Hotel San Basilio Santiago de Cuba

... and stumbled to our casa quite late. A few  days later we bumped into one of the students at the bus terminal.  He wanted to give us a reggaton CD that he and his friends recorded at a studio.  He waited for more than an hour for his friend to bring the cd to us and he insisted we took extra fruit for our bus journey.  It is these types of incidents which there were several that you really feel the warmth of ...

10-12-2008: rond 20:15 pm aangekomen op het busstation van Santiago de Cuba waar ik werd opgewacht door de zoon des huizes. Zoals aangekondigd blijkt dit een boom van een kerel te zijn en tesamen een taxi genomen naar de casa. Op de benedenverdieping heb ik een eigen kamer waar tevens een soort van huiskamer bij zit. Kortom, een half huis waar je gemakkelijk met een paar mensen kan verblijven. Na het avondeten mijn ...

Le pire trajet en bus de ma vie: 9h et malade comme un chien... un mec monte je ne sais plus dans quelle ville et s´assoit à côté de moi, peux pas lui parler, enfin si je lui parle mais pas très bien! il s´appelle Christian. 2 jours à Santiago ou j´ai un peu planée mais bien quand même. je recroise Christian dans la rue. Départ pour Baracoa à 7h lundi 18 matin, je recroise Christian à la oficina Viazul, décidemment Viazul...!!!

... it's quite sad to see that this place is apparently a centre for fat, ugly, older men to come and pick up a young Cuban hottie to take back to their room. Feeling differently about the place we decide it's time to leave. Back in the city centre we wander the streets and see games of dominoes and chess being played by the locals and the hanging out of decorations (stars and lanterns) made from used soda cans ready for Carnaval. An evening in the fun and energetic company of ...

... them my shirt, I play along and say that I'll be naked if I give them my clothes, that seems not to deter them as much as I'd expected. They decide that I can go change and come back with my clothes for them. Showering me with complements, they eventually realise it's not gonna happen and instead change track and ask for pesos to buy suntan lotion. If only they put as much effort into working... I arrange a central hotel in Santiago for my first night in due to my 10pm ...

... locals, but w**e ut off a bit with the sewage pipe sticking out of the wat**! We then got a boat taxi across to Cayo Granma, a call little island wh**e life seemed pretty slow. We quickly found our way to a bar, wh**e we chilled for a fair while before leaving the island and hitching a free lift back to Santiago de Cuba central for some mojitos on a roof-top t**race and to discuss a potential road trip around the east of Cuba!!

... and had nothing to fear from the world. The minister, bumbling, said that if everyone who wanted to fly was allowed to, there would not be enough space for all the planes. - Now, I had never thought about it like that! Have been in Santiago for about 4 days. It is much nicer than Habana, in my opinion. The buildings are kept in better condition and the parks are really nice.We haven´t done much here but have walked around a lot. We met an old man named Orlando ...

... we were raging!!!! It was just another example that you can't trust anyone in this country, the money was not an issue, it was the deceit... fecking really annoying!!!!! We left Camaguey and got the bus to the birthplace of Salsa... Santiago de Cuba. Once again we Gustavo had recommended a place to stay, so we went there. We knocked on the door, the old lady that answered.... "ahhh, the Irish have arrived".... eh... ok, we hadn't even said "hello ...

... as the one from the airport, but some of the side-highways that we took had huge holes in them. There were many locals on the sides of the road selling oranges and other tropical fruits. It would have been nice to be able to stop and buy something from them. Before we reached Santiago, we took a detour to the estate where Fidel was born and raised. It is now a tour museum. When we arrived there were a couple other tour busses there as well, and I had to pay two pesos to use my camera ...

... to rob us by surrounding us and getting caught up in the crush. A couple of us fell over and pockets were riffled but luckily we lost nothing... A germ an bloke with us was oblivious to the situation and waving his camera around. I guess we were easy picking, being the only non Cubans there. Got back to the safety of our local bar to laugh about it!