This year has just flown by, with so much going on and the move to the new studio, before we new it, it was October and we hadn’t managed to take a break.
We had a quick search around the web but nothing jumped out at us, so we decided that we enjoyed our trip to Cuba so much last time, we thought we’d head back there for a couple of weeks.
The flight to Havana is a long flight (10-11 hours depending on the winds) and despite Mark’s love of flying (NOT!) it was luckily uneventful, but just very tiring. We arrived at the airport in Havana around 3.00pm local time and a short cab ride took us to the Hotel Nacional de Cuba which was our base for the next three nights.
Hotel Nacional de Cuba Havana, Cuba
The Hotel is steeped in history and has it’s own gallery of fantastic original black & white photographs from the 1930’s. From the hotel it’s just a short cab ride to “Old Havana” where you can see some magnificent architecture some of which dates back to the late 1500’s.
Capitolio Building, Havana, 
Cuba - looks familiar?
Cigar smoking lady Havana, Cuba Typical street scene in old Havana
After our short break in Havana, we took an hours cab ride to the the resort of Jiboca - a beach resort and hotel. Sea Breezes resort is typical of it’s type, but very nice all the same.
The beach at Jiboca, Cuba
Pool area, Sea Breezes, Jiboca, Cuba
After a few days R&R, it was time to get out and about again so we took a trip to Trindad (another World Heritage site) travelling via Santa Cara and returning through Cienfegos. The infra structure on the island is interesting! there’s only very limited motorways (but not as we know it!) the main motorway runs virtually East - West along the island and is connected by a lot of single track roads.
We left Jiboca at 7.30am and were treated to a magnificent sunrise over Matanzas - but sadly no time to stop as we had to get to Santa Clara where the bones of the legendary Ernesto “Che” Guevara and his comrades are laid to rest. This is a very important site to all Cubans.
Monument to Ernesto Che Guevara, Santa Clara, Cuba
After our short stay and tour of the mausoleum we headed off for the three hour drive to Trindad. We arrived in Trindad around 2.00pm where we had a great lunch at a traditional Cuban restaurant.
Street life in Trinidad, Cuba
Trindad is a World Heritage site and is a great place to photograph. All too soon our time here was over and it was time to start our journey back to Jiboca .
Typical street scenes in Trinidad, Cuba.
Our return journey took us via the town of Cienfuegos (another Cuban town on the World Heritage list) with just an hour to spend here, we really did only catch the brief highlights here.
One of the restored buildings in Cienfuegos, Cuba.
We finally arrived back at our hotel at 10.00pm a really long and tiring day - but worth every minute! The traveling between Jiboca, Santa Clara, Trindad and Cienfuegos is trying and can be quite slow at times.
The last few days were spent lazing around the pool, however I did manage to catch a wicked sunrise before we left.
Our flight back to the UK was a little more exciting than the outward trip Strong tail winds (with the accompanying turbulence!!) cut the flight time to just under 8 1/2 hours!!
