Brazil

We have been in Brazil for about 7 weeks now- hence why there has been a bit of a gap in blogging. We arrived in Rio de Janeiro after a long travelling day from Ecuador to Colombia to Brazil (with a quick meet up with some friends we made in the jungle, in Bogota). We were excited to get to our airbnb flat that was to be our home for the carnival period in the city. The flat was in an area called Santa Theresa- a bohemian little community set up on a very steep hill. The next morning the first thing that hit us was the incredible heat! Whilst we were in Rio for that week the temperature was in the high 30’s in the day and not much lower during the night. No air con meant that we didn’t do much sleeping during our stay there. Shortly after we arrived the carnival hit big time! As well as the famous carnival we have all seen pictures of with scantily clad ladies covered in feathers, there are massive street parties throughout the city every day, called Blocos. Turns out that Santa Theresa is host to two of the biggest Blocos which paraded right past where we were staying. We joined the first and it was a hot mess of very drunk people pushing and dancing down the hill behind a double-decker bus blaring out the same song on repeat for hours. Once out of the squash, the best bit was watching all the costumes parade by. Absolutely everybody gets dressed up- we saw old men dressed as babies, lots of cross dressing, devils, angels, many Village People tributes but most of all, lots and lots of Brazilian skin on show!

During carnival time it is pretty impossible to avoid the festivities even when you need some downtime- every corner of the city is taken over and shut down by the massive crowds of people drinking and dancing. We did manage to have a couple of really nice days on the famous Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, consuming many caipirinhas freshly made on the beach. We also ascended Sugar Loaf Mountain, one of the mounds that frame the beaches of Rio. Two cable cars later we were stood (sweating!) looking at an incredible panoramic view of the two huge stretches of beach making up Rio, the iconic mountains, one of which Jesus stands on, the favellas where the poorest people live and the skyscrapers where the richest people live. From this angle you can really appreciate why Rio has the reputation for its natural beauty.

Sadly as you descend back to street level you see the reality of the majority of people living in Rio. Quite apart from the poverty in the favellas, I have never seen so much street homelessness on any of our travels. Men, women and children sleeping on filthy streets with nothing but cardboard under them if they’re lucky, out in the huge storms, baking heat and wee trickling on them from the person peeing up the hill. In many countries I’ve witnessed the huge gap between the rich and poor but have to say it was particularly striking here.

I think I will have two overriding memories of the Rio carnival- one is undoubtedly the smell of urine that assaults your nose every time you step out and gets worse as each day of partying and intense heat goes on and more and more people wee in the streets, but the second is one of the most incredible spectacles I have ever seen in my life- the Sambadrome parades. In a huge, permanent, purpose built catwalk lined with stands of seats rising high into the air, the famous carnival happens! Over the course of four nights, the local Samba schools (mostly from the poorest neighbourhoods of the area) parade for a chance to be awarded the first prize- a huge accolade. We bought tickets a long time ago for the Sunday night, which was apparently when the best schools paraded. I thought it would be some great dancing, some beautiful ladies in beautiful costumes but I was not at all prepared for what we saw! We arrived at 8pm in a huge storm with beating rain that lasted 5 hours and within an hour the first school started parading. Each parade lasted around an hour and the first one had floats that were taller than the stands we were stood in. Every school had a theme and the best for us was the ‘End of the World’ theme. It asked the audience what they’d do with their last day and then paraded the options. This included a float where guys and girls came out of doors dancing and then just whipped all their clothes off and danced completely naked!! The next float was made up of beds that turned round with ads on one side and then spun around to show every possible combination of people in them having orgies! It was absolutely wild- the bodies, the colours, the feathers, the costumes, the floats, the fireworks- just incredible! By 6am the next morning when it was all over I literally couldn’t move as my back had ceased up from 10 hours of jumping, dancing, cheering, laughing and clapping. A once in a lifetime experience for sure! (see the pictures on facebook for true justice).

By the end of carnival, we were ready to get out of the hot, busy city and moved on to a coastal town called Buzios. This one is pretty popular with tourists, particularly Argentines apparently, as the beaches are gorgeous. We had a couple of days relaxing there and then made our way to Paraty, another coastal town. We stayed in a lovely family run poussada (BnB) just out of the main touristy town, which was essentially a little private house with a lovely garden out front where we were served breakfast and watched the humming birds in the morning. We did a hike up to a number of waterfalls near the poussada and spent one day exploring the historical centre. It was a colonial town and central for the slave trade so there are pretty slave-built churches and lovely small white houses with brightly coloured windows and doors. Our best day here was when we took a short bus ride to nearby Trindade which had some of the most beautiful, almost deserted white sand beaches we’d seen.  We also had a boat trip out to do some snorkelling and visit some more beaches in the area which was a nice day too.

We had planned to return to Rio for a couple of days for my birthday and Yon had booked a nice hotel as a treat J Little did I know that my Mum was also booked into the nice hotel and the two of them had been conspiring for months to surprise me for my 30^th birthday!! It was an incredible surprise and priceless to have my Mum join us for my birthday and some more of our travels. We had a couple of great days in Rio with Mum, showing her the beach life we’d become accustomed to, and all went on the trip up to see Senor Jesus Cristo hanging out on top of his mountain. It was amazing to see the huge statue up close having seen it from every angle on the ground. We also ate some good food with Mum, visiting the famous churrascaria (like Fazenda in Leeds for everyone who’s been. If you haven’t, go!) on Copacabana where we gorged ourselves on meat! Next up the three of us went out to Ilha Grande which everyone had told us was beautiful. The people weren’t wrong- the island has loads of lovely beaches and clear waters to swim and snorkel in. We went on a day boat trip on a nifty little speed boat and I had a private snorkel with a sea turtle I found J We also had a few scary encounters with the huge, local land crabs that burrow in holes and come out at night. After a great ten days it was time to drop Mum back in Rio and wave goodbye to her as she returned to the UK.

The next part of our trip was something a little different and something we’d wanted to do for a long time- volunteering throughwww.helpx.net. We’d made contact with a reserve just North of Rio that wanted people to come and teach the staff and local community English and someone to help look after horses and do manual work. It was a perfect fit but it wasn’t until we arrived that we realised what a gem we had happened upon. The reserve is a private project started by a wealthy chap who loved the area and the nature and saw that it wasn’t being preserved and protected. The reserve encircles a small government protected national park called Ibitipoca. He started to buy up the land and built an exclusive hotel on the land. He ensured that the hotel and the reserve sustainably furthered the social project where the local residents, whose traditional industry of farming was waning, were gainfully employed in producing things for the hotel e.g. honey, cheese etc. Tens of locals are employed on the reserve, looking after the land, tending to the horses and working in the hotel. The hotel itself, now established, is being handed over to the staff as a profit share where they all own a percentage of the business. From what we saw it is a very special place doing great things for the local community and natural environment. You can check it out athttp://www.reservadoibitipoca.com.br/en/ - their next aim is to extend the business to attract Europeans too so perhaps even some of you might like to visit J You won’t regret it if you do!

We were lucky enough to stay next to the luxury hotel in the general manager’s room, who was away on business. In our couple of weeks there, Jonny worked every day at the stables, helping feed, groom and muck out the horses whilst teaching the guys there English too. My project was outside of the reserve at a local after school club in a 200 person rural community called Lopes. Woefully the government schools only educate the children for around 3 hours a day, which I find unbelievable, so a Rio based NGO built an after school club in Lopes called Casa Arte Vida. The kids, aged 5 to 16/17, come here every week day and are fed and have dance, art, computer and English lessons, amongst other things. The English classes were my responsibility for 2 weeks. I absolutely loved teaching all the kids there, although hard work, and their warm smiles and hugs were very difficult to leave. We’ve put some photos on facebook of my last day with the kids.

I have been to few places as beautiful as Ibitipoca and so Yon and I made good use of our days off to explore the surrounding area. One day we went into the government national park itself and hiked the waterfall trail. The water in the area is called ‘Coca Cola water’ due to its unique colour. The colour is apparently thanks to the organic matter in the water but it is beautifully clean and clear and we had some great, refreshing swims after our hike. The area is also famous as the most lightning struck place in Brazil. This is thanks to the very high percentage of Quartz in the rock, a conductor, which gives the landscape an amazing glittering white effect and creates white sand beaches around natural pools and the waterfalls. We were quite seriously warned about the lightning as people had recently been killed due to being struck. It seems in this area those 1 in however many million odds of being hit by lightning are somewhat higher! We also hiked up to some incredible statues that have been built on the reserve of huge iron people worshipping the sun atop a hill (check out the photos) and visited more waterfalls. Our final trip was a day of horse riding which allowed us to see much more of the beautiful landscape.

We now have a couple of days in Tiradentes, another lovely little colonial town, before we head back to Rio for our long journey home. It is crazy to think that we started this trip just after Christmas in Cuba and all the things we’ve done and seen in Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil. Again, we are very fortunate to have met great people along the way and had the opportunity to form these great memories. Next adventure.....Singapore!

Ecuador

We arrived late into Quito, Ecuador's capital after spending the day visiting the amazing gold museum in Bogota before our flight out. We spent our first full day in the city exploring the old town. We climbed to the top of the incredible basilica, which looks like it has been dropped in South America from an English cathedral city, to take in the views. Quito is flanked by high green volcanoes which have a sprawl of little buildings stretching as far as they plausibly can up them. It is not unattractive though with The Virgin of Quito statue on one hill, terracotta roofs, steep cobbled streets and several little church spires across the panorama. We found the central plaza with the Presidential Palace which was being visited by Quito's champion football team on the day we were there, so there were many riot police and excited crowds. I popped into several of the strikingly embellished churches, covered in gold leaf inside and we kicked back with some nachos and guacamole a lovely first day.

The next day we took a trip out to the thermal hot springs of Papallacta. It is meant to be a 2 hour bus trip from Quito but I have pretty much learned to add an hour to any estimated journey time in South America. The driver had warned us about locals grabbing bags on the bus so I placed ours at my feet where I thought it was safer. At one stop an older, innocent looking gentleman got on and sat behind us. About half an hour after he boarded I looked down at my feet and saw a hand stretching under the seat from behind and inside a pocket on our bag. I shouted and he sprang up from his laying down position and tried to say he had dropped his watch and was looking for it.....in our bag!! Jonny had some strong words and he rushed off the bus rather too rapidly for an innocent man. Anyway, we finally arrived at the hot springs and chilled out in the natural, incredibly hot pools. As usual Yon struck up conversation with some Americans in one pool and before we knew it we were both at the mercy of a full on attempt to convert us to Jehovah Witness! Turns out there has been an annual conference of tens of thousands of JWs in Quito recently. We made our excuses and moved to another pool where I banned Yon from sparking up conversation with anyone else! A massive storm hit while we were sat in the next pool and it was amazing to lie in hot water with huge rain drops falling around us with the view of lush green mountains around us.

We moved to another lush, green, cloud forest town of Mindo just West of Quito. Our hostel was a lovely wooden cabin on stilts with windows at eye level with the tops of the trees and all the birds living in them. There was a plethora of beautiful hummingbirds being attracted to water dispensers near the hostel so we watched the amazing little birds for ages. Right next to our hostel was a restaurant that fronted a chocolate producing company. We joined a tour of the chocolate making process and tested the cocoa seeds, cocoa nibs after drying and then eventually the raw chocolate without added sugar and with lots of different flavours- I very much enjoyed it! :-) That night we went to the 'frog concert' where we walked around a eco reserve to listen to and spot the rainforest frogs. We saw some very colourful critters and some big spiders. In the morning we headed straight for the butterfly farm where they explained the entire process of caterpillar- chrysalis- butterfly. We entered the netted area which was absolutely full with the most beautifully coloured butterflies. The best bit for me was the chrysali hung out ready to hatch that day; I sat for hours watching butterflies emerge from the strange little packages and stretch their shrivelled wings out before taking their first flight.

We had to travel back to Quito to catch a bus out to Otavalo which hosts one of the biggest markets in South America. The nearby indigenous people come to the market to sell their wares. The ladies are beautiful all wearing traditional dress and felt hats and the men have long black hair plaited usually all the way down to their bums with feathers attached to the bottom. We meandered around the massive market and bought a few things.

The next day we had to travel back to Quito to catch a night bus to start our trip into the Amazon jungle. It took around 7 hours of windy, bumpy, sleepless roads to reach the town of Lago Agria where another bus picked us up for another 3 hour drive into the opening of the jungle. Once we arrived our group climbed into a canoe to start our real trip on the Amazon river and into the territory of the Sinoa tribe in the jungle. No boat trip in the jungle is uneventful and on our 2.5 hour ride to our lodge we saw a bright orange snake, amazing birds, camouflage bats, huge spider webs and a sleeping anaconda that was as thick as a rugby players thigh at least! Pretty exhausted by this point, we arrived in our jungle lodge which was quite basic but just as much as we needed. After a rest we went back out on the boat and spotted more birds and spider monkeys in the trees. At night we fell asleep to the crazy sounds of the birds, insects, frogs and monkeys of the jungle around us- there is even one bird that makes the sound of a really loud drop of water.

The next day we set out to visit the Sinoa people and learn how to make bread from Yuca. The local indigenous lady peeled and grated the root and strung out the liquid which ended up as a flour-like substance. She put the flour on a flat plate on the fire and it toasted into a bread- it was very tasty. Next up we met a shaman who told us about the process he had to go through to become a shaman- essentially at the age of 12 he had to start drinking ayahuasca, an incredibly potent hallucinogenic tea made from the vines of the jungle. The people believe that the spirit is joined by the spirit of the jungle which guides the shaman and teaches them which plants to use in the jungle to heal which illness. It was fascinating to listen to him and he performed a mock ritual on me too. We had a German guy in the group who had been feeling unwell for quite a while and so the shaman brought some stinging nettle plants and flagged his back with them. He skin was red and blotchy for hours and sadly he felt no better but it was interesting to watch.

The next morning we went on a jungle hike and saw lots of very weird insects and spiders. It absolutely poured it down during the walk, which happened a lot in the rainforest unsurprisingly, so it meant that we couldn't see as many animals. However, back in the boat we paddled out to the lake where people swam and we saw a pod of four Amazon pink dolphins. They were incredible to watch as they played and breached the surface. That night we went out on the boat and saw a Caiman and a small boa in the flooded trees. On other trips out we also saw macaws flying, stinky turkey birds, bright green parrots, the smallest monkey in the world and white faced tamarinds. One of the best sights we saw was when we were traveling back up the river at the end of our stay and saw a hawk attacking the hanging nests of the flycatcher birds and stealing a baby chick- a sad but incredible thing to witness. All in all we had an unforgettable time in the jungle with some nice fellow travelers.           

Back in Quito Yon decided he wanted to climb the nearby volcano. Whilst he did that I had a pedicure and a chill day! The next day we headed out to the sister hostel of the one in Quito, in the Cotopaxi national park. Cotopaxi is, I think, the highest live volcano in the world and was meant to be visible from our hostel- sadly we had rain and clouds the whole time we were there. But the place was really nice with a jacuzzi and big cozy communal area where everyone ate together. Yon went on another hike up a volcano and instead I opted for horse riding. The first two hours of riding was great but the rain absolutely poured for the last two hours and my horse pretty much gave up! Whilst the weather was nice the scenery was beautiful with grass plains and lots of horses running and playing in fields as we passed. We met some really nice people at this hostel too and had some good chats over dinner.

We have one final night in Quito before we catch a flight to Rio, Brazil via Bogota. Bring on the Carnival!!

Colombia

We arrived into Bogota from Havana quite late but were immediately struck by how advanced the country felt versus where we'd just come from. It was very easy to grab a taxi and get to our hostel located in the central artsy, student area of Candlearia. The first night we didn't sleep at all due to a noisy hostel and a bed big enough for 1.5 adults just about, not 1 normal sized person plus a giant as we are! Anyway Yon found out there was a bike tour leaving about 10 minutes after I'd got up so we headed straight out...error! After about 15 minutes on the bike I was doubled over, nearly passing out and nearly being sick- mainly I think this is due to altitude sickness as Bogota is very high above sea level, but probably also because I'd had no water, no food and no sleep! I had to head back to the hostel and lie down- this basically wiped me out for two whole days so technically I still haven't been to Bogota!

Things got better after a 9 hour bus journey east to a small town called San Gil. The place is well known for several adventure sports and activities on offer. The town is a very sweet, very hilly little place with a beautiful central square and cathedral. Our first full day was full of firsts for Yonna....the local indigineous delicacy is fried ants with big bottoms, so obviously Yon had to try them! Next up he very impressively faced his fear of heights head on and went paragliding over a huge canyon near San Gil. He was scared but absolutely loved it and photos look amazing. I wasn't there to witness it as I went on my own seperate way to a ranch about an hour outside San Gil in the hills, for a day of horseriding. My 100% Spanish speaking guide brought my lovely little horse around equipped with a proper western saddle and I hopped on. These small South American horses just loved to gallop and we were soon galloping through the beautiful scenery of fincas with banana, coffee and yuca crops growing. After 1.5 hours we reached a waterfall where I swam before taking the horses back to the ranch. It was a brilliant, if a little scary at times, experience :-)

Next we took an overnight bus to Santa Marta in the North. We had been warned that they like to freeze people with aircon on the buses so wore all the warm clothes we have brought, which aren't many. After a pretty much sleepless night we arrived in the large city and found the second bus we needed to take us up into the lush rainforest hill town of Minca. Once we got off this rickety jeep, pretty exhausted by this point, the locals pointed out the direction of our hostel. We followed their points and came to the bottom of another hill....turns out this was a pretty big one with killer steps all the way up to the top where our hostel was. After a very tough climb with our bags we were rewarded with an incredible view through the thick rainforest and into the valley of Santa Marta and the sea beyond it. The hostel was set out for the sole objective of chilling out, with rocking chairs, hammocks and lots of areas to sit and watch the rainforest scenes. We spent our first night in a treehouse room- all we could hear were the various insect calls, birds and the unusual call of howler monkeys. Before we went to bed that night I opted for a rainforest massage- it was an incredible experience out in the forest and pretty unusual with the chap massaging and performing reiki whilst making vibration noises and speaking to me in a voice that reminded me so much of Puss in Boots in Shrek! I really had to hold in my laughter. Despite this, I got up the next morning to attend his yoga lesson on the forest balcony which was great.

After yoga, we trekked down the hill again and paid a couple of guys on motorbikes to drive us up into the mountain coffee farm, La Victoria. It was set up by the British in the 19th century and is now German owned, staffed entirely by fairly paid Colombian families. We had a private tour around the factory which still uses the original machinery and only water pressure to power every machine and every part of the process. The bean picking is of course done by hand and the lady showed us how the three qualities of bean are established by their weight- the best quality sinking in the water. The beans are then deshelled, cleaned and graded all using water pressure- just amazing! We got a cup of freshly brewed espresso and I have never tasted coffee so good! Our next stop was some natural pools and waterfalls before we found a man on the side of the road cooking up hand made chorizo- delicious. We made it back up to our hostel to spend the night in a cabana- a traditional wood and mud hut in the jungle.

The next day we took the realtively short trip along the coast to Cartagena. Its popularity with toursits meant it was super busy and the prices were double what they are in Bogota, the capital! On our first full day we headed into the old walled town which is beautiful. It's full of brightly painted Spanish colonial churches and buildings, all with balconies and gorgeous flowers flowing over them. On our last day we opted for the tour out to a mud volcano- this was a very surreal experience indeed. First you walk up a rickety wooden staircase that's barely attached to the side of what looks like a giant ant hill. As soon as you get to the top, you look down into the volcano to see people flapping about in a massive mud bath about 4 meters below you. It looked absolutely disgusting and as we were queueing to take the even more rickety looking wooden ladder down, I was seriously considering opting out. But down I went and it felt as disgusting as it looked! The mud is made up of decaying organic matter deep below the surface that is then pushed up like lava in a normal volcano. The mineral rich gloop is of course meant to be brilliant for your skin and some people were lying in it for ages, putting it in their hair and everything. I however got in and waded to the exit ladder (which is pretty hard as the mud is so dense you float) as quickly as possible. You then crawl up and a chap rubs off the excess mud and seems to be enjoying it a little too much. Then you go down the other side of the volcano and walk to the thermal lagoon to wash everything off. It was a cool experience but not one I'd repeat in a hurry!

We decided that we couldn't face the 20 hour bus journey back to Bogota from the north, so opted for a 1.5 hour flight instead. We've just arrived back in the capital to have one night's rest before we fly on to Quito, Ecuador, tomorrow :-)

Cuba

Where to start with Cuba- what an incredible place full of life and colour as well as frustrations and confusion for a traveler. We arrived late into Havana airport after a long day of traveling from Leeds to London to Cuba, via Canada. As soon as we hit the highway in our taxi, we were excited to see the old classic American cars that are so synonymous with the country. Our taxi driver searched through the maze of small streets in central Havana before finding our casa particulares, essentially someone's old colonial house that they rent bedrooms in and without doubt the absolute best places to stay in Cuba. This casa was run by a lovely lady called Maritza who mothered us throughout our stay in Havana. We spent our first day walking around the city- seeing the Parque Central, the long Malecon road alongside the coast and went to buy some cigars from a cigar factory...obviously! Havana is an incredible mix of architecture but much of it is in disrepair and under scaffolding as they try to restore many buildings to their former glory. We were staying in the locals' area, away from tourist hotels, so got a good feeling for how normal Cubans live...basically loudly! There is always music blaring out of houses and people sitting on their doorsteps chatting and laughing. Everyone has a ready smile and an 'hola' to offer.

On our second day we took an open top bus tour around the city, which is spread across three main areas. We saw the revolution square with a huge image of Che and Cienfuegos's (another revolutionary) faces and jumped off the bus in old Havana. This area is the nicest to walk around as a Cuban non-profit is working hard to restore the buildings, squares and streets. It was New Year's Eve so we were trying to scope out the best place to see in midnight and 2015. Turns out that Cubans spend NYE with their families in their houses rather than partying on the street, however we found out that there were some things happening for tourists around the old town. As night fell, we had a meal (typically lacklustre as Cuba is not the place to go for good food!) near the central park, smoked a big fat cigar, drank Cuba Libres and wandered to the old town. We drank in the new year listening to a Cuban band and watching a couple of small fireworks that had been let off. Then the real fun began....it is customary for Cubans to throw water off their balconies at new year to expel bad spirits- this has obviously turned into trying to soak tourists walking the streets below. All done in good humour, many people succeeded and we reached our area of town wet through. This is when things turned a little sour....we needed to cross a couple of streets to get back to our casa, however locals had taken to throwing glass bottles from their windows in this area. We had to hide under the awnings with a couple of locals until there was a break in the glass throwing and we dared sprint across the street one by one. Not fun, pretty scary and reminiscent of (although of course nothing close) Sniper Alley in Sarajevo!!

The next day we tried to learn about the revolution in the 50's that saw Fidel Castro take power and hold it, with his brother Raul, to this day. The museum of the revolution was mostly in Spanish and full of propoganda but we managed to piece some together. Cuba had been colonised by Spain and many of its people enslaved but in the early 1900s the tide was turning across the colonised states against the occupiers. America assisted Cuba in gaining its independence from Spain, however in doing so Cuba became a dependent state on the US. Despotic puppet leaders were placed in power and Cuba became the playground of the American mafia with its close proximity to Florida. Che Guevara, who had been imprisoned in Mexico for his anti-government activities in Guatemala, met Fidel and Raul Castro in Mexico City and their shared hatred for the US and Socialist ideas led them to hatching a plan to start a revolution in Cuba. This is certainly over-simplifying things but they sailed to Cuba and over a number of years of guerilla warfare, overthrew Bastista and starting ruling the country. They gradually turned the country into a socialist state of government run companies and this is where Cuba remains today. It is truly as if time stopped in the 50's which is why a lot of tourists like coming to Cuba...there is still very much a feeling of community not yet eroded by the distractions of the internet (which is only available in small designated centres with supervision) however you do feel, especially for the young people, that they are being denied the opportunities that come along with computer literacy and access to the web. Crime is low and the signs of capitalism are non-existent- some small private businesses have only recently been permitted by Raul Castro e.g. small restaurants in someone's front room, a little shop out of an open window. This is nice and quaint for a tourist but means that the Cuban people have to deal with inefficiently run government businesses for all their basic needs- the 'supermarkets' have huge queues of people trying to buy basics which are kept behind counters and handed to customers by attendants. You can't help question whether Cuba has been protected by Castro for its own good and therefore avoids some of the problems of the Western world, or if its people have been unfairly held back...whatever your view it is all on the brink of change with new open talks with the States.

The next day we experienced one of the biggest frustrations of Cuba that makes backpacking quite challenging. The tourist bus company, Viazul, only runs very few buses between cities everyday and tickets are never available on the day. The only other option is to take a collectivo- a classic car shared with whoever else you can find going to the same place. We shared our first journey with two German chaps and arrived in the South coastal town of Cienfuegos. It is a typical, pretty little colonial town and was nice to walk around and people watch in the central plaza. The day after we ventured to nearby El Nicho waterfalls with our new German friends. After a short hike we came upon beautiful blue pools with a small waterfall that was lovely to swim in, before walking further up through the jungle to find a huge waterfall and yet more crystal natural swimming pools a little higher. That night we bought tickets for a concert in the 19th century theatre in the plaza- obviously we couldn't understand a word that was being said or sung but the small fat chap on the stage seemed very popular with the locals. The music was good but slightly ruined by the guy's singing so we were pleased when it was just an hour long! We ventured on along the coast to Trinidad the next day with guess who...the Germans.

Trinidad was a slightly bigger colonial town and was very picturesque. We did a photo walking tour to see the sights and met some nice people at our new casa with our new Cuban mother, Georgina. We ate at the casa every night- more lobster than I have ever eaten in my life for about 6 pounds each! We went on a catamaran the next day to a little island about 1.5 hours from the coast and snorkelled in the clear water. We saw some pretty nice fish and had lobster paella watching hermit crabs and an iguana roam on the beach. The next day we chilled at the beach near the town and that night went to a local salsa night- there were hundreds of people there and a packed dancefloor. I did a tiny bit of dancing but decided it was definitely best left to the experts!

We had been told that the best beach in the Caribbean is up in the North of Cuba on an island called Cayo Coco. We took the long trip up there in a collectivo with an Israeli couple on their honeymoon. All the hotels up there are ludicrously expensive all-inclusives full of Canadian and Spanish tourists. We however were staying in a hotel 2km away from the beach and 10 times less the cost....never has it been truer that you get what you pay for!! The hotel was being refurbished and basically operated as rooms for the construction workers. The restaurant was their canteen and was laughably filthy....we had to laugh it was that bad! We spent one day on the 'best beach' which was beautiful with poster-perfect clear water but, unsurprisingly, was very busy with tourists and sunbeds. The next day we took advantage of the all inclusive hotel nearest us and hid the fact we didn't have wristbands to get food and drinks :-)

The next day we set off for our favourite spot, Santa Clara. Having figured out the bus system by this point, we actually managed to book tickets and only had to wait 4 hours for the next bus! Santa Clara was less touristy and felt a lot more authentically Cuban. We sat in the central square and watched the local people come and go, as well as a mini goat and cart wheeling children around the square again and again. Che is credited with having liberated the area and this town, so there are hundreds of images of his face and a large memorial in his honour. We visited the memorial and saw his pen and watch, amongst many other ordinary belongings of his. By this point we had also figured out that the best food was to be found in the 'peso restaurants' that the locals frequent. These are restaurants that quote the menu in the local currency rather than the dollar-pegged CUC that's only for tourist use. As a result we had some pretty nice food in Santa Clara.

We left Santa Clara and headed back to Havana and back to Maritza so we could do a few things we hadn't managed before and ensure we were there for our ongoing flight. We visited a couple of sights but most importantly managed to go to a baseball game, the number one sport in Cuba. It was between the highest ranked team, Industriales and an away team Matanzas and was absolutely amazing. Yon had to give me a quick lesson in baseball to be able to follow it and I got quite into it. We were adopted by some hard core Cuban fans in front of us who kept snatching photos with passing Cuban celebs (including an olympic high jumper whose name you'll have to ask Yon) and for some reason, several photos with us! It was a perfect way to end our time in Cuba and by the time we got to the airport to get our flight to Colombia, I genuinely felt an ache that I would miss this confusing, frustrating, friendly, unique country.