Christmas at the Baileys

Cuba 2009

We managed to get 2 weeks in Cuba over New Year (although we went to bed at 10 on New Years eve!!!) and Dads birthday.

Best description of Cuba is that it's an interesting place, with a great climate, I don't think it dropped below 25 deg and the sun shone everyday bar one. However if this is Communism I think I'll give it a miss. Everything except the tourist areas have been neglected for years,
buildings, roads, railways are all in very poor condition. Mind you I don't think your average Cuban owns a car as there were hundreds of hitchhikers and very few cars, and yes many were 1950's American cars and beat up Ladas.

There is also a sprinkling of newer cars, Chinese and French were noticeable but these were heavily outnumbered. In the villages the horse was also a popular way to get around, with numerous horse drawn buggies and even cowboys in the countryside!













The Police have roadblocks every 30 miles or so when you are driving and although we weren't stopped we had to slow down each time and you knew when one was coming up as the coach driver would put on his seat belt!

Having made our own way to Havana on the local bus service, we decided to let someone else do the work and took an organised overnight trip to Trinidad about 5 hours drive to the south, it was called the 'Rambo' tour as it also included a ride in an old Russian truck and a trek to a waterfall and pool. Central Trinidad was a good example of what happens when you don't do anything to a town for a couple of hundred years, however it gave some photo opportunities.












The trek the following day wasn't to bad, 45 minutes in the army truck and then a hike of 3-4Km in the 'jungle' where the brave waded and swam down the river to a pool at the bottom. After that a 30 minute drive in the truck back to the coach, well at least I got into the pool!

Well I cant say that we spent much of our time partaking in these energetic pursuits, as most of the time was spent by the pool or on the beach, and yes that is Mum getting her ankles wet in the Caribbean!

Booked a ski hol!! :-)

Finally booked our ski holiday. We're off to Ellmau in Austria for 6 days of skiing/snowboarding in the last week of Feb. Managed to get half-board so the rubbish euro rate shouldn't be too much of a problem for us. Gemma & Michael