It was amazing and fascinating to get a glimpse into life under Fidel's rule. ( I guess now it's Raul's rule)
We stayed at great hotel and made many trips out of the compound to try to get a taste for the country. We weren't staying in a super touristy area so we were able to visit some rural towns and Havana a couple of times.
This is an interesting tree found whilst climbing up a steep incline to the "mountain" outside our hotel.
The view from the top. That's the hotel we were staying at. You can see there's a nice coral reef right off the beach. We went snorkeling a few times and it was awesome. The jellyfish made it so we couldn't go quite as often as we'd like. Stupid jellyfish.
Some coconut carving done by the local farmer so we could drink the milk inside. Delicious.
Another scene from the farm.
In Havana...
Rum for the baby... I mean, for after the baby comes.
Scooter tour to Cuba's highest bridge. Opened by Fidel himself in 1959 (I think)
Some time spent on the beach. Look, Chris isn't burnt. We went through a lot of sunscreen while we were there.
We took the scooter out a second time on our own to go and visit the nearest town, Santa Cruz del Norte. Apparently it's a happy town because the Havana Club factory is there so everyone has a job.
We also visited the Hershey Gardens. Before the revolution Hershey had owned the nearby sugar factory and made these nice gardens to visit.
Chris playing with the poisonous Portuguese Man-of-war. Luckily we didn't get stung by its tentacles.
We have a friend from Ottawa who is with the foreign service and is posted in Havana. Unfortunately she was away in Columbia on a temporary posting, but her husband was happy to meet up with us and show us around. We arrived on the day that the Terry Fox run was happening. IT was fantastic because a lot of streets were closed and there were all sorts of people all around.
We went into the Capitolio for a tour. It was a spectacular building that completely takes your breath away when you walk in.
We took a walk around old Havana. This was my favourite square, Plaza Vieja. They have done a lot of work to restore these squares and are working out radially to fix up some buildings that have fallen into disrepair.
After a fantastic bbq at Andy's we headed over to an artist's home named Jose Fuster. He has done up his house in mosaic as a gift to his neighbourhood. It's incredible and overwhelming all at the same time as you try to take in all that is in front of you.Here are some attempts at capturing the scale of this project.
Here's a link that has a great video about him.I took a video of him making a ceramic sculpture, but I forgot about how when I take video it needs to be horizontal because I haven't figured out how to flip it 90 degrees.
Oops.
All in all, a great trip. I highly recommend it.
