Martin um die Welt: Mai 2014

Sonntag, 4. Mai 2014

10) back in Havanna

From Vinales we drove towards Havanna and stopped at Playa Baracoa on the way. We quickly found out that the name "Playa" was misleading here. It was a place covered by stone with no good entrance to the sea. Thus, we continued through Havanna to Playas del Este east of Havanna (as the name indicates^^). The beach there was good and we enjoyed a last swim in Cuba. A lot of locals were at this beach. We met two young swiss girls who hanged out with two local guys - two musicians from Havanna as we were told. The swiss girls were doing holidays and language course in Havanna. After some time police approached and asked for the ID of the two local guys. After some checking they wanted to imprison them for one day because of "disturbing tourists". We were quite shocked when we were told about it afterwards. The swiss girls talked to the police confirming that they were not disturbed rescuing the musician from a day in prison. The police tends to be jealous of fellow Cubans who make a fortune by getting along well with tourists.
On our way back we stopped at the Havanna's castell. It offered nice views over the city, while it was not too spectacular itself. Back in Havanna we checked in at Casa Haifa again where we also stayed during our first visit in Havanna. Afterwards we gave away our car which brought us over 2.000 km through Cuba. While we explored the famous places during our first visit in Havanna, we now explored some of the side streets. We took a taxi to the capitol and quickly were fascinated by Havanna's scenery again. Havanna's main theater was under construcstion - just like the capitol. After some local pizza we went through the streets. As soon as you go 2-3 streets away from the main ones, the picture changes a lot and is so much more typical Havanna. When it started raining Franzi fall for another scam offering a free salsa show but bringing expensive and bad Mojitos. When I refused to pay the guy almost started fighting with me... luckily I was way biggern than he was and the place was filled with people. After the sun set we went to have some last Mojitos and live Cuban music at the bar of Hotel Ambos Mundos on Calle Obispo. Back to our casa we had a great taxi driver with one of the very old American cars^^
It was raining the next morning (04.05.) when we spend our last Cuban money on a local pizza and spotted that super cute tiny car standing in the rain :D A taxi then picked us up from our casa and our flight brought us from Havanna via Panama City and Amsterdam back to Berlin.

True local Cuban beach - Playas de Este

Good view of Havanna...

...from the Castelle

Havanna's cute but expensive "Egg"-Taxis

Gran Teatro de la Habana - under construction just like the capitol

Colorful, worn down but scenic old spanish colonial buildings

many of the side roads are not concrete

looking through one of the side streets towards the capitol

Friendliest taxi driver we had in Havanna!

A last local pizza before our flight goes...

...what a cute tiny car we spotted their standing in the rain :)

Freitag, 2. Mai 2014

9) Playa Maria la Gorda and Vinales

The next day (30.04) we drove to Playa Maria la Gorda. On the way our car made more and more strange noises. We simply hoped it would last until we are back in Havanna a few days later. Before coming to Maria la Gorda, we stopped at the National Park office near La Bajada. There we booked a guided tour through parts of the park for this day. When we arrived at Playa Maria la Gorda, we recognized that all the place was about one hotel: Hotel Maria la Gorda. We decided to stay only for one night. The beach looked great but the sand was rather stoney and entering the water was not too easy. But we had some nice swims and walk along the coast. I booked a dive for the next morning and then we went to for our tour through the National Park. Our guide was very knowledgable and told us a lot about the nature there but also about his life in Cuba. Ofcourse telling us all the time that he earns so few money and needs more from tourists^^ We saw some nice birds, small leguans, crabs hiding from the sun and a hole at the coast that had an underwater connection to the sea and so was filled with many small fish and some corals.
Before going for the dive the next morning (01.05.), I met an elder lady during breakfast buffet who joined my table while Franzi was out for a run. After some chatting I offered her that we could give her a ride to Vinales later the day. Franzi came and took over while I went for the dive. The worst dive "center" I've ever seen. Most of the materials were worn down, the staff was hardly friendly and not communicative at all. But some other guests made the trip very enjoyable... and the dive itself was nice too... some great divethroughs and the famous Cuban black corals, although the latter are not very spectacular. Franzi went snorkeling in the meantime. Some more sunbathing before we left with the lady for Vinales. In addition to the elder lady we also gave a ride to our guide from the day before - funny coincidence. The lady spoke excellent spanish which was handy and told us a lot of interesting stories about her travels in Latin America. We stopped to buy Cuban local cigars for 10cent a piece (the Cohiba sold to tourist costs ~8€ a piece). After the guide exited we took a wrong turn somewhere and ended in a village. But before turning around we stopped and enjoyed coffee at a newly opened cafe (Cubans are more freely allowed to open new business since a few months thanks to Raul Castro's reforms). Even here it didn't take long for a young guy to approach us trying to sell information and an accomodation for Vinales. We friendly ignored him while the lady who owned the store told us about her family and her new cafe. We then continued to Vinales.

Playa Maria la Gorda

beach is always fun :)

nice birds in the National Park

Crab hiding from the sun in the National Park

Our guide and Franzi approach this hole in the coast

the hole had an underwater connection to the sea and was filled with small fish

one of the cutest cafes ever :)

Before entering Vinales we stopped at the Tourist Information 100m next to Hotel Los Jaminez. There we saw walking routes explained... but best was the view from there... all that is free compared to enjoying this view from the Hotel (as recommended by the poor Cuba LonelyPlanet). As it started raining we drove the elder lady to the Casa where she wanted to stay. As we considered the place too far off, we drove back in town and found plenty particulares close to the main street. We decided to dedicate the whole next day to trekking around Vinales and thus stayed for two nights. The next morning (02.05.) we went for a big walk starting at Hotel La Ermita going west around Vinales finally coming into Vinales again from north. Vinales is like a big farm around the village... cows, horses, chicken families, farmers, tractors and much more. The soaring sun and heat required us to make plenty stops for refreshments. A really relaxing day all in all :) The next day (03.05.) we visited the huge painting of Vinales which is supposed to look like from the stoneage... however, it rather looks like a massively overscaled child-painting. We enjoyed another view from the tourist information over Vinales before we drove back towards Havanna.