Havana

The day started with a lovely breakfast in the inner courtyard of the hotel - fruit juice, breads, omelette and fruit as well as good coffee. The tour company’s local rep came along to sort out our travel arrangements and offer us more tours. We decided to go with a night tour of Havana and a trip into the mountains from Trinidad. We then set off to find a bank, and found a travelling exhibition of decorated bears in one of the squares. The rest of the morning was spent looking at the buildings, admiring those which were restored and wondering how long it would take to finish restoring the rest. We walked along the Malecon - the promenade - where the buildings are almost all in a very poor state. The tourist dollars are being used to restore buildings, and the other feature is that social projects are included in the old town - a primary school, an old folks home and art studios.

Tom had the usual photographer's problem of when to stop taking pictures of 1950’s American cars. The people are very photogenic as well, especially when they are in a doorway or hanging over a balcony.

We duly turned up for the evening tour but the bus was about 40 minutes late due to folk along the way being late for their pickups. We started with a walking tour and our small group of English speakers included a couple from Norfolk and two Chinese. We then had our first mojito, pleasant and quite a kick with it. The entertainment was to see the gun being fired from the castle on the other side of the harbour, a cross between the one o'clock gun and Up Helly Aa with twirling fireballs and a great deal of marching. We then headed off to a restaurant for a meal, a selection of tastes of Cuba, just what was needed after a busy day.