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22 October 2008
Santa Clara is the home of the monument and mausoleum of Che Guevara. The city and its surroundings is also where key events in the revolution took place, eg. in 1958, Che and his men manage to derail the Batista government’s heavily armoured train carrying troops. The monument and mausoleum seems to be a focal […]
21 October 2008
Today we took the 1445 bus from Trinidad to Santa Clara, the home of the monument and mausoleum of Che Guevara. However, Che is everywhere in Cuba … including the bus station in Trinidad. The journey time was about 3h30 and we got to Santa Clara around dinner time. We had booked a guesthouse online […]
20 October 2008
We spent the day swimming and basking at Ancon Beach today, a short drive away from Trinidad. We grabbed a sandwich at a shack on the beach … as it was very reasonably priced, we gave our recommendation to the Spanish guy sitting near us. Off he went to the shack too … but a […]
19 October 2008
After a 2 night stay in Sancti Spiritus we moved on. Our next major destination was Santa Clara but I had planned for an intermediate night stop at Trinidad for two nights. Besides being a lovely town, it is also close to Playa Ancon where we could have a day on the beach. It would […]
18 October 2008
After a walk around Sancti Spiritus, we realised that there wasn’t much to do. So we decided to catch a movie … Los Vaccaciones de Mr Bean. Movies are subsidised here so it cost us about USD0.05 per person. There was only one other person in the large cinema and the movie (DVD actually) was […]
17 October 2008
After a large part of the day in Camaguey, including an interesting visit to the doctor for Kim, we moved on. We travelled by a Viazul bus from at 1630 Camaguey in the afternoon, bound for Sancti Spiritus. This ride, along with other bus trips were booked online via the Viazul bus company website. With […]
17 October 2008
Above: Public transport in Camaguey. Eating in Cuba We’ve had many stories of Cuban food being really bad. However, our experience has only been positive. Maybe things have changed … we haven’t found any of those old state-run restaurants churning out greasy pork dishes that we’ve read about. We’ve had wonderful meals in restaurants, guesthouses, […]
16 October 2008
Camaguey provided a first glimpse into a provincial Cuban town. Pretty cobbled streets, churches, squares. And great food! We stayed at a casa particular again in Camaguey. Our host in Havana had arranged this one for us, along with the others on the rest of our itinerary. Booking ahead in Cuba is difficult from the […]
15 October 2008
Above: Our Cubana Antonov 24 aircraft was like a sauna onboard. Emirates Airlines is famous for its onboard shower for First Class passengers on board its Airbus A380. Today we flew on Cubana from Havana to Camaguey on an old Russian propeller plane (Antonov 24), scheduled for 1700. We had some technical difficulties on the […]
15 October 2008
Apart from the lack of shops, there are signs that Cuba isn’t the most affluent nation: The restaurant in Chinatown churns out the best cream caramel in cut-off cola cans. The restaurant has cut your paper napkin for use by two diners. Car like the 1955 Bel Air still cruise the streets. B&W TVs still […]