Guy and I were in Cuba for just under a month at the beginning of the year. We hired a car and literally saw the whole island - east, west, north and south! From mountains to beaches to cities, from state-run hotels, to shockingly toursity all inclusive resort, to Cuban family "casas". We smoked cigars, drank rum, ran out of petrol, made friends with piglets on a beach, ate lobster, learnt some Spanish and became supporters of la revolucion (just kidding).

Our journey started in Havana on New Year's Eve. Yes, you are probably having the same vision Guy and I had when we thought of NYE in Havana ... Buena Vista Social Club, mojitos, maracas ... unfortunately, I spent the night alternating between having either my a*** or face in the toilet. Nice. No new years salsa for me (or Guy) then.

For those interested or who know Cuba our driving route was Havana-Veraderro-Santa Clara-Trinidad-Camaguey-Santiago- Baracoa-Holguin-Trinidad (again! we loved it!)-Havana-Vinales-home. We loved Trinidiad de Cuba the most - it had mountains, beach, a lovely little town and the best casa in Cuba (amazing food!) and we ended up staying 9 days here in total with Carlos and his family. Carlos - he deserves a whole blog entry of his own - however, I think a Carlos-related entry is not quite suited for this family site!! ;o)

What a fascinating placeCuba is. Brilliant for a holiday as the weather was hot, the beaches are stunning (just like a brochure - white sand and seawater as clear and pale blue as a swimming pool! - plus some of the beaches were
really isolated nothing but us, chickens, those pesky piglets, pigs, dogs ... it's mad and eating fresh lobster cooked for us on the beach, drinking coconuts ... bliss). We came back dirty-ly brown!

The countryside is gorgeous too, lots of mountains, palm trees, sugar cane, all sorts of fruit. But Cuba's communism is pretty soul destroying. The people are educated, fed and
healthy but things haven't changed since 1959 (the year of the revolution) in the towns and cities and I think since the 1900s in the countryside. People still move around on
horse and cart or just horse, plough fields with oxen, wash clothes in tubs over open fire etc. There has been no progress at all and any sense of entrepreneurialship (is that a word?) has been squashed. It is so old fashioned (which is fun for a tourist in a way with all these old classic cars etc), but the buildings are falling down, there is lots of pollution and there are NO SHOPS. You cannot buy a thing. There is no sense of making money or making a profit so customer service is non-existent as no incentives. Bizarre for us coming from London! We did however find a chocolate seller on a beach who had fresh from the factory cuban chocolate bars (very nice, if slightly grainy from unrefined sugar) which we had to buy the chocolate under cloak and dagger and hide in my kikoy as it's illegal to buy things privately! And we did the same buying cigars - amazing quality cigars bought secretly from the factory for 50c each (rather than the $10-20 you pay in a proper shop in Cuba or the $100 you would pay in London!)

After 2 nights in an expensive and awful state-run hotel in Havana we decided to stay in "casas" - which means staying with a Cuban family in their home which was
really great. They are clean, cosy and we really got to meet and get to know the Cubans and how they live. Plus as there are hardly any shops the casa owners feed you breakfast and dinner (so a nights accommodation with breakfast, dinner & someone to watch your car is about $25 each!). We were so well fed every night by them (fish, prawns, lobster and of course endless chicken) (although the food is delicious and plentiful it is very bland as there are no sauces etc - so its salad, rice, beans and then a meat) and tons and tons of gorgeous tropical fresh fruit. They also make their own fresh smoothies so every day the casa owners gave us a smoothie - either banana, guave, papaya, pineapple, orange (yum!)

And lucky for me whilst the Cuban men aren't bad looking (think muscly, droopy moustache, sitting on a horse bare back donned with cowboy hat and cigar hanging out their mouth), the women however are erm, how should I put it? I think you know what I'm trying to say. They are also pretty fat and love wearing tight flourescent lycra - pink or green is favoured and preferably with a nice vertical stripe to emphasise the rear end. Oh and to complete the ensemble you must have your plump midriff showing, especially if there is some stomach hair to add to the look. I have also never seen so much female facial and stomach hair in my life! So lucky for me not only was I
the most gorgeous lady in Cuba, I was also the thinnest and was thoroughly admired and given lots of smooching kissing noises from the cuban men (although I have a sneaky suspicion they would still do this if I had my lycra on with belly and hair hanging out).

In addition, Cuba had the strangest effect on Guy. Guy, usually nicknamed "Grandma" when he gets into a car, well, I don't know what happened to Guy in Cuba but suddenly he was possessed with a new driving vigour that even had me (the most passive of passengers usually)
gripping the sides of my seat as we overtook another horse and cart on a blind bend. Guy even got a fine from a policeman - only $30, but from the look on Guy's face afterwards this was the first road fine he'd ever had! (He has confirmed that this is true).

Anyway, won't waffle on too much! It was really interesting place to see and I could write so much more, especially about their political system and about Castro and the endless roadside billboards of revolutionary propoganda
("SOCIALISM OR DEATH!" "PATRIOTISM OR DEATH!" "VIVE CUBA LIBRA!" REVOLUTION SIEMPRE!" "DEATH TO BUSH THE TERRORIST COCROACH" etc etc).

I have to say when we got back we did feel that it was rather nice to be back in the west and have a hot shower (the first one in a month), use my hair straightners (ah bliss - my hair dryer broke on day 2 so I was frizz-tastic for a month), go shopping (which I have successfully done .. couldn't resist .. new shoes, new clothes .. new make up), be able to flush toilet paper down the loo rather then in the bin, sit in a cafe having a capuccino, read an international paper. Am I an evil capitalist? yup, fraid so.