Playa Larga Cienfuegos

... to walk back and he left shaking his head. Tut tut. <br><br>Siesta time.<br><br>Cuba Libre time.<br><br>The morning of our last day we caught a cyclo out to see the old cemetery. It is where all the original Cienfuego mayors or whatever are buried. The woman showing us round spoke only Spanish so my translation may be a little off. A lot of it had been blown down by the hurricane last year. When the hurricanes hit the water from ...

... zwei letzte Stehplaetze und es geht auch schon los. Wir sind fast die einzigen Touristen, ansonsten platzt das Boot fast aus den Naehten voll** kubanisch** Schulkind**, Doktoren in Kitteln, Familien samt Vogelkaefig und and**en, die die Faehre zur Ueb**fahrt in ihre Wohnvi**tel nahe dem Fort nutzen. <br><br>Das im 18. Jahrhund**t zur Piratenabwehr gebaute Fort wird uns genaustens **kla**t und wir treffen auf 2 deutsche Geschichtsstudentinnen, mit denen ...

... prior to the call AND there are different phones for international numbers that do not seem to work for the local ones .... at least for me. The people at the ECTESA were not too helpful so I trucked over to the Hotel La UNION where they spoke a little English, added a few digits at the beginning of the number AND in the middle of it and it worked. Well, let's just say that the call got through. Now the fun part .... Spanish. It is pretty hard to hold a phone ...

... nits of coral and quite a few different fish. Great sea food lunch on the island and was duly impressed by Sari´s ability to get meat out of the Lobster, a task we rarely have the pleasure of in the UK. At the end of the meal I tried to get a coffee, but they told me it wasn´t included, and as I didn´t have nay money handy then I resorted back to a Cubra libre cocktail instead, tough life :) Most surprising &amp; best snorkeling was the last 30 ...

... up on what the other three had already seen. I happily cris-crossed the streets around the Capitolio building and Habana Vieja on my own for a few hours, and couldn&#8217;t help but notice how different Havana felt compared to all the other places we&#8217;d seen. From afar, the domes punctuating the city skyline gave it the appearance of Rome or Florence. The urban make-up of buildings, traffic and people made it feel much more ...

... The guest rooms are located on the first floor of their home next to a beautiful terrace area. The food here is probably the finest in Cuba...and the portions are so large we would challenge anyone to finish it all (NB: challenge does not extend to James Sutherland). In the whole 16 days we were there, they managed to serve us something different for nearly every meal (including venison &amp ...

Trinidad is an old colonial town, preserved by UNESCO. We've decided to stay here longer, since it has a vivid nightlife and a beach nearby. We went to the Valey of Sugar Mills on an old steam train. As usual, I had to check how things work so I (and some other guys) were allowed to "drive" the steam machine.... It was hot and all I could think all the time was where I'm gonna jump if the machine explodes.... The ...

... place we were actually looking for, and he had two rooms so I commenced Operation Tagalong with the Irish. Just walking around the town was pretty interesting, and it's obviously well loved by tourists (as denoted by the police being out in force). The guidebook labelled it a bit of a night time party scene, which is honestly hard to imagine as everyone seeks refuge from the sun during the day, but very easy to see your impending fate as the sun drops ...

... seeing the Cuban version of carnival / fair / festival though - things that are so often taken for granted at the same types of events in other countries are very obviously not present: for example, the food is all the same - roast pork, pizza, spaghetti and criola (a typical plate with rice and a pork chop). That´s it. The type of variety generally seen at the same type of festival in another country just doesn´t exist. Also the things available to buy ...

... a cement works, a paper mill, an oil refinery and a thermoelectric power plant (its smoke clouds and stacks dominating the colonial centre skyline). [They also have a nuclear power plant, identical to Chernobyl, which, thankfully (given Latin American standards of maintenance, the commitment of USD10 a month employees and the unreliability of the regular power generation), has never been brought on line.] In Cienfuegos we visited the Museo Provincial and ...