Villa Gaviota Cayo Coco

Arriving at the airport we were greeted with isolated thunderstorms and humid weather- checked in at our hotel and collapsed in our rooms after the 16 journey from our front door. My family and I did very little here in the first week except the occasional ...

... getting blind on a Sunday with the locals, as they had no interest going to church !!!<br><br>On the way out, we did see another historical monument. An arched bridge. Tick, and we were on our way back to Trinidad !!!<br><br>Manaca Iznaga<br><br>But wait, there is a little bit more !!!<br><br>On the way back, it started to rain, then pour, so we looked in the book, and it told us about the dastardly Pedro Iznaga, who was a slave trader, and he ...

First time off the North American continent, in the 1970s. Loved the palm trees and the Caribbean white sand and clear blue ocean. No big hotels on the beach in the 70s: now it's a major tourist destination, so I'm glad we enjoyed it before the Americans snuck in!

... choppy for snorkelling, so after a nice swim there we headed to another area called Silvia which was a bit more sheltered. There we saw quite a few blue and yellow striped fish, thousands of tiny silver fish and a massive spiny black and white one hiding under a big lump of coral. We also saw some purple fan coral and Greg and Clay spotted an eel. On the way back we stopped at another beach and walked out to it on a boardwalk through the mangrove-like trees, but ...

Marking a map "day at sea" is hard, so we choose Cayo Coco, Cuba to give you an idea of where we were heading; we could see the mountains of Cuba, but never docked anywhere in or near Cuba. Another relaxing day at sea, get up late, eat late, go the the 'debarkation talk', read more in our books. I did spend a little time at the casino, spent a couple up and down hours on the quarter slots ...

... east we were aiming for a waterfall shown on our map near the Rio Agamba, but all we saw all around was flat land. Not all that disappointed we couldn&#8217;t find it, we continued on to the city of Sancti Spíritus. While randomly driving around in search of something to see we happened upon the significant José Antonio Huelga baseball stadium, yet another landmark that looked completely neglected since its original unveiling sometime in decades past.<br ...

... watching a game of dominoes here, a chess game there. I get an excellent English-speaking guide at the Museo de las Parrandas Remedianas to explain the chaos which is December 24th here, when half the town takes part in a bizarre all-night event that sees fireworks, massive towers and costumed floats fill the town square. Started as a promotional campaign by the local padre to get more parishioners into the late night mass, there's more rum than religion in the ...

... t lack. Maybe that's what irritated me sometimes. But whether what rubbed me was his conviction or the result of his actions...? Thoughts for another time, maybe. The mariposa finch in the courtyard is calling. I can hear the baby waking. Lucy is singing her high-pitched squeals to the new day. Another elusive attempt at writing closes. My apologies to the dead, to Cuba, for how little I can say that is true about you.

... feel Cuba wash over us. Bicycles and horse-drawn carts form the main transport options in Remedios (along with walking, of course). Up to four people at a time wheel past on old bikes. Cuba imported thousands of bikes from China last decade and is now producing its own lighter versions, but most of those passing are beautiful curvaceous chariots from the middle of the last century. Besides the usual ...

... that made the situation funny was the 4 or 5 hours of listening to the girls trying to kill them in the car. What wasn't funny was the 20 000 blood spat marks on the car interior in the morning. Our long awaited sleep was interupted at 2am by a creepy shadowy figure on the side of the tent. The figure circled the tent twice before a police siran sounded. Out in the feeding ground, black with mosquitos, we had to search for our passports in the car, undoing the girls last 4 hours ...