7 posts tagged “cuba”
"The sky broke like an egg into full sunset and the water caught fire." -- Pamela Hansford Johnson
Show us a self-taken picture of the sunset.
Submitted by Connie.
This was taken on New Years Eve and once the sun had set we had dinner in a nearby restaurant watching the last of the colour drain from the sky before heading back into to town to see in the year Cuban style.
Incidentally, the banner pic on my blog is one of my photo's too cleverly cropped by AKA Vasquez. It was taken in Thailand while on a rice barge and is the probably the most beautiful sunset I've ever experienced.
Sanna, who was part of our Cuba Libra tour group, took this fabulous picture. We got stranded in Madrid for 24 hours after we missed our connecting flight to Havana. The girl on the left is Rachael who we befriended as a fellow Explorer at the airport. It wasn't until several hours into our stay that we discovered that she was actually on a shorter Explore trip than ours and therefore once we got to Havana we wouldn't be traveling any further with her.
The four of us decided to make the most of our time in Madrid and went for a walk through this beautiful park. The picture was all Sanna's idea and it only took two attempts to capture us airborne.
It was a great moment and reminds me what a shame it was that we didn't get to spend more of our holiday with Rachael as she was great fun.
Show us your headphones.
That's a sore point. I treated myself in duty free just before we left Heathrow for Cuba to these all-singing, all dancing fancy headphones at a cost of £52. Tried them out on the plane and they were really good. They are the same material as earplugs so they expand to fit your ears which means they stay put, block a load of background noise out and are really comfortable.
Mosh said at the end of our holiday: "Cuba is a country of contrasts, sometimes there are loo seats and sometimes there aren't."
There is so much I could write about this fascinating country which has completely captured my heart. It is easy to be dismissive of an non-democratic society where doctors earn the same amount as someone who works in the field but it was the simple and unwavering pride the Cubans have for Cuba which won me over.
Yes some farmers still use a pair of ox to plough the fields and transportation is a mixture of horse drawn carriages, bicycles and motorised vehicles on roads that are falling apart but it also has one of the best public health services in the world and a compulsory education system that puts many western countries to shame.
Some people still cook over fires in kitchen's out doors and power cuts are common yet crime levels are low and arts and music valued highly.
At the very least it is refreshing to visit somewhere without any advertising and a complete lack of brands. No Starbucks. No McDonalds. No H&M, Next or Gap. Bliss.
So what were the highlights? It's a tricky one but trekking to Fidel's secret HQ during the revolution which was way up in the mountains is definitely one. It's only been in the last few months that they've allowed visitors to take camera's up so I felt privileged not only to visit but be able to capture it. Then there was Che Guevara museum and mausoleum both of which were very tastefully done.
At the other end of the spectrum there was visiting Cuban's in their own homes sharing fruit and snacks with them and seeing in the New Year in the town square in Santiago surrounded by music and dancing.
Oh and swimming in the sea on Christmas Day was also quite good.
Here are some pics the rest are at my flickr
And what a fine cock it was too...
Oh and please feel free to leave appropriate cock captions, I'm sure there are many more than the ones we made up at the time...
Show us a sign that Christmas is a month away.
Having spent last Christmas and New Year at home, decided that it was
We went to Thailand and Cambodia with Explore a couple of years ago and it was a brilliant and interesting tour, so this one has got a lot to live up to.
We also still meet up with a handful of the people we travelled with two-three times a year, so I'm hoping our group is just as friendly.
I know very little about Cuba and its history, which I like when choosing a holiday destination as it means a voyage of discovery. It also gives me a great excuse to buy loads of interesting new books to read.
If anyone has any travel tips for Cuba, would love to hear them.
Here's hoping Castro doesn't croak between now and then.
