Hotel Gaviota Villa Cabo San Antonio Pinar del Rio

August 1 arrived with Tony well into the countdown; in just 8 days he leaves for Australia. Clare will be heading to the USA on the same day, to work, but displays a remarkable ability to put this at the back of her mind, and not dwell on such unpleasant thoughts. Perhaps this skill has been enhanced by Clare's recent winning of a bet, which now...

Two days into our week-long stay in Cuba, and we selected a part of the country to visit that neither of us had ever seen before. To the west of Havana lies an area known as Pinar del Rio Province, famous for its scenenry, tobacco growing, and general tranquility. We caught a bus from Havana, and three hours later found ourselves in the town of ...

Thursday we drove into the city of Pinar del Río and visited a monument to Che Guevara at an electrical component manufacturing plant. It is the sole manufacturer in Cuba of solar panels. We presented a wreath at the monument. We then visited a senior citizen housing unit. It houses close to 150 residents and has about the same number of staff r...

The next day was very interesting and pleasant. First we visited a local rehabilitation center in Puerto Esperanza. They provided a variety of medical rehabilitation for individuals who suffered from a variety of ailments and conditions ranging from heart attacks, strokes, diabetes to multiple sclerosis and everything in between. They, as all of...

The next day we visited the Latin American School of Medicine. It is a large institution with over 10,000 students from around the world. It offers free education and room and board to individuals who are poor and want to be doctors and intend to practice medicine after graduation in underserved areas. More information in English may be found he...

The bus ride to Vinales was quite beautiful. It wasnt long before I left Havana and the money toubles behind and ready to be inspired once more! It was quite a fantastic day with no clouds, the sun bright in the sky and the greenery of the jungle flying by as we passed winding in and out of the country side roads. It wasnt long until the bus sto...

Finally I got in Pinar. A chap at the bus station confirmed it was safe to walk wherever I wanted in the dark, I found a casa particular, got a discount as I did not use the aircon. A 5 dollar discount! They confirmed that the price of electricity has risen considerably lately... Asking if there was anything on that night, they told me no, nothi...

First time out of Havana, first time really travelling in Cuba. Eyes wide open, ears aware, catching every detail of a transport hub. At the bus station I tried to get a local ticket, at some kind of last minute counter. They would not sell it to me, I had to go to the Viazul agency, which caters to tourists. Viazul have their own buses, for tou...

My mother-in-law Rosemary has a great talent for picking the exact accessory to make an outing or afternoon extra special. For this trip, she's supplied Lucy with some great travel toys, including the best ice-breaker of them all, a Dora the Explorer magic pen colouring set. Just put water in the pen and it turns the black and white pictures int...

I met some people in Havana (Jim's friends, actually - he turned out to be a magnet for people, not just any people - fun people.... ;)) who told me that you can easily spend 6 days in Vinales and there is a possibility to go to the beach from there. So I decided to spend my last week in a small village in the west of Cuba, among beautiful carst...