Got engaged in Cuba
August — September, 2016
HAVANA
We arrived in Havana a day late, due to a missed connecting flight from Toronto after our flight from London was two hours late. So we only had one full day here before heading to the islands for some chill-out time. The weather was overcast but extremely humid and warm, and came with several impressive lightning storms.
We stayed at a casa de particular, which is basically like a B&B or AirBnB, and is the most popular form of accommodation for people visiting Cuba. It’s nice because you deal 1:1 with your host. Our first host was called Luis Enrique. We rented a small apartment from him for our first two nights in Havana. He went above and beyond by bringing us for a drive around Havana on our first morning there, and dropping us to our 4am bus when we were leaving again the following night.
CAYO GUILLERMO
A ten-hour bus trip from Havana on the first Sunday night brought us to paradise. We stayed at the all-inclusive Iberostar Daiquiri resort for 4 nights for some much needed rest and relaxation. This place is awesome. Lovely staff, guests, beach and drinks. It was tough to leave on the 5th day — not least because our pre-booked taxi never appeared.
It was overcast the first day we were here. I didn’t use any sun protection until the sun appeared, but by then it was already too late. Feet, legs and shoulders got nicely burnt through the clouds. Lesson learned. I’ve said that before though.
Despite the clouds, the water was very warm, and we still got four sunny days after the first cloudy one.
It seemed like an ideal place to ask my girlfriend to marry me, too :)
TRINIDAD
After our taxi never appeared at Cayo Guillermo to take us here (a 4 hour taxi was the only reasonable option to hop from the Cayo to Trinidad), we ended up sharing another taxi with an English girl called Linda and an Irish girl called Reham. They were there to collect somebody else who had never turned up. It worked out well — we ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the trip.
Trinidad is awesome. We stayed at another cosy casa here and really fell in love with the place. I was expecting to be swarmed with hustlers looking for money due to what I had read on the web, but it didn’t happen at all. It was very chilled out. The casa we were staying at had advertised as having WiFi but when we arrived we found out they didn’t. It was the main reason we had picked that one, but in hindsight we were much better off staying off the grid and enjoying the real world instead of wasting time online.
While grabbing a couple of cocktails in Cafe Tuti we got chatting to a newlywed English couple, Dave and Jo, who were there on their honeymoon. Meanwhile the two girls we had shared the previous taxi with arrived back from a night in Santa Clara, and also met us here. Our group of 4 had now turned into 6. After a strange night in a nightclub in a cave, another Irish couple joined the party, making it 8.
TOPES DE COLLANTES
Topes de Collantes is a natural reserve park next to Trinidad. 6 of us took a ride up to see a waterfall called Vegas Grande. Little did we know that we’d need to hike a couple of kilometres to get to it, including a fair bit of climbing and falling on our asses. It was a lot of fun though, and well worth the time and effort.
On the way back to Trinidad, our taxi driver, who had patiently waited 3 hours for us, brought us to this little restaurant/casa in the hills. You’d barely see it from the road but it was awesome. It had a little swimming/chilling pool that gets fed from one side from a mountain stream, and overflows on the far side to let the stream continue. The place was so integrated into the land that I can’t even find it on Google earth now to link to it…
We ended up spending an extra day in Trinidad because we loved the place so much. Could have stayed there all week. Here’s a few more photos of it before we hit the road back to La Habana.
BACK TO HAVANA
The handy thing about having a bigger group is the ability to get taxis across the country without spending a fortune. Relying on public transport in Cuba is stressful, which isn’t something you want on your holidays. We shared a cab back to Havana for about €30 per person. Another 4 or 5 hour drive. The bus would have cost about the same but wouldn’t drop you to the door of your next casa.
The girls were going to head over to Viñales for a night to check out tobacco farms and ride horses. Meanwhile myself and the wifey checked in to another casa, with Susana and Ariel in Central Havana, where we were going to stay for another two nights.
Our casa was in Central Havana, but we had wanted to stay in old Havana. If you notice the location that the Homestay website puts the casa in, you’ll see how we ended up a good half an hour walk from where we actually wanted to be based.
This part of town felt less hospitable than Vedado to the west, where we had stayed when we landed, and Habana Vieja or Old Havana, to the east. We just spent the days in Old Havana in the end and got bike taxis to and from the casa when necessary.
A bus tour of the seemed like a good way to pass a couple of hours the first morning we woke here. It did a lap of the city, showing us the various landmarks and dropping mad facts while I grabbed lazy photos from the upper deck.
The city centre of Havana is split into fifteen districts, but if you’re just visiting for a few days you’ll most likely stay between Habana Vieja (Old Havana), Centro Habana (Central Havana), or Vedado, the newer part of the city. Habana Vieja had the nicest vibe about it when we stayed. The Malecon is the sea wall that stretches from Vedado to Vieja and is very lively in the evening time, but pretty empty in the afternoon.
We walked the length of the Malecon on our first day here. Despite the clouds it was extremely humid and hot. Every empty taxi that passes, beeps and slows down to see if you want a ride.
Back on foot we were able to wander the narrow streets of Havana Vieja and check out the crumbling old buildings.
It’s an awesome city for just wandering around with a camera, stopping off for coffees or mojitos whenever the warm temperature gets to you. There’s art and artists everywhere.
…and bright colours everywhere you go.
The streets are alive at night, too. You stumble across all sorts of unexpected surprises when you stroll around.
Havana Cathedral was worth looking inside. The ceiling is awesome.
Then there’s the cars.
I wanted to travel light in Cuba, so I only brought one lens with me. The tiny Canon 24mm f2.8.
I just picked it up before we went, and I was pretty happy with how it performed. My camera is a Canon 60D.
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