Cozumel Mexico

Got the ferry over to the island of Cozumel from Play del Carmen. Cozumel is known for it´s diving and snorkeling so we were looking forward to doing quite a bit of snorkeling while we were there.

Hotel was average, it did have see views which was nice and at first the sight of cruise ships was good. Every day 5 or 6 cruise ships would arrive and then leave later in the afternoon. When they arrive the taxis and hired cars and scooters would form a steady flow. Also Señor frogs would get busy (and this was at 11am in the morning!!). Don´t know what the attraction of coming off the boat and heading straight to a bar and staying there till the afternoon is. Scary scary place I reckon it to be by day.

Our first day and we headed off to a snorkeling trip we´d booked the night before. The boat took us to 3 different spots all within a short distance of each other and to our surprise the shore. We probably could have come off the shore instead of taking the boat! We were both expecting more from it and when it was over we were disappointed and thought the snorkeling in Vanuatu off the hotel´s beach was much better. There was a few schools of fish but not a lot of coral. Being noted as the place to go for diving and snorkeling built it up a little too much I think.

Next day and we headed off to a park to do some beach and more snorkeling. Our expectations we lowered from the previous day´s snorkeling and we were both hoping that we it would be better and that we hadn´t wasted our time coming to the island (doesn´t seem to be alot to do other than diving or snorkeling unless you´re keen on shopping and bars). Well it turned out to be much better than the previous day, bit more coral and lots more fish. It was good to be able to go off the beach as we could snorkel, beach then snorkel some more. It still wasn´t as good as we were expecting so I figure you really need to go diving to get the most of it.

Headed out to dinner at the same place we´d been to the night before, which had more of a home cooked, authentic feel to it. The good places all seem to supply a free snack before the meal, most of the time salsa or dips with corn chips or bread. Perhaps it´s a good idea to ask if they do this before sitting down and eating at a place ;)

By the time we left, we´d gotten quite sick of the cruise ships and the passengers aboard, Spring Break season definitely doesn´t help.

Last day, jumped onto the ferry then the bus for a 5 hour ride to Merida.

Arrived in Mexico

Got off the plane and headed outside, first thing to hit me was how much hotter it was compared to Cuba. I didn´t think there´d be so much of a difference.

Got a bus to Playa del Carmen, which wasn´t for a couple of hours so more time spent sitting in the airport as fun as that is. The bus ride was uneventful but did give us a sense of being in a completely different country and very different to Cuba. Within a km of the airport there´s a big fat M on a stick, which we could do without seeing. So instead of billboards and signs advertising the revolution we get advertisements for resorts, beer, jewellery and a whole lot of other crap. I was finding it all very strange after being in Cuba for 2 1/2 weeks where there´s basically no advertising as it´s illegal to post propaganda and advertising could be considered propaganda. It´s quite a good refreshing change not having to look at in your face advertising and promotions, especially considering we´d just entered tourist land.

When we arrived in Playa del Carmen it wasn´t quite what we were expecting, loads and loads of shops and americans. And the first food we got was blended smooth salty guacamole with greasy corn chps, arrrgggh.

Hotel (Luna Blue) is very nice, with a comfy feel about it. Would recommend staying there if you happen to go to Playa.

Over our 6 nights in Playa we spent quite a bit of time looking around the shops, at the beach, wandering and doing a couple day trips.

The beach club down the road which we had access to was packed early on, so we´d have to wait around for a lounger to come free and quickly grab it before anyone else. Swimming was fantastic in the oh so warm caribbean sea.

The main street where all the restaurants and shops are is a mad place, lots of tourists and the only mexicans you see are trying to sell you their wares, the same wares you see at the shop next door and next door to that. There are a few exceptions and finding them is great.

We managed to find a couple of good restaurants, one with a varied menu almost too huge but with plenty of vege options and yummy juices. The other next door to the hotel run by a family from Mexico city, not so many options for me but the fajitas were tasty and the service very friendly and helpful. Also found a chocolate shop which we visited a few times (a day almost) for mayan chocolate (chocolate, water, spices and orange peel) which I don´t think had any sugar, chocolate frio and other goodies. And spent some time at the internet cafe catching up on posting about Cuba and not paying the earth for it (approx 2USD an hour vs 6USD an hour in Cuba).

The shops stay open till close to midnight every night, quite a change from Cuba. So anytime we´d go out to dinner there´d be all the same shops open. One in particular always a guard armed with semi automatic outside, quite odd. In some ways the situation in Cuba with lots of free labour is just replaced with lots of cheap labour, almost amounting to the same thing.

The 2 day trips we did were to Tulum and the Hidden Worlds cenotes (underground caves filled with water). Both of these we skipped the overpriced tour and got a collectivo which is a mini bus/taxi service where they wait till they´re full (about 14 people) and head off down the highway dropping off people and picking up when they´ve got room. Works very well for getting to the various sights and hotels for some people along the highway and is very reasonably priced. What´s up with speed bumps on the highway though, that´s just madness.

We got to Tulum and it´s in a very impressive location being the only ruins right on the sea which is probably one of the main attractions, since it was built towards the end of the mayan era and borrows quite heavily from other sites such as the more restored Chichèn Itzà. It survived later than a lot of the other sites as well. The views and location are very impressive. If you visit take you swimmers, togs, boardies or bathers with you so you can go for a swim right below it. There were plenty of iguanas sunning themselves on the ruins.

A couple days later we checked out the Hidden Worlds cenotes and upgraded to the package with more in it, which I think was a good idea as it let us visit the better of the two cenotes. We had to travel through a dirt road by truck, well kinda of a truck as it didn´t have a body just the bare and I mean bare minimum for it to work.

Got to the main area where they serve lunch and zip lined down to the cenote. Next we repelled down into the cenote which wasn´t that good. Then we zipped line from the same spot into the water in the cenote which was much more fun and we did it again backwards, keep your legs up as much as you can to get more distance.

We then went snorkeling with flashlights through the cenote with a very informative and keen guide. The snorkeling was really good as you see caves like you would at Waitomo but filled up with water, we turned off the lights at one point and it was pitch black. Quite a lot of small fish around which we weren´t really expecting. Was very exciting to see lots of bats, including a few baby ones roosting in the cave.

To get to the next centoe we did some sky cycling along a cable hung up in the jungle so we could see everything from above. The next cenote wasn´t as good as the first, in part it was the same and also the guide was not as interesting.

We thought the whole day trip out to the Hidden Worlds was quite fun and glad we did it.

So that was Playa del Carmen for us. Next stop Cozumel.

Last Few Days in Havana

Spent the last few days in Havana catching up on sights we´d missed and doing a bit of shopping. Got some nice tacky souvenirs to prove it!

Some of the girls were staying on an extra day so we spent most of Sunday hanging out with them, looking at the sights and looking for Che notes to take home. Found an interesting shop which we visited subsequently.

Also checked out the Mueseum of the Revolution for some history and tripped around Old Havana. Dinner out at a place where some Flamenco dancers put on a show.

The next couple of days more of the same with a lot more exploring of Old Havana, getting a ride in a Coco Taxi, and some time waiting in a line at the bank to get some Che notes which as it turns out are in short supply. The 3 Cuban Peso note (1/8 of a Convertible Peso) has a picture of Che on it and a lot of the locals sell them as souvenirs for somewhere in the vicinity of 1-3 Covertible Pesos (roughly 1-3 USD). I bought a couple for 1 CUC each off a local but wanted to get a couple more at face value, instead I ended up with some coins (with Che on them) from the bank instead which will have to do.

Spent a bit of time at the square outside the cathedral people watching, it was quite nice to chill out and watch the old hustlers posing for photos and the tourists generally doing touristy stuff. Didn´t get to either of the castles over the habour as we ran out of time and dinero (though Nicola later found some she´d squirreled away). Getting a bit of a cold (ironic considering the climate) over those few days didn´t help with making use of the entire day, by the afternoon I´d had enough of sun and walking around. Got to a few markets, looked for some paintings but couldn´d find any we liked, found some nice photos though so we got a couple of those.

We walked past the Capitol building quite a few times while in Havana, looks a lot like another building doesn´t it?

Travel in luxary and style while in Havana.

Our final day and we flew out very early in the morning. We´d organised a taxi but there were a couple waiting outside, we ended up with the one that judging by the looks of it we didn´t want (with an extra passenger, which I´m assuming was the wife and a generally not organised looking driver).

We headed off in some wierd direction, but I figured the driver knew what he was doing. Well the next thing the taxi stops, no lights on the dashboard!! Driver gets out fiddles around a bit under the hood and after a few attempts gets the taxi started. Nicola and I were both starting to get a little concerned, expesically considering we were going what seemed like a very bizarre route. Well this happened another 3 times each time we´re thinking will it start again, are we going to miss our flight. Well we managed to arrive with enough time only to wait in a line that literally didn´t move for 1/2 an hour. We got there in the end and had an uneventful flight to Mexico.

That´s the close of the Cuban chapter. We´ve had some challenges along the way but for the most part it´s been smooth sailing. It´s been a great country to visit and I´d recommend people go before it changes too much more. I´m sure I´ll be posting more after thoughts soon.

Good Times at the Tropicana

Got back to Havana and most of us were keen to go to the Tropicana cabaret so we sorted out tickets and that night we headed out.

The taxi there was interesting as it´s not in the city center so we traveled through some different, more suburban neighbourhoods. Dinner included which was fancier than we´d expected.

The show was fantastic: dancing girls, lavish costumes and some fine acrobatics. The venue is open air, feeling like a theatre with the roof off. Impressive set and huge crowd, bigger than we´d expected. It´s worth getting tickets early and spending the extra to get closer, we were in the middle and it was good, but would have been better to be closer.

Show is caberet with acrobatics in between to keep things lively. The 2 hour show ran along at a good pace and we left feeling it was definitely worth going.

Can´t really say much else, you´ve really got to experience it first hand.

Back to Santiago de Cuba

Got back from Baracoa in the afternoon, then headed to the castle again to see the canon firing ceremony, however when we got there they were not working again! So we spent time having a look around and having forgotten my camera used everyone else´s to take plenty of snaps of the castle and it´s inhabitants (geckos seem to love castles).

Had our final tour group dinner at the hotel´s italian restaurant and almost everyone ordered the calzone which overwhelmed the kitchen and we waited a looooong time to get dinner. Afterwards a local we´d met took us to a club which was part of a hotel and we seemed to have to go in the back entrance. The place was pretty seedy with a lot of young women with old men and old women with young men. All I can say is get a room! Most of us headed back earlyish leaving the keen aussies to keep partying the night away.

The next morning on a wonder round I found out that the loud wildlife noises we´d been hearing at night were the local lions which were sleeping about 200M away from our rooms, not sure if it was a zoo or not. Also bumped into the girls who had had a very interesting night after we´d left. Long story short they ended up on a local bus with the tour leader and the guy who´d taken us to the club and a fight broke out on the bus with other people on there, knife was pulled and they had to jump off the bus, eventually getting to an open restaurant where the police and taxi were called and they eventually got back to the hotel safe and sound. They were very shaken up on the whole experience and pissed off they´d gotten into the situation in the first place.

So we all got packed up and headed off to the airport, saying our last goodbyes to our fantastic bus driver and jumped on a plane back to Havana.

My first experience with Cubana Airlines and what an experience. I was sitting in the second to last row with my knees touching the seat infront (the guy next to me had to sit in my aisle seat with his knees poking out as he wouldn´t fit any other way). The seats directly infront of mine were noticibly more spacious, so it looked like over time they´ve shoved more seats in to get economy. It´ll make the standard seats in AirNZ look pretty good on the flight home.

All of this on top of the warning from the tour leader about the airline and it´s planes being less than stellar. Needless to say I was the most relieved I´ve ever been to touchdown in Havana in one piece.

Baracoa

After a long bus ride we arrived in Baracoa which seems a nice place, a lot quieter and more rural than the other towns/cities we've been to. Looks like it's the place to come if you are into tramping with plenty of walks and tramps mentioned in the guide books. The region is also the biggest producer of cocoa in Cuba, though we didn't see much for sale in the town.

Stayed in a casa again which was very good, almost as good as Trinidad, almost. The food is a bit different here, a couple of ingredients we haven't had anywhere else in Cuba. And we had a rooftop terrace which is great, have to get one of those in the future.

Our only full day in Baracoa was spent visiting a lady who is very into chocolate. I was expecting a bit more from the visit and based on the tour notes thought we were stopping by a factory and would see the process of making chocolate, but it was literally the lady's house where she told us a little about the process, showed us raw cocoa beans (which we sampled) and saw some of the cocoa trees. We did try some chocolates she'd made with condensed milk like filling which were great. And also got 2 different mixes of 100% chocolate to bring back so we can try making a few different things with it. The different mixes have different amounts of cocoa vs cocoa butter.

Next stop was a village at the mouth of the yumuri river where we were having a picnic up the river. When we got there we were greeed by what seemed like the entire village and were mobbed when we gave out our pens/pencils/paper we brought them. There were a few times I thought a fight might break out.

It's said that the Yumuri river was named after a tribe of native indians who when the spanish came, those that could not escape enslavement by the conquistadors jumped off the cliffs along the river to their death shouting "Yumuri" and cursing the spanish.

We headed a little way up the river by boat to our picnic spot. We were of course followed by some of the villagers who talked to us a little, good chance to practise a bit of spanish. Hung out and had lunch. During lunch we found some tiny fingernail sized frogs, got some pictures which will hopefully show the size. Afterwards we headed back to the bus.

This is when things got interesting. All throughout the picnic I was expecting to get hassled for clothes, soap, sunscreen or plain old money but we didn't. On the way back however things changed, everyone in our tour group pretty much got separated out by themselves and then told about the hardships of the villagers and asked for money mostly for clothing or shoes. The way it worked was pretty much the people who we had talked to on the way over and always matched guys with guys and gals with gals. I was expecting this but I still felt like it detracted a lot from the whole experience and we didn't know how genuine they were being through the day when they were asking us questions and showing us things. Nicola felt it ruined the entire day out to the village.

Got back to Baracoa and had some hot chocolate at one of the casa's. It was fantastic and I've got a little idea how to make it so will try when I get home. It's made from the pure chocolate/cocoa that we are bringing back mixed with sugar, a little cornflour and either milk or water. The host said it takes about 1.5 hours to make so there's a bit of heating, dissolving and reheating to be done.

No one really up for a night out we hosted some cards on our rooftop terrace. Was going to polish of the sugar cane I'd been carting around but it'd dried out and tasted a little arse so in the bin it went.

Left the next day and headed back to Santiago. Stopped in the mountains to buy stuff from the local vendors. Also stopped on a hill with a long distance view of Guantánamo Bay (the better lookouts are closed at the moment) which is actually quite a large town with a shopping mall, gift shop and the only McDonalds on cuban soil. All of this for the 1000's of US military and their families stationed there. This of course is separated from Cuba proper by plenty of barbed wire and the largest minefield in Latin America, installed by the US. When the Platt Amendment ruins it's course and the lease expires in 2033 I wonder who will get the clean up bill.