Farewell Vinales

We begin to organise ourselves this morning, in readiness for the next stage of our trip.We enjoy a final breakfast and are surprised when a twin prop plane swoops low past us during breakfast.Any smiles and explains that it's the newspaper delivery; the Sunday papers are dropped down onto the baseball pitch, ready for distribution to the population.

We take a final walk around Vinales, bumping into El Trencho along the way, he comes over to greet us like long lost friends.His ready smile, dapper hat, oversize sunglasses and ever present cigar mark him as something of a local celebrity in town.We stroll around the town and our enduring memory will be of pastel-painted bungalows, rocking chairs and an easy going pace of life that is seductive, set against the spectacular backdrop of the soaring mogotes and rich red soil of sapling tobacco plants.

We leave mid morning and wave farewell the Any and family, the rain suddenly breaks through and we abandon the idea of stopping at the Las Jasmines Hotel at the entrance to town.High on the hillside it is renowned for the spectacular views of the valley below, but not this morning...

Hola Again To Havana

A line of red number-plated hire cars form an orderly procession heading back to Havana.At one point the car in front slews sideways as we round a bend, into the opposite lane.No sooner have we taken this in, than we do the same.The mix of rain and the oil that no doubt leaks from the old cars make this a skid pan and we have our second sphincter-tightening moment in the hire car.The rest of the journey passes uneventfully back to Havana.

Upon our return to the Hotel Nacional, the hire car guy arranged that someone will take us to our new hotel.He calls out to his mate who emerges from the bushes, still zipping his fly.Muttering in Spanish about a "pee-pee", climbs into our car to drive us to our Exodus hotel, not having washed his hands and now clutching a pungent cigarette that he smokes with us in the car.Jon and I avoid eye contact with each other, I can feel the corners of my mouth twitching, imagining Avis or Hertz doing this in the UK or France.

For the next week, it will no longer be just the two of us and we will be joining an organised trip with Exodus.This has the benefit of taking the organisation out of our hands and some great activities (such as a supported cycle tour), but the downside is you have to live with their hotel choices.The Hotel Occidental, Miramar is one such example, with rather surly staff apparently having received Eastern Block training on customer service, with the word "Nada" used rather than "Niet".

Working out from our own arrival time in Havana originally, we loiter in the lobby to meet up with Exodus group ready for our cycle tour.The jet-lagged weary new arrivals sit sipping the lurid pink guava juice, waiting for their room allocation.We're told by a slightly harassed José that we will meet in the lobby at 8am and the briefing will be on the bus en route to the Bay of Pigs.We plough through a pretty ordinary and relatively expensive meal at the hotel's Patio restaurant.The lifts constantly break down and by the next morning when we left only one of the four lifts was still working...Not an auspicious start, then again we weren't expecting top luxury for this part of the trip, so we'd better get used to it.

Catastrophe of the day:

No mojito after dinner - the hotel has run out of mint (What a hotel bar in Havana with no mint!!!!???)