Cuba, Costa Rica and a bit of the US.

Breaky on the rooftop at 8.30, fresh fruit, tea, coffee, fresh rolls and omelettes (ham and cheese) and fresh pineapple juice made by Yilliam (pr. Gilliam) who is Rodney's girlfriend and another two girls.

View from our rooftop, looking down on the neighbours, with the washing out.

The only complaint is the use of powdered milk, we learnt later that fresh milk is used for children, adults have powdered.

Dennis was busy watering by hand the rooftop vegies, herbs and roses.

Yaniel our guide arrived at 9.15, then to the lounge for our orientation briefing and to hand over passports for Alex to do the required paperwork for the government, which all Casa's must do. We gathered some washing and got ready for our walking tour of Old Havana (pr. Habana.)

We are rapt that the area we are in is fantastic, with many interesting buildings, the Plaza Vieja, farmacias, schools, vehicles, people, signs etc OMG, our cameras are on overload.

The top of the Camera Grafica building in Plaza Vieja.

There were a stack of these 'cats' around the central foutain in Plaza Vieja, this one caught my eye.

We walked around town to some other squares/plazas – Plaza de Armas, Plaza San Francisco, Plaza de la Revolución, Gran Teatro, Capitolio Building (which is a direct copy of Washington’s Capitol building), the Forteleza de San Carlos de la Cabana, The Gran Teatro (theatre) is newly renovated, we booked to see a ballet there tomorrow night – opening night of the first ballet production from a company owned by a very famous Cuban male ballerina - Carlos Acosta. We are all very excited about that. Not only that this is the theatre where Obama spoke just recently.

We walked and photographed so much – I will let the photos tell the story.

People are out on the streets everywhere. Just rockin the day away.

Labour is manual, carrying an old door to a new location perhaps.

There are old cars EVERYWHERE. It was just amazing to see the variety.

Coloured buildings also prominent.

These bollards are replica cannons, placed barrell down to signify that Cuba is a peaceful nation.

Selling their fruits and vegies. People sold stuff from their front rooms of houses and in a range of ways on the street.

A school. Welcome to our school.

Inside the Sarre Farmacia.

An old car, in a state of re-repair. They keep these old things going, they are patched and bogged up. The engines are hybrids, kept running using whatever parts they can source.

Streetscape.

Old bikes and side cars are prevalent too.

Fruit in front of an old school sign, tho it may well have been an operational school.

Parking and repairs for the Bici-taxis. These were everywhere too and a very efficient and effective way to get around.

The scaffolding has been in place for some time, based on the cover of vines.

The Capitolio Building, oh and another old car, just happened by.

An old truck. Love the paintwork.

The top of the Gran Teatro. The theatre we are going to tomorrow night for the ballet.

Cars, cars and more old cars. These are the restored ones, used mainly for touring the tourists around town. They looked stunning in all their bright shiny colours.

Hotel Inglaterra and a copper tank on top.

Bands playing everywhere. She is getting up with the hat for the tip from me for taking the photo.

We walked down a busy pedestrian street - Obispo all the way to the other end near Port for lunch at Hotel Nao - Buen Provencho (Bon Appetite)

Coco Taxis outside La Floridita.

Yup, that's the street name.

Suzie buying us some Churros - and they were good too.

This bunch of people are lining the streets outside one of the hotels with Wi-Fi. They have an ETECSA card, which provides a username and password to access the Wi-Fi.

Cuban flag atop the church in Plaza de Armas.

One of the many statues.I'm pretty certain this one was Cespedes. A poet and thinker who became one of the heroes in Cuba.

This is Yaniel, our fantastic guide.

Lunch at Hotel Nao

There are many statues around town – Cespedes, Jose Marti, and others. Lots and lots of old convertibles around the Theatre and Capitol building.

After lunch we hopped into a couple of magnificent old Cars – ours was a 51 Chevrolet – purple and the others were in a pink one. We toured from the Old Fort area, through past the port area, train stations, past revolution square, my God it was hot, and sun beating down on us… hopefully the sunscreen has done its job.

The ladies and Yaniel in the pink one.

A cute taxi. Cross between a Coco Taxi and vintage car.

Another car, get used to it, we just kept seeing amazing cars.

Heading up the street towards one of the Churches, again the coloured buildings.

At Revolution Square we swapped cars, then we drove into new Havana – through the Forest and over the Almendares River, along the sea wall – Malecon and past the American Embassy, along here we finished with the cars and went into a building and up to the 33^rd floor of the Focsa building to La Torres Restaurant for a drink overlooking the bay and with grand views over the city. There were also a number of Turkey Vultures soaring around us.

Revolucion Square.

Our purple Chev at Revolucion square.

Here we all are.

Would have loved to drive.

The inside view.

Looking down onto the city from the Focsa Building. La Torres Bar.

The 138 flagpoles to the right signfy 73 Cuban athletes killed in the 1976 terrorist attack on a Cuban plane. The Flags were also placed right beside the American Embassy in protest at an LED message being displayed on the US embassy.

Here is pic and some info I pinched from Google.

Pinched from Google.

Looking down to one of the Forts.

After our drinks, we caught a couple of cabs back to Plaza San Francisco and walked back via Plaza Vieja to our Casa, here Yaniel left us with some dinner recommendations at 4.30.

The entry to La Torre

Typical little taxi.

Our 3rd floor Casa. The rooms surround the courtyard.

Some other observations from the day so far.

Lots and lots of muscled up blokes around Havana
Internet access is highly sought after, Wi-Fi spots require the purchase of a card to access, often in Hotels, so locals and visitors alike are sitting on kerbs outside these few spots, accessing Wi-Fi.
There is a real mixture around town – some parts are quite dilapidated with crumbling buildings, but others have been restored and look pretty schmick.
Yaniel is a fantastic guide, excellent English, a great sense of humour; he is married with 9 month old twin daughters – Amy and Leah, wife Lianne.
We are staying in a most interesting part of town.
The hustlers around town are polite and wish you well, when you say no thank you.
Churros here are very good.
There is so much more, our heads are swimming. Maybe the photos and captions will assist to recall the vast amount of stuff swirling in my brain.

Spent the couple of hours ‘off’ typing blog and starting to sort pics. Sat in kitchen area, there is a workman, creating another ‘room’ in the Casa, so there was banging, cutting, grinding etc coming from within.

Ready for dinner. We found one of the hotels with Wi-Fi, ordered a drink/coffee, only to find Wi-Fi not working well/at all. So then off to find Margot an ATM and dinner at recommended tapas place – 304 O’Reilly, it was full, but he had another restaurant ‘en frente’ in front at number 303 O’Reilly, we had a range of starters, some enjoyed their drinks, some not, then we were each presented with a gladioli on departure, back via ATM for Glenda to try again, to no avail and home again. Now 11.30, time for me to try and get some sleep. Tomorrow an earlier start as we head off at 8.30 for Vinales day trip and home again.

A shiny thing on top of Mosque.

New mosque in town.

There are dogs everywhere, some wear tags, that sort of indicates the city looks after them. Lots and lots have pet dogs too.

The oldest house? I can't really recall.

Enjoying a Mojitp.

Glenda and Pina Colada.

Margot's very weird Bloody Mary. Looked better than it tasted.

Suzie with her good looking, but not good drinking, Caipiroska.

Inside a building

Our flowers at 'home' in a vase.

Sleep not so great last night.

Up before alarm, did a little more packing then a quick whip around the Hotel – Sheraton Four Seasons for a few pics.

My room at Sheraton Four Points, Cancun.

Wall decorations up near the pool.

The pool.

Bathroom

Bathroom selfie.

Looking from our Hotel across in the distance to the Zona Hotelera, where all the hotels are.

Then down for breaky, a long slow leisurely breaky with Jeannie, then Glenda and Margot. It was nice to just sit and savour the fruits, a mug of tea and poached eggs and bacon. Jeannie and I hot footed down to the local Walmart Supermarket – ostensibly to break some larger notes for tipping bell boy and driver.

The bird.

I bought some snacks for Cuba. Back to hotel to rest a bit, last check of email and Facebook and then down to check out and catch our transfer to the airport.

Checking in was entertaining, we are flying Cubana Air – firstly we had to purchase our Cuban visa, from a little guy with official book and visa’s he hand wrote the 5 visas with our passports and pocketed the dollars. He had a massive wad of pesos in his back pocket and quite a stash of US dollars in his breast pocket. It was so casual. This all took place as we slowly moved forward in the queue. We had a very dapper American in front of us and a large group from the States beside us, but the real entertainment was the cargo/check in luggage that people were bringing on ‘our’ plane. OMG, there was 2 sets of car tyres plus car audio gear and other assorted stuff, including at least 6 air conditioners – both internal and external units.

The piles and piles of goods ready to be checked in and weighed. No clue what the baggage costs would be.

waiting at the luggage carousel, Very dapper dude in the background.

Tyres on the luggage carousel.

Not great shot of Dapper Guy.

The family behind us had bundles of stuff all plastic wrapped in a roll like a large pillow or sleeping bag but heavy – goodness only knows what was in them – Mum, Dad and teenage son we rolling and lifting and stacking all of this – every time we moved forward in the queue – they had at least 8 bundles between them.

Finally go to check in where we paid to depart Mexico and finally breezed through customs. Cancun has quite a nice little airport, with some different shops to look at, so we wandered to spend our last Mexican pesos and buy some lunch before meeting at our gate to wait, wait, and wait. Then without any announcement, Suzie noticed people move away from our gate lounge, upon checking our flight was delayed and moved to another gate, so back downstairs we trooped to wait a little longer. Finally we were called and boarded a BUS which took us out on the tarmac to a COPA airlines plane. Boarded and waited again, finally away, only to have to wait again for 30 minutes on the entry to runway. Jeannie had the window and could see we were in a queue for the runway and we were about 4^th when she noticed, but there were another 8-10 of all sizes and shapes waiting behind us. Finally up, up and away at 4.15, an hour late for our 50 minute flight.

When we boarded there was a yank – I’ve named him POP (Prick on Plane) – he was finding it difficult to find space for his and his wife’s cabin baggage, and he just started moving people’s luggage around and stuffing bags into smaller spots. Needless to say this upset and concerned a number of people, Suzie tackled him about his approach – ohhh he was a mongrel. We were plotting how we could hold him up at the other end. As it turned out he had so much and large sized cabin baggage he didn’t even need to stop at baggage carousel, grrrrrrr!

We were met by Juan who was our van driver,

Chatted to a nice fella who comes to Cuba often, he recommended only exchanging some Euro at the airport, better value rate in town, so we did that and off we went.

We were like kids in a lolly shop, so excited to be in Cuba – there were loads of vintage cars in all states of repair on the roads, no anti-pollution gear and lots burning oil – black smoke and fumes – but it was amazing to see. Our heads were like swivels, looking every which way at cars, trucks, buses, bikes, decaying buildings, concrete box apartments.

We drove past Havana Port, the Castillo, walled city ruins, train station and Havana’s histórico Centro.

Our ‘home’ for the next few days is on the second floor of a building close to Plaza Vieja – it’s called “Casa Alta – Havana.” We were met by our hosts, young Cuban guys – Harold, Alex, Dennis and Rodney. They were agog at the extent of our luggage! We walked a few metres up Calle San Ignacio and up a few flights of marble steps to a lounge area, which opened onto an open courtyard; our 5 rooms surround the courtyard.

On this tour we stay in ‘Casa Particulars’ which are basically Cuban home stays. Our rooms are big, with high ceilings, basic, clean and all with ensuites, air con, mattress with base and shuttered windows. There is a kitchen area and dining upstairs on the roof.

Basic but awesome.

Simple but comfortable and clean. The bedroom.

Bathroom, Things got a bit wet, but still very nicely done, Especially when you see the conditions they work in and the very poor access to fittings etc.