Felize Navidad

 A lovely reastaurant in Habana- cool courtyard for a beer & soup stop.

 View from El Morro looking back to Habana. They shoot the canons every evening at 9pm

This amazing taxi- a1950 Dodge had electric windows in fine working condition

19.12.11

El Morro

This is the 14^th century fort built by the Spanish on an island at the entrance of Havana Habour which has always been an excellent deep all-weather anchorage, used over the centuries by navies, pirates, mariners etc. To get there we caught a “ferry”- basically a closed -in barge with standing room only that plies back and forth across the harbor to a town called Casablanca. We wondered to the top of the hill, through the lovely village, stopping to watch a soccer game.  We explored the fort, climbed to the top of the light house which has 117 steps and can be seen  20 miles out to sea, and took in the marvelous views back over to Havana city We then caught a taxi back into the city going under the harbour through a tunnel that the Russians built. As the night came down, Havana changed its persona- so many beautiful girls looking for company, older men looking for beautiful girls, the music louder, the rum flowing… We found a roof-top restaurant above a busy street so we could watch the scene below, and drove home in a 1951 Dodge.

20.12.11

Road Trip

We decided we could not leave Cuba without a trip to see some of the interior so we hired a driver & car, $75 for the day, and drove along the coast road to the west, then over the mountains to a waterfall, resort called Soreo. The driver brought his English speaking wife , Danniella and beautiful 15 mth old baby daughter Ashley, so I had lots of fun keeping her amused in the back seat for 6 hours- she was really very good and fed (on the breast) and slept most of the time . Danny explained lots of the day-to day experiences of the Cuban people; she had worked and lived in Vancouver, Canada (too cold for her) and so has some perspective on her life in Cuba. Every Cuban gets monthly rations of rice, flour, sugar, milk etc, free education, health, dentistry etc., so no one is starving, but there is a feeling of the government not telling the people what is happening, no satellite TV allowed, only govt run newspapers. However there is change afoot and now Cubans are allowed to sell their property, cars etc. It will be interesting to watch this country over the next decade. We had lunch, enjoyed the ever-present restaurant band music, did the waterfall walk and returned back to Havana along the autopista- a 4-6 lane highway that connects the whole country.

21.12.11

This morning we went to a local artists house who has done a homage to Gaudi, the Spanish artist from Barcelona. The whole street has mosaics on every surface and it was very impressive.

 Cuban flamenco dancer & band. They always come around to your table for a tip and also to sell their home-made CD. We have bought 4!!

The old fort with the lighthouse which we climbed

Great mozaics at the Gaudi- influenced house

Obi, this looks like your horse Diva!

Today we are getting ready to leave; provisioning the bar – (wine $2.25, vodka & rum $4 bottle), and will spend the next 3-4 days sailing west along the north coast, then do the jump over to Isla Mujeres, off Cancun, Mexico.

Felize Navidad!!