Casa Ricci Havana

... de San Pedro Del Morro, at the edge of a cliff face and an old Spanish/Cuban fort. We had a interesting tour round the inside in Spanish with the spotting of a sunbathing Iguana over one of the edges. Supposedly on a good day Jamaica could be spotted from here.

Next stop Cemetery Santa Ifigenia where the Bacardi family mausoleum was held, also a few famous revolutionary soldiers graves. We were lucky enough to see a few soldiers doing a marching procession outside the ...

... like an eternity, we pulled out the umbrellas and set off. Lightening and thunder was everywhere, and we actually received electric shocks, but that was the least of my cares. The roads/footpaths were flooded and all I could think about was the amount of dogshit/human faeces that were washing over my feet. Trust me, I've never got over my Hep E, even if it is now just a mental scar !!! Eventually soaked, we arrived back at our casa, where our ...

... of a cliff, with the view of the Maleca. As we made are way inside it, it was absolutely breathtaking. It was a complete change from the poverty stricken streets that minutes ago we were standing on. I could smell the decadence of what Cuba used to be prior to the 1959 embargo with the USA. The grandness of the ballroom with the images of the "whose who" in Hollywood and the world during the 1940's and 50's was just mind blowing. I realized then and there that ...

Habana, The rain was pouring down when the WWII Cubana plane touched down and skidded to a stop on the tarmac. A friendly woman approached us about staying in her Casa Particular. After a brief huddle we decided to follow her back to apartment. Our new host host showed Ugne around the neighborhood like she was her new sister, pointing out the boys she liked along the way. When we returned from dinner at the end of the night ...

... up are beautiful. We had the coolest beers at a brewery in a lovely square, they served it in a massive pipe type thing with a tap, it was great! I kindly ordered some gross jamon (ham) bruschetta for a dog we felt sorry for, but even HE didnt eat it!!! So I definately didnt! The last day unfortunately was spent pooping, trying not to eat their standard food (no 5 star restaurants at the airport...just those damn ham sandwiches...) and going from Havana to Cancun to Mexico City.

... The train travels everyday out to the sugar farm, delivering visitors from around the world. When I boarded the train back at the depot, I ran to the rear, wanting to claim one of the wooden benches so that I would have a panoramic view to facilitate picture taking, but a Russian couple beat me to it and claimed both benches, one on each side of the train, with both setting their personal travel bag on their respective seat. How rude, I thought ...

... buy something there. The art in Cuba is amazing. There is so much of it everywhere and it´s so fanciful and free. I also bought a ticket for whatever was playing and got to see a kids performance of Spanish Flamenco, for Christmas perhaps, but judging from the standard they might have been in a professional dance school. And the price alone was worth it just to see the beautiful theatre. Unfortunately I had to get moving after only one night in Cienfuegos ...

... cash (my stupid card didnt work over there´summit to do with the U.S. trying to take over the world like brain that little mouse) anyway ran back, stuffed my stuff into my bag and ran to the bus station, where i had to convince the driver to let me on cos i was late! so got to santa clara some time later, only so i could get to my casa (which were already booked, think its like the parent grape vine, everyone knows everyone and everythink, like youd get there and they would say ...

Today is a day off, all havaneros have gone to the beach, the stores are almost all closed and the speech of Raùl Castro plays on and on through the speakers of TVs. This year, he's in Camagüey. Cuban flags ornate the streets, as well as red and black flags commemorating the 26th of July, date of the first attack of the rebels lead by Castro and Che Guevarra (a chess ...

... Adonis as our instructor (seriously that was his name) but he was unable to make it that night...very fortunate for us as it turned out he was far from a Greek God. The food on the trip was far better than expected and we luckily got to sample some home cooking a number of times on our trip, but although the home cooking was good, it was not always the best place to visit the ladies as a few in our group found out ...