Cuba

Hello all

It seems so much happens in a short space of time, it is hard to believe we have only been away for a month, we have been seeing so much and flying so often! We have just returned from Cuba, not originally on our travel plans but too good to pass up.

We managed to buy some tickets for a flight from mexico and headed to Cuba for a week, deciding to have a look around before the country will change when Fidel Castro dies (i think most believe he is already gone, as his last public performances rivalled the outstanding technology used on weekend at bernies 2).

First stop in Cuba was havana where we stayed in a 'casa', literally someones house. As cuba is a socialist country there are very few hotels and no hostels so there is a large network of people that open their houses to guests. We struck gold and the owner of our house was great, he was a young guy that taught us how to play domioes cuban style, taught me how to smoke cuban style, and even how to drink cuban style... (cubans are a bit pissweak in the drinks stakes though...)

We stayed in Havana for about 4 days, havana viejo (old havanna) was really an amazing city, it felt like a very European city that had been trapped in 1950 (and not cleaned or repaired since!) There are still loads of the old cars rattling around, just enough new fiats to spoil the illusion, but the thing that strikes you most is the lack of advertising. If it wasnt for the murals sprouting communist propaganda there would be nothing! Also there is no penetration from any american companies, so no coke, no mcdonalds, no microsoft and best of all no americans! What this does mean though is things can be hard to find, almost every business is run out of someones front door whether it be a restaraunt or a shop which can be a bit confusing.

From Havanna it was off to a town claled vinales which was out in agricultral land, and very beautiful, we again stayed in a casa there, and did some horseriding and ate a lot of homestyle cooking, which was great, cause things were starting to go a little wonky in that area....

the cheese pizzas and cheese tacos had seen confidence sky high but confidence was running low by vinales....

From vinales it was back to the airport and then off to Mexico where we have undertaken our first ever land border crossing which was pretty exciting, particularly as there was a casino in the "free" area zone, but carrie wouldnt let me stop, and now we are on to Belize! It has already been great so far, except for the torrential downpour received last night, apparently 6 inches in 30 minutes, (sounds like a movie title i know) but the roof was not strong enough to cope and by morning the entire floor (including our packs) was under water.....

anyway, things are well, i hope this blog thingo has worked and keep sending thru the emails they are always appreciated, especially the footy scores!!

Brett