The year started early as the alarm went off at 6.30 to get up and at em' this morning. Another big breakfast at the casa & once again our ride was early so by 8am we were in our way to Vinales. Our taxi was shared by an Italian couple going to Havana. To pick them up we confirmed the theory that you need to ask five people directions to actually find where you are going as the driver asked someone at each street corner until we located their casa particular....

Unfortunately we were disappointed by breakfast this morning as there were no eggs! Apparently the shop had run out. On the up side not only did our taxi turn up but it was also 45mins early so we were soon underway heading towards Trinidad. The drive to Topes de Collantes was about 1.5hrs as we climbed up into the hills from Santa Clara. The driver didn't know the area so there was some discussion about him not wanting to find the walk we wanted to do but after ...

First up for the day was breakfast at the casa of fruit, coffee, juice, bread & eggs and then it was time to explore Santa Clara which now that it was light we discovered was not scary & the Main Street & square were only a block away. Our first task for the day was to organise transport to Trinidad for tomorrow so we walked the few kms to the bus station which was crazy & disorganised. We waited in a line with a number of other foreigners behind ...

Today we were off to Cuba but firstly we had to tackle sending a box of winter clothes to Australia so we didn't have to lug them around all the hot countries we would now be travelling. $107 later our 6.5kg box was hopefully heading for home & we were soon heading for the airport for our West Jet flight to Santa Clara, Cuba. With $13.40 left in change we had 2 x soup meals at Tim Hortons (soup/chilli, roll, coffee & donut) which totalled exactly that. At...