Christmas 2016 exploring Cuba

Christmas 2016 came with a milestone birthday...the big 50, quite scary and felt like it crept up and bit me on the bum... so the best way to celebrate big birthdays for me is to go off on an adventure holiday. I deliberated a lot on where to go and settled for Cuba, lots of people said go now before the Americans and I suppose it wasn't about them it was about going before the nostalgia of the past drifts away with modernisation, which will happen eventually... Cuba has been high on my travel list for a long time so now was a good time...

I flew out of Heathrow via JFK, an experience and a long journey. Eventually arrived in a very hot and humid Havana... cooled myself down with a mojito, the first of many on this journey.

My expectations were well rewarded, the old cars, the architecture, the friendliness of the people... the surprising aspect on my first wander around Havana was the art... so much, extremely vibrant, very creative...and I did buy one or pieces on my travels through Cuba.

The journey started in Havana, we then travelled west in the first week, arrive back in Havana on Christmas Eve. There were just 6 of us in the first week; Simon, Gerd, Annie, Janique and Simona, both Gerd and Simona were only there for a week, the rest of us were there for the full 3 weeks. Christmas day we were joined byt a further 11 travellers and we headed south to Cienfuegos, Trinidad, Santa Clara, Camaguey, Holguin, Baracoa and Santiago de Cuba. We flew back from Santiago to Havana for our last night. I will say to anyone going to Cuba, travel through it, see it, breathe it...don't just lay on a beach. Cuba has so much to offer in culture, history and people.