Queridos amigos y familiares, hola otra vez de soleado Cuba.

Moving on from Vinales we made the mistake of taking a taxi to Trinidad de Cuba rather than the bus. The draw was that it was a shorter journey, 7 hours compared to 9 hours on the bus, and was from door to door. This would have been great except that another couple joined us so it was very cramped. The taxi driver also wasn't as safe as the driver on the bus and we kept seeing him watching the DVD screen that was fastened to the passenger's sun visor! As the old cars are known to break down and many are pre seat belts we have decided in future to take the bus.

Trinidad is a lovely old and well-preserved colonial town near the south coast and roughly half way along Cuba. We hired bikes again on our first day (bad ones with huge seats, no gears and poor brakes) and set off to the coast about 12 miles away to get our first view of the Caribbean Sea where we dutifully dipped our toes before having a Pina Colada to help us on the way back.

Travelling around on our own it helps to have some knowledge of Spanish; we understand some but speak very little but so far it hasn't been too much of a problem. We've got by with the few words we know, sign language and a translator app on the iPad has come in useful when finding out information in our casas although this, when used in voice mode, tends to come up with some strange things. "Don't spare the wheelchair" being a good example so we can't rely on it too much! Anyone passing or neighbours are always happy to help.

We haven't mentioned the rather unusual money situation in Cuba yet - a dual currency system is used, both currencies are called Pesos which doesn't help at first with 24 National Pesos (NP - non-convertible) to 1 Convertible Peso (CUC). You have to be careful to check your change but we've only been caught out once so far at the first bar in Havana. Cubans are paid in NP's but tourists, and increasingly the more wealthy locals use CUC's. Rates of pay are low with an average monthly salary of 350 NP's (9 pounds) for Government workers and around 800 NP's for doctors (22 pounds). However, many of the essentials like housing and food are heavily subsidised whilst education and healthcare are completely free for everyone.

Regular readers of our travel adventures will know that no blog is complete without some detail, often graphic descriptions and photos, of the public toilet facilities. Cuba will disappoint those of you who can't wait to read about these as we haven't seen any public toilets except those at bus or road service stations. Hotels and restaurants don't seem to mind their facilities being used but even in these there is hardly ever any soap, toilet paper or means of drying hands. Often the toilet flush doesn't work and you have to flush with a bucket and very few toilet seats. Even when facilities are dirty there is usually a lady sat outside hoping for a couple of NP's. Casas do provide toilet paper (but no soap so far) but the paper is so thin that it dissolves when it comes into contact with water!

Esperamos todo en su casa es bueno.

Amo de Tony y Linda xx

PS. We saw our first wifi sign earlier this week when we sent the Vinales blog but it wasn't available as you had to buy a special card to use it. We have just told these cards are now available so we're going to try to put some photos on later. Don't hold your breath!

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Comments

Gary & Shirley Hi to you both, nice to hear you're enjoying yourselves despite whatever crops up. So far pick up that - not much soap available, toilet paper thin and you enjoyed Hand Rolled cigars. Ummm bet they tasted good! Dec 18, 2013

Anne I will now 'cherish' my 3 ply non instant dissolvable toilet paper...... and the handwash! :^) Dec 18, 2013

John & Jenni Greetings T & L from the island paradise of Nevis, we are not having any of the adventures you are experiencing, our is just, rum, Carib, Sun, great food and chillin', but hey someone's got to do it. Have a great Christmas. J & J X Dec 20, 2013