Stange typing that date when I was typing the first entries at the beginning of January! It also makes us realise we are approaching the end of this trip, all of which has passed very quickly.
We got the Viazul bus from Havana to Cienfuegos this morning. I’d put this into the itinerary as a stopping off point between Havana and Trinidad (that’s Trinidad, Cuba not Trinidad, the other Caribbean island) and also because it’s a big industrial city and so not on the set tourist trail and gives us the chance to see another bit of the island. I hadn’t expected much of it but was very pleasantly surprised. It’s a lovely city with a long, wide boulevard running its length and a peninsula (where our hotel, The Jagua
is situated, right on the sea front And it’s on the Caribbean side of the island (Havana is on the north side, the Atlantic side) so when we arrived we headed for the pool, which fronts the sea, to ‘recover’ from the journey. It’s the first hotel we’ve been in where there were lots of locals around the pool, which seemed strange, as a form of Apartheid operates here where locals cannot stay in the tourist hotels (or use tourist shops, and lots of other things). We got chatting to a guy in the pool who had very good English. He works in a car hire business in Havana, but is originally from Cienfuegos and had brought his family here for a week’s holiday. Apparently, they can pay $5 convertibles (about £3) for a day around the pool (pizza included, he said) but it was obviously a big deal for him as that is so much money, and indeed the holiday itself was a big, big treat even though they were staying with family in the city. This evening we ventured out to a Paradar, something we’d been meaning to do since we got to Cuba. Paradares are the only private restaurants (ie not state run), and are a few tables set up in someone’s front room. They must be licensed (that is licensed from the government to operate, not licensed for booze, they sell that anyway) and can only take up to 12 people for a meal. We had a really good dinner and were joined by a nice Dutch couple in their ‘20s. I hear (from mum) that you were expecting good weather in England this weekend (and I think it may be Easter weekend?). We are enjoying the best weather of the trip. True Caribbean weather – hot, nice dry heat, sunny and really good temperatures.z x
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