Villa Aguas Claras Vinales

... the story, you canŽt get to the coast unless you pay through the nose. She said there are no local buses at all! Seemed very strange. We really wished we could afford to hire a car. Oh well.

That was it for the walk. Oh! We think Rach got bitten by a flea. There was a very mangy dog following us around for the walk. Sandra said they follow the tourists because we feed them. Every country we went to in South America had street dogs all over, but never ...

... leave Wednesday at 8AM and should arrive around 2:30 or 3 PM in Vinales. I went for a walk and Armando, a local guide, caught up to me as I was walking down the street that led into the countryside. I have made arrangements with him for tomorrow for a hike that will take about 4 hours at 12CUC which is about 15-16 CAD. But today he asked me to follow him for a bit and he led me down paths that a 4x4 would have difficulty negotiating. Keep in mind that ...

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After breakfast, Nix and I headed off with Papo for our 'guided' hike. Not sure what 'guided' means when there's a serious language barrier between you and your guide. It was more of a guessing game than anything else. It was very draining continuously trying to understand what he was saying, and when you didn't, then have him say again like the second time round it would make sense.

Anyways, the hike was up the Mogote we rode around the previous day. Along the ...

... forms from their streets, and judging by the number of transexuals we saw and the way they were treated by others, this attitude seems to extend right across the board. Five hours into our tour of the valley, we visited a cave in which a natural, 50-metre swimming pool was found. Tony accepted the challenge to go in, his fluro yellow swimmers dazzling the eyes of the spectators, but failed to notice the very slippery and very non-fluro mud covering the surrounding rocks. He ...

... everytime weŽd pass one, we would see another in the distance and try and reach that. After 25 - 30km we could see just trees as far as the eye could see, so we turned back. The ride was long and hot. I had to take my shirt off as I was sweating soo much. The wind across my skinny, food deprived (up until now anyhow) body was sweet. I had lost about a good 8kg due to walking and being unable to eat in Havana. On the way back we stopped off at ...

... in Cuba. He received newspapers from Spain, sent by relatives. No control over that by the authorities. So he kept aware of what was going on in the rest of the world. I asked him, innocently, about the lack of interest of Cubans in the outside world, as this was one of the things I had seen and had to figure out. He made a nervous sign, then sighted, and said in a whisper that such things could not be talked about openly. He put two fingers over two others from his other hand, I ...

... to one, he handed fifty national pesos plus an extra ten as a tip to the attendant as we parked. The man looked at Tony first with disbelief, and then as if he was about to make romantic explosions all over him. As we walked away from the car towards the cave the man started after us calling out “No, senor...”, and once Tony realised his mistake but said it was OK anyway, the man was amazingly grateful. I was stunned, firstly that an extra thirty-five or so ...

... of getting wrongly charged for damage after returning the car (especially as we had just been charged, unfairly we thought, for supposed new marks on the sides of the already well scratched van we hired in Grenada), and so I watched the car hire employee closely as he sought to mark down the countless blemishes on the Hyundai’s bodywork. He wasn’t overly precise, and when he had finished without marking any of the scratches on the roof or ...

... stairways ascending to nothing. The set designer for "Blade Runner" must have stayed in Havana on a rainy night. A few buildings are under renovation, a laborious process here using almost no machinery. The closer we get to the Vedado end of this section, the more things improve. Work parties are giving Maceo's waterfront park a facelift. Kids use the Peligro! (danger) signs as bases for their ball game. It's funny how in the middle of a stressful day, these pockets of ...

... town to its outskirts. The whole thing seems wrong to me, but with each step we're of course further from doing anything about it. I inform Nameless Man that I will use his phone to confirm things with Pedro. He has no problem with that. On arrival at a perfectly fine casa, Julie and I agree it is not ringing true and I walk back into town and follow the map to Villa Buena Vista. Of course we have been poached. Apparently this happens a lot, as ...