round the town, really nice, many snaps for you all, (when i get round to it)! then back to the salsa bar with holland, many ...

... villas, still standing and inhabited, like all the houses in town, even the almost crashed down ones. Families live there, with apparently no money, the houses and flats having been distributed among all the local population after the revolution, with no apparent distinction. The richer live in the most renovated or better maintained houses, since they did the job. A break for mojitos was needed before twilight, and we chose the top terrace of the grand ...

... in a communist country with no access to any information on the outside world is pretty unbelievable. Even more so when we visited the ration stores where people queue for their bread everyday and on certain days of the month for other rations such as a bar of soap every 6 months or for their quota of 6 eggs per year. Yes there are other stores but they have to pay for extra supplies and considering the average ...