Love,
love, loved the trip. Rachel and I got along so well except for a
couple minor scrapes which would have happened to anyone who spent 14
days together every hour. I had such a good time, saw new things and
got SCUBA CERTIFIED! I love life. I love travel. Can't wait to do it
again.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Day 13 - Sunday, December 15th, 2013 - Grand Cayman - Charlotte - Omaha
Woke
up, packed, had a little breakfast and pretty much spent all day at
airports. We had to hurry and run through the airport to try and make
our flights and we were kinda worried about our cigars coming back
through customs. There was really no issue. We removed the bands and
were prepared to say they were from Cayman, but we weren't even
asked. We ended up making all the flights and got home where Mike and
Melanie were waiting for us. It was like 20 degrees. UGH! Back to
reality!
For photos from this trip click here.
For photos from this trip click here.
Day 12 - Saturday, December 14th, 2013 - Grand Cayman
Got up early and started packing, got some breakfast and got ready to go on our last scuba dive. Somehow, the group left without us knowing, but we hurried up and drove to where they were and met the boat. We were able to go! We loaded onto the boat and Laura and Helen led our two dives. They were awesome! We got down to 100 feet, saw a moray eel and swam by a shipwreck called the Kittiwake. Very cool dives and a nice way to wrap up our scuba experience.
We
went back to the hotel and walked to the Hell bar again that night.
We had a blast, saw some of Rachel's friends, played pool, danced,
and just generally had a really good night.
Ivan
the dog had followed us almost all the way to the bar before his
owners picked him up. Dinner wasn't much, we just split an overcooked
burger before the bar.
We
went to bed pretty much right away when we entered our room.
For photos from this trip click here.
For photos from this trip click here.
Day 11 - Friday, December 13th, 2013 - Havana - Grand Cayman
Slept in a little bit, arranged for a ride to the airport, but walked around a little to get some breakfast first. We walked to a few places that looked open but were closed and got a few suggestions along the way. We saw a cafeteria in a hospital and tried there. We peeked inside and it looked like it had been vacant for years. At this point, we're just getting hungry, so we found the closest place we could. It was a little stand made of wood, one half sold sandwiches and the other half sold juice. The locals were lining up in droves for the juice, but we were hungry so we ordered 2 sandwiches and 2 juices. From the sign, we were expecting to pay $14. It ended up that these prices were in CUP and not in CUC, so it was actually like $1.35! We felt like we had to try the juice that everyone was loving, because people were literally double fisting and slamming this stuff down. We tried it, at 5 cents a piece, it was ok, t was sort of a guava with a nutmeggy spice quality to it.
We
made it to the airport and had to wait outside because they only let
in certain flights at a time. We had a beer, the line opened up, we
did our airport thing, and we were on our way back to the Caymans.
We
got back late because our flight was delayed so we missed our car
rental places' closing time, but we went to another company that was
still open and Rachel drove us back to the hotel. This time it was a
right hand drive car, so I was kinda glad I wasn't driving.
For photos from this trip click here.
Day 10 - Thursday, December 12th, 2013 - Vinales - Havana
The lady that met us was called Leidy. She is 6 months pregnant, has a very nice accommodation for us for 35 CUC per night. It is also a short walk to the Tropicana show we want to see tonight, so it saves us on a cab fare, and it's away from the downtown area that neither of us were fond of. Pretty perfect.
We
walked up to the Tropicana to buy tickets early and we had a couple
beers each. No real plans today, just a chill day, and the show isn't
until 10pm. Pretty late for an event in Cuba, from our experience.
After a couple of beers, we found a lunch spot not far away and got
Rachel's beef fix temporarily subsided. We had a burger and lasagna.
For photos from this trip click here.
Day 9 - Wednesday, December 11th, 2013 - Vinales - Maria La Gorda - Vinales
Woke
up early, around 6 and had the same breakfast as yesterday and got a
taxi to go to the beach called Maria La Gorda to dive today. It was a
crazy ride. 2 ½ hours at a very rapid pace, dodging horses, people,
bikes, trucks, and anything else you can think of. The driver was
super ice and had a sweet little ride. It was a VW something with a
newer, pretty sweet Pioneer stereo and some aftermarket 6x9s. We
lovingly referred to it as the disco taxi as he played American dance
music the whole way there.
Watched
a beautiful sunrise from the taxi and listened to probably the whole
collection of Adele. On the way, we picked up his girlfriend, they
were cute, and made great time.
We
arrived at the beach about 1 ½ hours before the first dive,and we
checked in and paid for the excursion. I noticed they had a computer
with 2 USB inputs that should work for the file transfer I've
desperately needed for like 4 days now, so I bought a card to use the
computer. It had Windows XP on it and evidently this place, or Cuba
in general, restrict certain things on the computer, so I couldn't
pull up the file exchange window. When I plugged in my phone, it only
gave options to open Word and something else completely useless. I
finally figured out that I could open Windows Media Player, go to
File - Open, keyboard shortcut Copy, change drives, then keyboard
shortcut Paste. Whew! It worked though, just had to sit there for an
hour and move the mouse every 60 seconds so the card I used wouldn't
log me out.
Anyway,
got that done and we went to go on our first ever non-training dive.
SCUBA in CUBA! We got our gear and loaded onto a boat that drove us
to the selected dive site. We dropped in and swam the reef for the
usual 45 minutes, seeing some decent sea life. Nothing too crazy of
note, but a nice dive. We came back to shore and scheduled another
dive at 3pm, so we had a couple hours to kill. Got lunch, tuna
sandwich, and we were immediately swarmed by 6 hungry scavenger cats.
I fed them ¼ of my sandwich and we went down to the beach to relax.
Rachel built a sand castle for a bit and I laid in the sun until it
was time to dive again.
We
got our gear back on and got to the boat again. We drove to a
different dive site and did another 45 minute dive. This one was much
cooler. Better reef, several schools of brightly colored fish, about
8 lionfish, and an array of yellow, blue, and white fish all over.
Saw a barracuda in the distance. Huge. After our dive we headed back,
got our log books signed by the dive instructor and hurried out to
meet our driver.
Same
story on the way home, only it was a bit scarier since it was dark
most of the way, and most people/vehicles, etc. have no reflective
materials on them. Long drive, tried to sleep, but mostly was getting
tossed around in the backseat as we bobbed and weaved home.
Once
home, paid for our bill at the casa particulares and had dinner. Same
setup with beans, rice, tomatoes, cucumbers, and fruit, but instead
of fish, we had a ½ chicken each. Stuffed again! Too much. And we
couldn't even eat ½ of what was on the table. Rachel and I irritated
each other a little bit, so we had a talk and called it a night
instead of going out or anything. Everything is good, just a long
time to be with anyone for 24 hours a day without a couple of speed
bumps.
For photos from this trip click here.
For photos from this trip click here.
Day 8 - Tuesday, December 10th, 2013 - Vinales
Got up fairly early. 7ish. Had a nice egg breakfast with toast and guava jam, fresh pineapple & papaya. We met our guide, Luis, at 9 am and walked through town to a farm area where our horses were waiting. I decided to wear shorts, which in hindsight, was not the best idea. My thigh rubbed on the saddle and got pretty chafed. That being said, it was such an excellent experience. We rode through the countryside, which is a National Park. There are rounded mountains that are covered in foliage that are breathtaking. It reminds me of Jurassic Park's flying in scene and at the same time, reminds me of Yosemite valley.
We
rode through farms on dirt paths past pigs, chickens, many birds,
goats, sheep, cows, horses, and more. We saw tobacco plants, yams,
sugar cane, black beans, and more. Watched a farmer plow his field
with an ox and directly behind his newly plowed path, more than a
dozen birds were getting all the worms that it was turning over.
Unique. My stirrups were a little long, so it hurt a little bit to
trot, and we trotted somewhat regularly. My butt and thighs are sore
tonight! But it was well worth the pain. We rode to a cave in one of
the mountains and were guided through the stalactites and stalagmites
by flashlight to a natural pool 30 meters long. We didn't have
swimming clothes, but washed our faces and arms and watched while
others swam. One of the swimmers was a lady who lived in Glacier
National Park on the Canada side, very nice.
We
rode a bit more to a tobacco farm where we were served coco dios by
the tobacco farmer. To make this drink, he cut open a coconut, cut
some skin off, added honey to the skin and offered us the skin to eat
while he made the drink. Drained about ½ of the coconut water and
let us drink it, then cut fresh oranges, pineapple, and another fruit
and squeezed the fresh juice into the coconut. Added rum made in the
valley and some honey. Wow! Best drink presentation ever!
He
then offered us a cigar and rubbed honey on the tip you put in your
mouth. That's the way to go - so good. While we smoked, he showed us
how cigars are made from the tobacco plant and what the difference is
between the types, and he hand rolled a cigar right in front of us.
We
drank Mayabe, a new beer to us, it was good. The people at the stand
were playing with a little animal that looked like a mix between a
large hamster, rat, opossum, beaver, and who knows what. It was the
size of a small dog and they called it a hotillo. I guess this one
was a baby and they said it was in the rat family. They were laying
with it like a dog, rubbing its belly, etc. and could grab it by the
tail and put it on their arms, shoulders, etc. Rachel was the first
to pet it, and I followed suit, then had a local put it on my
shoulders for a photo. He liked my beard.
He
asked if we preferred regular hiking or to ride in a horse pulled
vehicle for awhile. I had been wanting to ride in one of these two
wheeled metal carts pulled by horse since I saw one on the way into
town. We chose that. It was a bit scary at first. Nah, mostly the
whole time.
The
cart was fairly wobbly with nothing to really hang on to, there was a
small wooden bench on either side, wide enough to sit about 3 people
very closely. The roads are rutted and part of the journey was on
dirt roads and paths that were also rutted, uneven, and at times,
rocky. It was fun though. Check that off the list.
We
rode to his family's tobacco farm and he took us inside the barn
where they were going through the same thing we had done earlier.
Rachel and I were good on that, so we left and told him what was up.
We felt a little bad, because it was Tamara's family who would have
gotten the money if we would have bought from them, but we didn't
know it was part of the “hike” and the farmer earlier was so
cool, I would have rather bought from him anyway.
We
went over to the house and had a coffee drink and enjoyed the view
before heading back out in our horse cart. We arrived at a place
where they had a giant prehistoric mural painted on the mountainside
and walked around there for a bit. I got a beer and as I was sitting
there, I was playing with my Cuban coins and my magnetic money holder
on my wallet. I stacked them so 3 coins were balanced on top of one
another. One of the bartender's faces when he saw it was priceless.
He must have thought I was a wizard. A few people wanted to know what
as up and were all talking about it. I told them it was santeria.
It's a slave/christian/voodoo type religion in Cuba. They laughed,
and then played with the “magic coins” themselves for awhile.
Google Maps is also going over extremely well here.
I
imagined it would since I have been hard pressed to be able to find a
frickin computer to dump my photos on to a thumbdrive. In Havana, the
hotel computer was closed on Sunday & Monday, the only days we
were there, and to my knowledge, Vinales has only 1 public computer
at the post office, open from 8-5 with a 1 hour siesta in there. We
haven't been able to make it there on time yet with our daily
activities. Crazy.
After
the prehistoric mural park, we rode through the breathtaking views of
the National Park and then, after grabbing a couple guys who needed a
ride, went back home.
Rachel
and I showered and had some down time before dinner. For dinner,
fish, black beans, rice, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, plantain
chips, fresh fruit, green beans, and cerveza. We arranged for a cab
to a dive location tomorrow leaving at 6:30 am, so we decided to have
an early night tonight and went to bed.
For photos from this trip click here.
For photos from this trip click here.
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